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Morrissey - “The Kid’s A Looker”
(via TheNJUnderground)
A few weeks ago, Moz played three new tracks on BBC radio, all of which are terrific. Shortly thereafter, he revealed in an interview with Pitchfork that he’s not recording any new material or announcing a new album until he can find a record label who expresses interest.
That’s so sad. This is such a lousy time in history to be a traditionalist. This is the 21st century… anyone who wants it can just reach out and OWN the media. If Moz wanted to reinvent himself as a rockstar for the people in the digital age, he could do it and easily to thundering success and it would benefit him tenfold. Instead, he’s complaining about record labels? Do those still exist? Do they need to? I hate to say it but this whole “the internet is evil” attitude reminds me of that thing when Prince was releasing compact discs in newspapers and everyone just rolled their eyes. Record labels like you more if you’re relevant and the easiest way to admit you’re not is to act like you NEED them, as if this is the same music industry in 1985. Look at Trent Reznor or Thom Yorke or Dave Grohl, please. And I don’t even mind that Morrissey hates trolls. I hate trolls, too. But trolls aren’t the whole internet… this is the future of media and it’d be so easy for a guy like Morrissey, whose existing fan base of disenfranchised teenagers is here already, to make a huge impact in digital media.
Morrissey - Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want live in concert at the Hollywood Palladium on October 9, 2007. Recorded on my shitty, now-deceased Helio cell phone!
Happy birthday Moz!
Asking people about their interest in the Smiths is another way of asking this question: “How did you survive your teenage years?” There’s always been a creepy messianic thing happening with Morrissey, with his fans charging the stage in tears to hug him, throwing flowers, and so on, but for someone who has internalized the Smiths catalog in a certain way, such actions seem perfectly reasonable. Not for nothing is the terrific song-by-song analysis of the band’s entire catalog called Songs That Saved Your Life. Teenage dreams may be hard to beat, but teenage nightmares are what stick in my memory. It’s important to remember the depths of them, how your life could seem so beyond your control, how you could be so terrified of being mocked, how you felt like you were always one random decision away from being a pariah. Or, to use Morrissey’s words, spoken with his enviable compression: “Sixteen, clumsy and shy.” Once you are an adult, those times become useful. You can look back on them and suddenly your current hardships in work or relationships or poor sense of who you are don’t seem so insurmountable.
Morrissey, Boz, Alain, Jonny and Spencer play The Boy Racer on Jools Holland in 1995
