You Are The Quarry
Morrissey
(Sanctuary Records)
Reported Monday, June 28 2004
Courtesy of Jonty_Adderley @ www.skrufff.com
"Put bluntly, Anglo-American popular music is among globalisation's most useful props. . ., mainstream music, whether it's metal, rap, teen-pop or indie-rock, cannot help but stand for a depressingly conservative set of values: conspicuous consumption, the primacy of the English language, the implicit acknowledgement that America is probably best."
Writing in the Guardian last week, veteran indie-rock journo John Harris (author of 'The Last Party: Britpop, Blair and the Demise of English Rock) was scathing in his estimation of the state of today's rock scene and it's just a little ironic that the man who remains the exception to Harris' rule, Morrissey, would almost certainly agree.
Ironic, because not only is Morrissey just about the last bona fide rock star to challenge Harris' dismal status quo but also because he's also the first (if not the last) to consistently blame the press for colluding in creating today's same sorry system.
Kicking off the album with a typically vitriolic and timely attack on the US ('America is Not The World'), he next segues into Smiths-style uptempo rocker territory with Irish Blood, English Heart, which despite being the first single is also the album's weakest track, certainly lyrically. Talking aptly of the English being sick of Labour and the Tories (Conservative Party) his political analysis immediately collapses as he veers off towards Oliver Cromwell and the Royal Family, suggesting he's been living in LA for a little too long.
Where Morrisey's greatest talent truly lies is in his genius ability to encapsulate and ultimately celebrate the trials and tribulations of life as an eternal outsider (or indeed loser, as some would see it) and it's a picture he remains a master at depicting.
On I'm Not Sorry, a heartfelt acoustic guitar driven ballad, he talks of a lifetime of losing in love, declaring 'the woman of my dreams, she never came along. The woman of my dreams, well, there never was one', perfectly capturing the lover who never loved, while simultaneously hinting at homosexuality (Sunday Times critic Robert Sandell dubbed the line "about as close as he's ever got to outing himself.")
And the same marvellous ambiguity pops up on standout anthem The World Is Full of Crashing Bores, a swooping tirade against judges cops and all round authority, which builds towards a classic Morrisey singalong chorus of "this world is full of crashing bores/ and I must be one/ because no-one ever turns to me to say/ 'take me in your arms and love me'."
The album's other best moment is final track You Know I Couldn't Last, a full frontal anthemic assault on his music journalist haters. Triumphant, spiteful and flamboyantly epic, it's classic Morrissey again, spitting, snarling and rhyming again, on top of a fine melancholic rock tune filled with Marr-esque melancholic moods and melodies.
You Are The Quarry is unquestionably Morrissey's best album since The Smiths and is out now.
http://www.morrisseymusic.com
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