Search and Destroy: Morrissey; Solo

Search: Viva Hate, Bona Drag and the singles of that time, Your Arsenal (hated by sterotypical Moz fans - why?), Vauxhall & I, Maladjusted (it's not all bad, honest) and a lot of B-sides.

Destroy: Kill Uncle (except for Our Frank, that's a good one), Southpaw (a drum solo on a Morrissey album - it'll never work) and some B-sides.

search - your arsenal, vauxhall and i, viva hate and bona drag destroy- kill uncle

Destroy: quite a lot unfortunately but "Pregnant For The Last Time" has always annoyed me and that court-case revenge-track which got left off Maladjusted over here is one of the most tragic and horrible things anyone has ever recorded, let alone Morrissey.

I really rather like Kill Uncle. It's definitely his Scooby Doo album but to hell with that: I like the light skiffley touches.

Vauxhall and I and Your Arsenal are all right, but I don't really believe in 'returns to form' when it comes to Morrissey. He just got rich, ran out of inspiration and exhausted his note books.

there may be a single or two worth salvaging but i really can't be convinced of it right now. and i'm an abject smiths fan.

And being so it's hard for me to pick out things -- utter lack of critical faculties here. My AMG entries for all the singles probably say more in this regard. But everyone has to hear "The Edges Are No Longer Parallel," which only ever surfaced on a B-side. Destroy...*scratches head*...uh...

Actually this raises an interesting question which I'll post elsewhere....

Nowadays I wouldn't defend it quite as heartily but I'd still listen to it before the bombastic "Your Arsenal" - the glam stompers are all very well but the ballads are really directionless and tuneless and "You're The One For Me, Fatty" is just a disaster.

As for why the fans listen - I think fans think of Moz sometimes like a well-respected soul singer. You know that a new Aretha or Al Green album, for example, is likely to be poor but you might end up listening out of respect and a wish to hear their voice even on dreadful material. Apply that impulse to a different genre and perhaps you've got some idea as to why some people still love Moz.

Morrissey solo...a patchy affair at best. There's no one album I would even suggest, except for Bona Drag, which does a good job of collecting the early (and many of the best) singles.

He's simply too inconsistent -- usually at least one absolute gem per album, but the rest tends to be pretty extraneous. I like more than what most consider reasonable, though.

Definitely destroy Bengali in Platforms, Ouija Board, You're the one for Me Fatty, and some other ones that are awful but not memorable enough for me to think of right off bat.

Nick Dastoor is absolutely right about one thing: VIVA HATE is by far the best 'proper' long-player.

But I am a tad confused about this 'S&D' concept: wasn't it meant to be about picking *one* thing for each category, not lengthily dividing the entire oeuvre in two?

Regarding "Alma Matters" in response to the other query -- the pun is feeble, but the song's enjoyable, and when I saw him do it live in 1997, it was really grand and the audience went nuts. So sorry, I have to allow for that one. ;-)

And it was absolutely awful, Ned! The worst kind of latter period Morrissey. It sounds like the only reason it goes on so long is he's still looking for a tune. And the lyrics! Morrissey's songwriting seems to have degenerated into singing the same banal line over and over again, or variants thereof, for want of anything resembling lyricism. This song seems to form part of his endless succession of non-specific moaning torchsongs, each of which sounds like a ham-fisted stab at an elegaic summation of his career. "My one big mistake is I'm hoping / My only mistake is I keep hoping etc etc." - yawn! And that "All of the things you said oh so meaningful / They are all so suddenly meaning-LESS". Wow, clever wordplay - cheers. I never thought Morrissey would end up making such artless miserablism. Is this Emo?

____

Troussé seems to me to have caught the spirit of the 'Search & Destroy' concept better than most - his answer would actually require a 'search' and justify a 'destruction'.

Could I request a spot of editorial clarification of 'S&D' procedure?

Destroy: EVERYTHING ELSE HE EVER DID. And hopefully the man himself too. God I loathe Morrissey.

Pick one (1) thing you would recommend searching for and one you want destroyed. A thing can be an album, track, single, tour, whatever. It must be musical!

If you pick an S you have to pick a D. And vice versa.

There you go!

Destroy: Loathsome 8 minute cover version of "Moon River".

Destroy: "Such A Little Thing Makes Such A Big Difference" (sticking to things that I know - I've never heard the last two studio albums, though I was tempted to put in "Sorrow Will Come In The End" purely on the basis of the words. SALTMSABD is terribly weak lyrically, with a feeble over-fussy arrangement and little in the way of a tune).

Anyway, I say: Search: "Vauxhall & I", "Bona Drag", Morrissey live with the Polecats, lots of songs off "Viva Hate" but not the album itself Destroy: [that song he did with Siouxsie Sioux], er that's it - although I don't like much of Morrissey's solo career I don't have the antipathy that so many others do to it.

Oh, sorry, this is the MORRISSEY thread, isn't it? Well, I have decided to have another crack at it.

Notes.

- I had forgotten about that cover of 'Moon River' - it really was a woefully wasted opportunity.

- It's true, 'Such A Little Thing' isn't great - and Steady M does a masterful job of naming - and indeed shaming - its shortcomings. But I still don't think it's quite *that* bad.

- I would agree with Stevie T, really, that 'King Leer' is probably as bad as it gets; and 'Asian Rut' strikes me as pretty awful too. But I've heard neither for years, and can't even remember how the former goes. So my final answer, with respect to all the other fascinating ones given, is:

SEARCH: "Sister, I'm A Poet" - one of those cases of an unaccountably good track being a B-side; really Smiths-vintage material, and the stonking video performance from '88 has a couple of old Smiths on it, if I'm not mistaken. One more run at that old scenario, 'malcontent youth in a dead-end provincial town', with details to remember and reuse: 'All over this way / outside the prison gates / I love the romance of crime / And I wonder does anybody feel the way I do?'. It's so unpredictably predictable, it's irresistible. And that's not to mention the music.

DESTROY: I think I have to plump for "Have-A-Go Merchant". The idea that it was about Natalie Merchant is not much sillier than the 'song' itself.

'Kill Uncle': Personaly, I find this album a vastly underappreciated album from Mr. Morrissey. It has long since been my belief that it's a case where too many people have followed the opinions of others to decide it's unjust fate. Sure, there are a couple of throwaways to be within 'Kill Uncle', but...no more than most any other pop/rock album. The solid tracks clearly and easily (in my mind) outweight those filler/throwaway tracks. The fact remains that, within 'Kill Uncle' can be found some of the most interesting tracks of Morrissey's solo career, along with some of the most weirdly bouncy/up tracks (such as "King Leer"). Out of the 10 official tracks (not counting "Tony the Pony") I count 7 from that 10 to be keeper quality tracks (with only "Our Frank", "Sing Your Life" and "Found Found Found" as being the weaker tracks) and...7 out of 10 ain't bad. Ain't bad, at all, for a pop/rock album.

The rest of Morrissey solo? Destroy. Sure, keep a single here and a single there, but.

Tom — abt a thousand years upthread — called it his "ScoobyDoo" alb. What mean this?

I'm one of those freaks who actually enjoy the sounds of a lost soul. Such as The Cure 'The Top' or Prince 'Around The World In A Day' or Leonard Cohen 'Death Of A Ladies Man' or the late 60's Brian Wilson tracks (and the album 'Love You') or some might even add Scott Walker 'Climate Of Hunter' or the ultimate sounds of a "lost soul" collection William Shatner 'The Transformed Man' (which, I know, is a different case altogether than the rest, but still...that Shatner album is the BigDaddy of "lost soul" albums, whoa) - such is the case with Morrissey 'Kill Uncle'.

So, there you have it. Just in case you were wondering "How in the hell could someone actually listen to, much less enjoy listening to, an album like 'Kill Uncle'."

A classic example of this and probably what she had in mind is my liking Metal Machine Music, Trans and Dazzle Ships bestest out of their creators' respective careers. (Though I do like the OMD singles stuff too)

Otherwise, search: VIVA HATE, YOUR ARSENAL.

destroy: KILL UNCLE

Not quite.

I hate to be predictable, but...

search: Individual songs
destroy: Albums
double destroy: All his worthless repackaging

destroy: viva hate (only if you have to choose between that and Bona Drag), Kill Uncle, Maladjusted, My Early Burglary Years (save "Cosmic Dancer")

Surprise (ie non-45, didn't-know-it-was-coming) highlight so far: 'Will Never Marry'! What an interesting track!

I'd forgotten Tom said this. Really great comment!

I love your post, PF. It's a great post! Pointing out that you love someone's post is a good thing and we should do it more often, especially on a Friday afternoon. So I did. And I applaud you for doing so.

x-post. Yes I think Tom's comment isn't quite spot-on when applied to Morrissey, but it's still a great observation that has made me think about my approach to some, ahem....long-standing favourites. (Of which Moz isn't one.) I think with Moz, Mexican nutjobs aside, there's a sense that it's all been said and done. With the Smiths and maybe to some extent his early solo career, there was a sense of anticipation about what he would say next, and about whom. Also a collective 'yes! yes! yes!' when he said it. 'Quarry' is better than expected, but pretty thin pickings really.

How does he stack up against David Peace?

Sorry about Mark’s Morrissey virus protection problem.

Enjoying the threadmotif of the pinefox reacts to Ned reacting to Moz..

I am indeed all over AMG and thus Wikipedia with them earlier comments. Ah well, ya live and learn.

Anyway:

Love "Tomorrow," song and video.

Still amuses me greatly said video was one of the earlier things by Zac Snyder!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDdQcfz6pbo

https://www.morrissey-solo.com/threads/zack-snyders-recollection-of-making-tomorrow-promo-video.148161/

Because I would have loved to have been Morrissey's creative visualist. I remember I wrote a treatment for him for another song on that album. It was going to be all Giant. You know the movie Giant with James Dean? It was a take on it, and he was going to play the James Dean role.

Mm, of course.

holy shit!

Is there some kind of Wikipedia AMG connection I am unaware of?

Morrissey never sexier than in the "Tomorrow" video.

Morrissey never sexier than in the "Tomorrow" videoy

FTFY

Don’t think I ever noticed those somewhat notorious Mary Margaret O’Hara vocals on “November Spawned a Monster” until just now. I wonder what Ned had to say about them.

Interlude is a keeper.

The stories of Siouxsie and Morrissey arguing over the video are quite good.

“The original video idea,” Siouxsie said, “was to show Ruth Ellis being led to the gallows, which I loved, but which didn’t happen. Instead he wanted a bulldog, which I didn’t understand. Why a bulldog? So I questioned him about his pro-British thing and told him I couldn’t have that. I said, ‘pick another dog, like a chihuahua or something. A monkey, anything!’ . . . I don’t know why he wanted to stick to his guns so much. And no, we’ve not spoken since.”

https://thenervousbreakdown.com/tanderson/2011/02/rock-fight-siouxsie-morrissey-and-the-collaboration-that-time-forgot/

Is there some kind of Wikipedia AMG connection I am unaware of?

All dates back to the early days of both sites; AMG content was freely available and that made it a handy reference source for a lot of Wikipedia entries.

I like all of the music videos that Tim Broad directed for Morrissey (basically all of them up until Tomorrow, he also did the videos for Girlfriend in a Coma and Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before)

Oh, right, thanks, Ned. I kind of figured that, but then I started thinking that maybe these days AMG content, such as it is, might not be freely available anymore.

On the website Allmusic, Ned Raggett stated that Mary Margaret O'Hara's backing vocals were "fine and definitely adequately pleasing, adding up to an agreeable performance".

Hmm. Very amusing. But I see something different.

A curious note comes from the guest appearance of cult vocalist Mary Margaret O'Hara, who ends up only contributing a series of yelps and gurgles in the instrumental break mid-song.

I assume that these days Wikipedia can’t add AMG content quite so freely but AMG can’t claw it back either.

(james R&tB will be relieved to know i have solved my virus problem, which was i think only a rogue fake-mcafee notification problem lol)

(For I second I did a double-take and thought "rogue" was "Rourke")

(uh oh)

My friend just let me know they are seeing Morrissey @ the Hollywood Palladium tonight.

https://imgur.com/iqv4Fij.jpeg

Make-Up Is a Lie is the fourteenth solo album by the English singer Morrissey. The album was released on 5 March 2026.

Not even enough to get bumped, until now

saw the cover on my feeds this morning.
thought it was a joke.
apparently not.

Not even enough to do a bump to.

This actually isn't bad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsq3ovBKxMY

Classic rickroll above, you expect one thing, but then end up watching awful music from a fascist

I think "not bad" is the operative term, comments say Alain Whyte wrote it which makes sense, wouldn't be out of place on Vauxhall.

it's not actually actively bad, and you can hear the bones of a good song there, but it never really comes together in a way that's memorable, the chorus doesn't lift up.

also Moz bitching about the music industry him at his most tiresome

I can't be the first to say this, but album cover is very "old man yells at cloud."

Is that the new Dan Fogelberg album?

I think Fogelberg would just speak to the clouds at a reasonable volume.

I'll listen to this like I always do with Morrissey releases and hate it as usual (though i've come to like parts of World Peace; fitting considering it seems to have been deleted from streaming entirely)

Close to zero interest in Morrissey, either his music or his controversies. (I do love "Panic" and "Tomorrow.") I was, though--not surprisingly--taken aback by this when a friend passed it along yesterday. Is it any good? No, not really...I'm not the best judge there, having very little feel for the music that made him famous. But I applaud him for releasing a song about someone so completely off the radar of 2026 (and maybe even expecting it to generate interest--it won't). He may as well be writing about Buddy Hackett or Dorothy Hamill. (Wherever Bangs is, hopefully he's able to take pleasure from being the subject of a "visualiser.")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvzd9G_JX8Y

That song is not particularly good, but that other Pig one is pretty solid (and both are the first new Morrissey songs I've listened to since ... "Years of Refusal." And that was 2009.)

Last time I liked a Morrissey album was "World Peace" and that was 100% because of the music.

(The first two tracks were not bad)

That new one sounds better, production/arrangement-wise, than the 2000s albums. (Haven't kept up.)

I haven't kept up past You Are the Quarry save for the occasional track. I may check out Years of Refusal and World Peace one of these days.

Ah yes

https://consequence.net/2026/06/morrissey-johnny-marr-documentary-letter/

The final line of the rant is all that needs reading, really.

How fantastic life would have been if Marr had chosen four more studio albums with the Smiths

Thought this meant Marr being involved in the first four solo albums Morrissey ultimately made. But then again it would've meant very different albums if Marr was supplying instrumental demos rather than Stephen Street, Mark E. Nevin, Alain Whyte, Boz Boorer et al.

As if ANYONE could listen to the Smiths yet somehow magically find a way to negotiate AROUND Morrissey and pretend he wasn’t there!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtTeNe4maec

Stephen Street, Mark E. Nevin, Alain Whyte, etc. did right by Morrissey thru 1994. xpost.

Oh yeah. That was a great run.

As if ANYONE could listen to the Smiths yet somehow magically find a way to negotiate AROUND Morrissey and pretend he wasn’t there!

This is basically my experience of listening to the Smiths in 2026

"Oscillate Wildly", best Smiths song.

"Money Changes Everything"!

Actually, "The Right Stuff" you can pretend Morrissey isn't there and listen to a different bloke.

Simply draft in a slightly less problematic lead singer

https://www.bratproductions.com/mixes/mashups/brat_oscillate_with_you.html

Actually, "The Right Stuff" you can pretend Morrissey isn't there and listen to a different bloke.

― Mark G,

Yeah, that's what I meant. Bryan Ferry didn't change a single thing.

he was as good as it gets for about 10 years

i'm just waiting for that album with morrissey backed by members of the red hot chili peppers to be released so that the smiths will finally be redundant

A gospel album with the January 6 Choir.