Was/Is Morrissey Racist?

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There's a cool book that discusses this subject at length called 'Sounds English' by Nabeel Zuberi (2001). His conclusion is that Morrissey is not so much racist as nationalistic. His attraction to skinheads is read along homoerotic lines, naturally.

― Michael Dieter, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

This morrissey certainly isn't - the evidence surrounding my namesake suggests something different

― leigh morrissey, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Clearly voices within a pop song can express views which are not those of the author. Momus is right that in many cases we'll never know. In Morrissey's case especially, I'm not so keen on the rigid separation of art and the artist. One of the clearest distinctions between The Smiths and other pop was the directness of Morrissey's songs, both in use of language and richness of personal experience. Why should we be so swift to assume that only the unpalletable stuff should be in the third person, if we also assume that say, How Soon is Now isn't?

― Dr. C, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

'How Soon Is Now' has exactly the same ambiguity. A lot of Morrissey's songs present you with the paradox of a handsome, successful 30-something man singing the sentiments of an ugly, failed adolescent. Did the NME or anyone else pipe up about that paradox and accuse him of being a liar? Did they parade before him the evidence of his success (his house in Chelsea, his wealth, the queues of young Britons of both sexes lining up to be his concubines) and condemn the songs? Of course not. Like a pantomime audience, they accepted that the middle-aged TV star was supposed to represent a young prince.

Keeping our pantomime metaphor, the racism episode was when Morrissey became the pantomime villain and got hissed for reasons as arbitrary as those for which he was applauded when he was the 'famous international playboy' in role as the 'November monster' (one fiction playing another).

The reasons for the press's change in attitude may be many -- sympathy with Marr, a preference for Rough Trade over EMI, a sense of boredom with Morrissey's domination of the music press, an effort to clear the decks for the 90s, the fact that many journalists had been converted by the acid house revolution to the dance music Morrissey so despised, and even, I would suggest, some homophobia, since Morrissey's actual interest in these songs about skinheads and Bengalis may well come from a sexual interest in both (cf Hanif Kureshi's 'My Beautiful Launderette', which I think we can assume kindled M's interest quite a bit, and shows a skin overcoming prejudice by developing a crush on one of his former victims).

― Momus, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Here is the NME's own version of events. Andrew Collins blithely admits that he doesn't think Morrissey was really a racist. They were just enraged by M's failure to clarify his use of the Union Jack at Madstock. Collins ends by failing to clarify his own subsequent use of the Union Jack to promote Britpop at Select.

Subject: Re: NME disappearing up its own PR [ Previous Message ] Posted By Andrew Collins on Thu Jul 26 15:41:34 BST 2001:

I never said the Morrissey witch-hunt issue was real journalism, Jon. I said it was "real" journalism, ie. closer to journalism than the shit we usually did. I was at Madstock and the crowd were pretty dodgy, some of them - fat, middle-aged skins who looked like they hadn't come out of their North London pub since Madness's heyday. Whether Moz is/was a racist or not was less important than the fact that he was flirting with far right imagery - like a cultural tourist - and not going on record about his reasons, or his real feelings. He could have stopped that cover story with one statement. He chose to remain enigmatic and distant, compounding his error. There was an artificial excitement in the office over those two days (we dropped Kylie from the cover for Moz you know!) At first, as features editor, I refused to get involved, but I was ordered by my boss into the big emergency staff meeting, and once the decision was made, it was up to the senior staff (me, Danny Kelly and Stuart Maconie) to get the copy done, along with an excellent piece by Dele Fadele who is black and could therefore offer a perspective none of us NME white boys could. (Dele was furious about Moz's actions and needed no coercion to write.) All I did was compile Morrissey's faux-racist quotes from every interview he'd ever done, and collate the lyrics. My own personal opinion never appeared, but I was part of the staff and stood by the issue. It asked questions of an increasingly remote but still hugely influential artist who refused to answer them. There are very few issues of NME from that period that anybody remembers let alone still talks about. We did our job.

Then Stuart and I left and "reclaimed" the Union Jack for the Select British issue.

― Momus, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

**A lot of Morrissey's songs present you with the paradox of a handsome, successful 30-something man singing the sentiments of an ugly, failed adolescent**

He once WAS that ugly failed adolescent, wasn't he? Perhaps not exactly as described in HSIN, but certainly something similar.

So why not a possibility that the right-wing persona could be *him*.

― Dr. C, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

'he chose to remain enigmatic and distant, compounding his error'

'He chose to remain enigmatic and distant' = he was an artist, who knows that you have no obligation to explain away your art's ambiguities and ironies with simple statements in a Jimmy Hill voice to the press.

'Compounding his error' = we, the NME, have our own game plan for 'Moz' (we even have a different name for him). It is through us that he tells the world what he 'means', and it is for us to tell him when he is making mistakes. We are deeply invested in him because he sells a lot of papers for us. If he stops talking to us we are in trouble. We will make him pay. We will find some slur that will stick, then he will be sorry.

― Momus, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

i find skinheads sexy , its playing with the working class , does this make me racist or one in a rather long history of upper middle class slummers . I think this is one of the things we are missing , maybe with his house in chelsea et al morissey was moving out of his social place ,maybe he was trying to top as a bottom , economically speaking ?

― anthony, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I don't think El Mobo is racist (I think 'Bengali in Platforms' is possibly the best evidence to suggest he is, and even that is just massively solipsistic, using a caricature as a metaphor for his own kosmic alienation). However, I do think his career is based on a perverse enjoyment of the frissons of deviance. In the beginning there was the undecideability of sexuality: was he gay/straight/asexual etc. The skinhead thing has an element of this, as has been pointed out, but I'm sure he also knows it has the frisson of the forbidden in political terms. There's certainly a flirtation there. Ironically, the reason he got all the stick at Madstock was that he was flirting with a constituency who would never accept him, ie Nutty boy Madness lads, for whom he will always be an insufferable ponce (in many ways, this is the story of his career). I think Morrissey's potency as a popstar is in his unique conflation of the political and the personal (I have a mad theory that, representing his own civil war, 'The Queen is Dead' is a version of 'Hamlet': all about fantasies of revenge and vacillation), and as such, the skinhead thing is kind of irresistable to him. Maybe you could say this flirtation is socially irresponsible, but I think we shouldn't expect popstars to be anything else.

Actually, now I come to think of it, the song that is most dubious or problematic is 'We'll Let You Know': 'we are the last truly British people you will ever (never want to) know'. It's ambivalent about a kind of rump of Englishness, implying that all that is left are the hateful aspects of English crowd culture. I think it's troublesome nature is kind of interesting, really - much more so than more ideologically clearcut representations.

― Edna Welthorpe, Mrs, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

ok i sort of agree with you momus, but the artist who refuses to accept that his/her work *will* be mediated = the artist who is refusing to accept that anyone else evah sees or thinks about it, and does to it what they choose to (eg it leaves moz-world and enters other worlds, yes he can fight or not fight that, or play or not play, or DO SOMETHING ELSE ALTOGETHER — which would really have ben the smart response — but he can't moan when he fails to get the reaction he wants, seeing as his JOB is getting the reaction he wants)

hmm i don't think i put that very well: i am *so* on deadline and not supposed to be reading ILM

― mark s, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

ie, art/music doesn't exist in a vacuum? context changes all?

― gareth, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

If you really want context, I think the relevant facts are these.

Morrissey, well-known for severing ties with friends over real or imaginary slights, had already decided to cut the NME dead, probably because of editor Danny Kelly's undisguised partisanship for Johnny Marr. Morrissey's failure to speak to them (although, as noted above, he continued speaking volubly to people like Les Inrockuptibles in France) was as big a blow to the NME circa 1990 as it would have been for Oasis to cut them dead in 1997. They could have said lamely 'The biggest star in the music firmament will no longer talk to us.' Instead, they said 'The biggest star in the music firmament is, er, a racist! Down with him! Long live, er, Kingmaker and, er, The Wonder Stuff!'

― Momus, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

'I never said the Morrissey witch-hunt issue was real journalism, Jon. I said it was "real" journalism, ie. closer to journalism than the shit we usually did. [WELL THAT'S DOWN TO YOU, ISN'T IT?] I was at Madstock and the crowd were pretty dodgy, some of them - fat, middle-aged skins who looked like they hadn't come out of their North London pub since Madness's heyday [DODGY, OBVIOUSLY1]. Whether Moz is/was a racist or not was less important than the fact that he was flirting with far right imagery - like a cultural tourist [LIKE SOMEONE WHO GOES ON SAFARI TO SEE NORTH LONDON PUB REGULARS AT PLAY!] - and not going on record about his reasons, or his real feelings. He could have stopped that cover story with one statement. He chose to remain enigmatic and distant [i.e., NOT SAYING 'HOW HIGH' WHEN IPC SAYS 'JUMP'], compounding his error. There was an artificial excitement in the office [IT CERTAINLY COMES ACROSS] over those two days (we dropped Kylie from the cover for Moz you know!) At first, as features editor, I refused to get involved, but I was ordered by my boss into the big emergency [IPC'S PRIORITIES ARE COOL!] staff meeting, and once the decision was made, it was up to the senior staff (me, Danny Kelly and Stuart Maconie) to get the copy done, along with an excellent piece by Dele Fadele who is black and could therefore offer a perspective none of us NME white boys could.[JUST THINK ABOUT THIS STATEMENT FOR A WHILE. LIKE REALLY THINK ABOUT IT.] (Dele was furious about Moz's actions and needed no coercion to write.) All I did was compile Morrissey's faux-racist quotes from every interview he'd ever done, and collate the lyrics. My own personal opinion never appeared [NO COMMENT, SEE PREVIOUS SENTENCE], but I was part of the staff and stood by the issue. It asked questions of an increasingly remote but still hugely influential artist who refused to answer them [...'FOR US']. There are very few issues of NME from that period that anybody remembers let alone still talks about. We did our job. '

Unless I've COMPLETELY got the wrong end of the stick (first time for everything) and 'Andrew Collins' is really...

― dave q, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Unfortunately Collins is all too real: I've heard him on the radio, and encountered him online.

The most intriguing thing about "We'll Let You Know" for me was the Battle of Hastings / Bayeux Tapestry (what it made *me* think of, anyway, or maybe an old regional TV thing about same) sequence of sounds in the middle of the song: his most self-conscious use of atmospherics rather than lyrics to evoke a certain atmosphere, his equivalent of the Luke Haines / Winchester Cathedral Choir version of "In The Bleak Midwinter". I'm not sure whether I think that bit of "We'll Let You Know" was better and more subtle than the vocal sections of the song, or just pathetically crude attempts to establish certain cultural associations. Put another way, I really can't work out my position on "We'll Let You Know" generally, even after all this time, which you could say is quite possibly what Morrissey intended.

The book "Sounds English" that Mike mentions looks interesting: any details?

― Robin Carmody, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

NOT SAYING 'HOW HIGH' WHEN IPC SAYS 'JUMP'

This set off a fantasy sequence in my head in which David Bowie's 'Jump They Say', supposedly about his brother, is actually about another brother, Morrissey. Bowie had of course been through the same kind of witch-hunt for his supposed 'Hitler salute' at Victoria station. In the early 90s Bowie and Morrissey were performing together live and on record -- M did 'Drive In Saturday' live and B returned the compliment by singing 'I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday' on the same album as 'Jump'. The video for 'Jump' is set in a bleak corporate block -- much like IPC's chilly King's Reach Tower. Bowie always loved the idea of the messiah figure assassinated by the kids and the corporations; it's Ziggy, it's The Man Who Fell To Earth. Maybe it was also, briefly, Mozzy Stardust. (Morrissey shortly afterwards cut Bowie dead because of some imagined slight backstage at the Hollywood Bowl, I believe.)

― Momus, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

He was trying to be the in-the-middle continuum figure at that time, was he not? Because besides all the Bowie covering and all, he also was doing "My Insatiable One" by Suhr-uede. Wasn't it you, Momus, who talked about seeing an early show by them and doing nothing but videotaping Justine at chest level?

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I don't care, just so long as this debate exists. Because then, anytime anyone mentions Morrissey, I can just dismissively say "oh, yeah, that racist motherfucker" and get people to stop fucking talking about him.

― Sterling Clover, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Wasn't it you, Momus, who talked about seeing an early show by them and doing nothing but videotaping Justine at chest level?

It was indeed me. I still have the tape. It was partly because there was only one light at the Camden Falcon and it happened to be shining right down Justine's chest, making it look like a relief map of the paps of Jura.

― Momus, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I was told yesterday that Morrissey is Bob the Builder. Well "Slap me on the patio..."

― Loop Dandy, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Momus: somewhat unrelated to the actual issue, I agree with Mark -- I would go further than Mark, actually -- with regard to the public's right to declare pretty much any artist it chooses a racist, socialist, misogynist, or neurotic based solely on the content of the art itself. To say that this screen of "character" somehow mystifies the whole thing beyond the listener's comprehension is to basically smack the listener down and say "you are stupid," or at least "you are not allowed to have critical thinking skills": we can understand that an artist is "playing" a character and yet -- and note that this is unrelated to Morrissey -- we are still allowed to make decisions as to how the artist apparently feels about that character. To pretend otherwise is to say that Billy Bragg's "The Few" may actually be pro-racism or that unironically imperious busts of Lenin could theoretically be arguments for capitalism. People are not necessarily idiots, and while it may be better to shelve accusations in those instances where the "text" could be interpreted either way, this does not bar our essential ability to pass judgement when we think judgement is called for.

Morrissey's mistake was that his flirtation with the far right seemed largely a matter of aesthetics, and a matter of fashion. One could accuse of him "racism" not insofar as there's much evidence that he actually holds such beliefs, but insofar his willingness to flirt with them the way 90s bands flirted with trip-hop -- as if he were completely oblivious to how very important such issues were, and how his actions could very well make it that much more likely for thousands of Asian kids to get beaten bloody -- well, this is not a fine thing to do and not a fine thing to be glib or silent about, because it matters. The artist's God complex is that he is free to pick and choose signifiers from the air and invest them only with whatever meaning he thinks they have to him -- but then it ceases to be art, which is about communication, and becomes either impenetrable solipsism or drunken raving. Momus, you should not give artists a free pass on this any more than you should give it to bank managers or cab drivers: this "don't draw real-world conclusions from anything" is a route to making art either meaningless or completely dull.

― Nitsuh, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

(Another way of putting this is that when we look at the Chinese man in the film of "Breakfast at Tiffany's" -- who is even more of a "character" than any narrator Morrissey's ever devised -- we're still learning something very real about how both the screenwriter and Rooney view, or are willing to view, Chinese men. To say we can't possibly make critical judgements about such things is to tie our hands and leave us at the mercy of artists who are often painfully oblivious to why anything might actually matter in the real world.)

― Nitsuh, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

my point was more, yeh, give morrissey his "Art = A Free Pass" pass, but then you have to give the *same* pass to the NME: their project is also "artistically valid" ie its consequences in the world are of no relevance to its aesthetic success (also audience gets pass, but since its expression of *its* creative reworking doesn't on the whole manifest publicly, ILM excepted heh, this = a slight red herring)

anyway, if moz didn't want to play MassKult headgamez with stardom and slebrity, why sign to emi at all? it's a waste of global corporate outreach and he = a ToTaL LaYMuR as a result (cf dave q's only-too exact crit of the actual nme editorial gameplan: this shd have been a manipulative symbol-war of titans, using every field of media; instead SPM went uber-indie on everyone and (implicitly) made it just abt the music maaan... basically nme offered him the chance to be bowie and he fucked out)

― mark s, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

(pah i am still not being v.clear i think)

― mark s, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

This is from the "MOZ FAQ" at http://www.oz.net/~moz/faq/faqlyric.htm

"At the heat of the racist debate, the former NME editor Steve Sutherland wondered if Morrissey's alleged racism "might be a gay thing". "

I wonder if that quote is true?

― Dickon Edwards, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I have several questions here. First, isn't the "Union Jack" just the British flag? What is racist about that? Second, how is any of this different from the audience-baiting tactics so admired in people like Iggy Pop (who actually physically attacked the audience, right?) and the Velvet Underground (who terrorized with noise, supposedly). Is it less acceptable for a wuss like Morrissey, whose music is completely non-threatening, to wage a more subtle war with his audience? To me, it's just about the only interesting thing about the Smiths. It is especially easy for me to imagine why someone like Morrissey would want to build a wall between himself and his audience (alienation being his lifeblood and meal-ticket). Any fascist imagery could conceivably serve the dual purpose of parodying this separation between the Morrissey and his fans, and enhancing this separation by making the audience feel uncomfortable. The more salient question to me is, did you, as a Smiths fan, find this material repugnant or not, and if so, why did you continue listening to the Smiths?

Every single person I knew growing up who was a Smiths fan was Asian (mostly of Chinese descent, over here). I haven't heard any of the Smith's songs in question, but from their titles I'm guessing they portray the same beautiful losers as all the other Smiths' songs I have heard. Anyway, it is impossible for me to fathom that some paki-bashing yob could have been inspired by Morrissey (of all people!) Or was England in the 80's really like this?

― Kris, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I just looked at the lyrics to "Asian Rut", and sure enough it's the same comically macabre melodrama as everything else I've heard from them. What is supposed to be offensive about stuff like this? It would be like ladies from Nantucket getting cross over a dirty limerick.

― Kris, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

First note: if you're looking for an excuse for Morrissey, the clear starting point is that no one got upset about his hard-on for other types of non-racist Bad People, as there was no ideology to attach to them -- but surely we can imagine his previous subject-characters were as violent and nasty as the skins, if for different purposes. I don't subscribe to this line of reasoning, but still.

Kris, I think you're entirely right -- particularly w/r/t fans and what Smiths fandom actually "meant" in the public sphere. I, anyway, was at no point bothered in any deep sense by listening to the Smiths / Morrissey, and never imagined that Morrissey's flirtations with near-racist symbols actually reflected near-racist ideology on his own part. It did, however, make me like him a lot less as time went on: it is one thing to traffic in such symbols in the process of making a relevant artistic statement, but to toy mutely with them for no massive purpose strikes me as dumb and glib and something of a mockery of how very real and threatening and Actually Quite Serious such symbols are. It made Morrissey look like a decent artist who really needed to stick with his own neuroses and keep his nose out of cultural politics for fear of hugely embarrassing himself.

I wrote in something a while ago that "conservatism" can be a very lovely thing in pop music, when it is only aesthetic and the actual workings of the world are not at stake -- thus Morrissey's paens to vanishing Anglicisms never struck me as actually reactionary. But as he toed lines between aesthetics and cold hard reality he raised the possibility that those paens weren't purely aesthetic or personal/emotional, and I think it made him look both silly and stupid, or in any case completely unaware that Symbols Mean Something beyond what they mean in the very scenic midscape of Stephen Patrick Morrissey.

I do agree that looking at lyrics is unhelpful. "National Front Disco" is loaded with sarcasm from the very title, and anyway assigns plenty of threat to the idea: where has our dear boy gone -- oh dear, he has gone bad, and by that time in the man's career you could tell that he recognized the badness but just had an idiosyncratic attraction to it. "Asian Rut" eulogizes the Asian boy, if patronizingly. "Bengali in Platforms" is basically the height of condescension and exhibits really iffy word choice with the "belong," but it seems less virulent than just sort of solipsistic and dumb, i.e. Morrissey is so blindly English that he never considers that life can be way harder elsewhere even if you do "belong" there, and basically just demonstrates his inability to think properly about anything that doesn't slot nicely into his very English little world.

― Nitsuh, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

"At the heat of the racist debate, the former NME editor Steve Sutherland wondered if Morrissey's alleged racism "might be a gay thing"." I wonder if that quote is true?

I'm almost positive that is true, because I recall reading something very similar to this in the NME at the time....iirc Sutherland was editing the letters page and was speculating about it.

― Nicole, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

two months pass...

Heh, Heh, heh, heh, You guys! All this speculation is very amusing, hilarious! But you are all scrutinizing the issue to closely. What you need to do is stand back and look at the writing on the wall. Any of you who love Morrissey should know by now (and the rest of who do not should listen up). The Man is a genius at using words and imagery to add to all that he is and projects outwardly to be. All of his songs are controversial to some degree, however each are all just stories about people... Merely fictional characters! Vauxhall and I: The girl in "Lifeguard Sleeping, Girl Drowning" is going to let her nemesis drown. There is a Stalking song: "The More you ignore me the closer I get", The whole entire album of Kill Uncle is claimed to be about murders. November spawned a monster about a birth defective person in a wheel chair. C'mon!!! For crying out loud!! The minute you read the lyrics for National Front Disco or Bengali In Platforms you should have known that it was all Morrissey storytelling with young protagonist feeling misplaced and looking for approval or love. Does Everyone actually think that Morrissy was 16, clumsy and Shy and went to London and Booked Himself in at the Y.W.C.A??? - NO that song is about a 16 YEAR OLD SHY CLUMY GIRL WHO HAS A CRUSH ON SOMEONE.... Get it together folks! It's Called SENSATIONALISM!!! Do think that Motley Crue worshiped Satan? - NO! Do you think that Vanilla Ice or the Backstreet Boys came from a rough neighborhood? - No Siree! Do you think that Micheal Jackson had a woman named Billy Jean to accuse him of impregnating her? Nope, just a song my friends. -Hey maybe Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, and Robert Plant really know this lady who bought the actual stairway TO HEAVEN???!! People they're just songs, and there just stories and I believe that Morrissey is very outspoken and if he were really racist, or desired to look racist I doubt we would have to be guessing by the lyrics in one of his many many story telling songs. Get - a - life....

― Duke Rojas, Thursday, 4 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Wow, thanks for setting me on the right path! You are truly an insightful person who has gauged the situation with perfect accuracy, and knows all of our hearts oh so well.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 4 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Those random googlers are often like that, aren't they? Quite uncanny really. Makes me feel less alone in the world

― electric sound of jim, Thursday, 4 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I think this is the part where somebody tells us we gotta honour the fire or something. Anyhow, resuscitated threads are OK by me, especially when the personified-narrator catch-all is being exhumed from its grave yet again. Morrissey has made an entire career out of arguing, explicitly, that the distance between his authorial voice and himself is as narrow a distance as can reasonably be achieved in art. Odd, how the personified narrator defense is most often invoked when defending people who should know better against charges of either racism or sexism. Odd.////// As to the utterly brilliant "16 Clumsy and Shy," our Mozz- loving friend above (don't freak, I love him m'self, quite a lot actually) has missed the point of that song completely. The joke is that Morrissey/Morrissey's narrator (O how dull to do that every time, lest one be accused of unsophisticated theoretical grounding!), a young man uncomfortable in his own skin, attempted to check himself into the YWCA. The point of the big dramatic pause after he pronounces "Y" is to play up how sadly comic the vision of a 16 year old Mancunian guy going to the big city and checking in at the YWCA is. The narrator of the song is male.

― John Darnielle, Thursday, 4 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

John nails it! And brilliantly at that. And hey, I got the Ludus comp with bits of Moz commentary today, along with Stockholm Monsters luv. Yay Manchester, yay LTM!

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 4 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

That Ludus comp is so great. I played it for the N-Sync lovin' kids I work with at the day job and even they thought it was kind of cool. We did a conga line to "Let Me Go Where My Pictures Go."

― John Darnielle, Friday, 5 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

one month passes...

Morissey seems like an intelligent person who will not allow his thoughts to be policed by pseudo-intellectual politically correct sheep and bullies like you lot.

― Jack Hobbs, Tuesday, 14 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Yes, we're all trying to bully Morrissey, that's it.

You may or may not have noticed that there is a diversity of thought and opinion on this thread.

― N., Tuesday, 14 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Wow, Jack just managed to use the world's two dumbest and most meaningless criticisms in the same sentence.

― nabisco%%, Tuesday, 14 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Also I have no idea why I described the Japanese Mr. Yunioshi from Breakfast at Tiffany's as Chinese.

― nabisco%%, Tuesday, 14 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Because you are a notorious racist.

― N., Tuesday, 14 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

If I ever do create a band called Ladyboy, the first single is going to be called "Notorious Racist".

― Dan Perry, Tuesday, 14 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

What's the cover art going to be? Sepia-toned shot of you looking down pensively at a collection of Sartre's works in French?

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 14 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL22/558697/829025/9687797.ptp

― Judd Nelson, Tuesday, 14 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Ok, Nabisco, here is the meaning - sorry this needs clarification! `Pseuso` - Sham, fake or spurious. 15C Middle English `Intellectual` - Person with highly developed powers of rational and intelligent thought. 14C Middle English `Politically Correct` Originally an ironic description of dogmatic left wing control of language, criticising the concept of personal preferemce or opinion being deemed either `correct` or `incorrect` by an unidentified liberal elite. Modern - origin unknown. Clear? See also Orwellian. Class dismissed.

― Jack Hobbs, Wednesday, 15 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

sir, you have described me to a tee!

although i had, until recently at least, been under the misapprehension that pseudo-intellectual meant someone who talked about 'intellectual' ideas which you didn't like, and the political- correctness was a label in use by right wingers to criticise language or actions they didn't like! but then, i'm daft like that!

― gareth, Wednesday, 15 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

sorry, didn't mean to bully. or police.

― gareth, Wednesday, 15 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I agree, Jack. A similar witch hunt was perpretrated by parts of the music press against the Canadian rock band, Rush, for their lyricist`s (Neil Peart) use of the writings of anti-communist author Ayn Rand as the foundation for their album, `2112`. They were childishly branded `Fascist`. Free speech means you might not like someone`s views but unfortunately, they are just as entitled to them as you are to yours. Suppression is always counter-productive (which I think was the main theme of `2112`).

― justine redmond, Wednesday, 15 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

When did anyone on this board attempt to censor Morrissey (or for that matter Rush)? Can't people discuss the implications of including controversial (or semi-controversial or just plain stupid) images in lyrics without being "censors"?

― Alex in SF, Wednesday, 15 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Indeed. Only attempt at censorship on this thread that I can see was by Mr Hobbs.

Tell me about the new Rush album, justine (or anyone). Any good? Do the lyrics reflect any of Neil's recent tragic experiences?

― Jeff W, Wednesday, 15 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I agree that there is nothing wrong per se with criticising `dodgy` lyrics, it`s just that these days, the slightest whisper of the word `racist` tends to lead to slurs, witch hunts and often brutal censorship. Only my view! Jeff, at the risk of breaking the thread, Neil Peart did return to the studio with Alex and Geddy recently. I have not seen the new lyrics but I know the sudden deaths of his daughter and wife have devastated him almost totally. It will depend on whether he wishes to use the new music as a cathartic tool or avoids the subject as the wounds are still open and raw.

― justine redmond, Wednesday, 15 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

'often brutal censorship'

Damn right! I attempted to buy a Smiths CD and nearly got lynched right in the store! I'm sure this happens to everyone who listens to such near-the-knuckle material! Some perspective is always nice

― dave q, Wednesday, 15 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Skipping 1245 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

it's so hilarious I'm going to watch it tonight, also probably the first new one I've seen in a decade

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 20 April 2021 02:02 (two years ago) link

The Secret To Bringing Back Old Viewers: Ill Takedowns of Indie Legends

― blue whales on ambient (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 20 April 2021 02:14 (two years ago) link

Whole episode is a cautionary tale on not being a bitter killjoy about everything and enjoying some of the things in life or you might end up growing into a racist, fat, old fuck. Also kill your idols.

It really feels like a retread of way better Simpsons episodes, but if it made Morrissey - and/or his fan club - throw a fit I’m ok with it.

I don’t think many people would have paid much attention to it it weren’t for the Streisand effect.

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Tuesday, 20 April 2021 04:31 (two years ago) link

FWIW, I don't feel very comfortable about the body-shaming part of all this, though I don't know how the rules of that work when it comes to caricature.

― Alba, Tuesday, 20 April 2021 11:14 (two years ago) link

I think that's a case of the writers knowing what would push Morrissey's buttons.

― Authoritarian Steaks (Tom D.), Tuesday, 20 April 2021 11:28 (two years ago) link

Well, quite

― Alba, Tuesday, 20 April 2021 11:30 (two years ago) link

80s Quilloughby (Morrissey) meeting his current self is the funniest shit I've seen this year pic.twitter.com/Hzy3HEk1bL
— vale☄️ (@adifferentgun) April 19, 2021

don’t quite agree with the tweet but this is the clip he found so offensive

― Scamp Granada (gyac), Tuesday, 20 April 2021 11:37 (two years ago) link

it was...ok. about as good as i remember some newer(ish at this point) episodes i've seen

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 20 April 2021 14:17 (two years ago) link

"Old Sting is bloody gorgeous--and he knows it!"

― blue whales on ambient (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 20 April 2021 14:28 (two years ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbUP-Jo92qE

And all those lies
Written lies, twisted lies
Well, they weren't lies
They weren't lies
They weren't lies

― treeship., Tuesday, 20 April 2021 19:14 (two years ago) link

I’m surprised that enough americans know who morrissey is to warrant a Simpsons parody but I then again I don’t know what young people are up to

― brimstead, Tuesday, 20 April 2021 19:18 (two years ago) link

i don't know who watches the simpsons anymore. is it gen x?

― treeship., Tuesday, 20 April 2021 19:19 (two years ago) link

It's people who only get one channel on their TVs

― 80's hair metal , and good praise music ! (DJP), Tuesday, 20 April 2021 19:21 (two years ago) link

gen x then. oldskies.

― treeship., Tuesday, 20 April 2021 19:22 (two years ago) link

i mean my 75 year old mother cut the cord w.cable but yes having netflix is still very futuristic young ppl

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 20 April 2021 20:03 (two years ago) link

I watched the episode on Hulu after seeing that Katsis response circulating on Sunday night.

― bobo honkin' slobo babe (sic), Tuesday, 20 April 2021 20:07 (two years ago) link

i was being ironic guys.
like bugs bunny, making a comment out of the side of his mouth while chewing a carrot.
like a millennial.

― treeship., Tuesday, 20 April 2021 20:08 (two years ago) link

The only clip I saw was the video for "Everyone Is Horrid Except Me (And Possibly You)", which was good. Unsurprised to learn Bret McKenzie wrote the music.

― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 20 April 2021 20:10 (two years ago) link

that song was the funniest thing to me

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 20 April 2021 20:13 (two years ago) link

Cant believe this has been on the news here.

― candyman, Tuesday, 20 April 2021 20:39 (two years ago) link

I’m surprised that enough americans know who morrissey is to warrant a Simpsons parody but I then again I don’t know what young people are up to

He could sell out huge arenas in Los Angeles and maybe NYC in the early ‘90s, so a few oldsters remember him. And presumably, it’s the oldsters who are watching broadcast TV on Sunday nights.

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Tuesday, 20 April 2021 21:41 (two years ago) link

is that what Lisa looks like now or is it just this episode???

― eisimpleir (crüt), Tuesday, 20 April 2021 21:51 (two years ago) link

He could sell out huge arenas in Los Angeles and maybe NYC in the early ‘90s, so a few oldsters remember him.

The episode writer and the executive producer both saw him at the Hollywood Bowl in 2018

― bobo honkin' slobo babe (sic), Tuesday, 20 April 2021 22:00 (two years ago) link

what Lisa looks like in this episode:

https://cdn.ilpost.it/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Morrissey.jpg

― bobo honkin' slobo babe (sic), Tuesday, 20 April 2021 22:03 (two years ago) link

Who is this possibly for

― bruce spr!ngisH3r3 (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, 20 April 2021 22:09 (two years ago) link

It's got more people talking about/engaging with both the Simpsons and Moz than they have in donkey's years, so...

― blue whales on ambient (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 20 April 2021 22:15 (two years ago) link

Who was last week's episode possibly for

― bobo honkin' slobo babe (sic), Tuesday, 20 April 2021 23:11 (two years ago) link

Who is singing Moz in the "everything is horrid" song - Bret Mckenzie or Bene Cummerbund? It sounds more like Bret to me (and it has def FotC shades)

― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Tuesday, 20 April 2021 23:20 (two years ago) link

Cumberbatch, directed over video conference by McKenzie.

― bobo honkin' slobo babe (sic), Tuesday, 20 April 2021 23:21 (two years ago) link

is that what Lisa looks like now or is it just this episode???

Dude she’s in her 40s sexist much?

― In on the killfile (Boring, Maryland), Tuesday, 20 April 2021 23:27 (two years ago) link

^ Comment of the day

Also, this:

“Neither do I have a determined business squad of legal practitioners ready to pounce. I think this is generally understood and is the reason why I am so carelessly and noisily attacked. You are especially despised if your music affects people in a strong and beautiful way, since music is no longer required to.”

1335 posts deep into the "Is Morrissey Racist?" thread, and we finally get some clarity on why people keep attacking him.

― enochroot, Wednesday, 21 April 2021 01:38 (two years ago) link

Who is this possibly for

It's for Morrissey dude.

― Daniel_Rf, Wednesday, 21 April 2021 09:16 (two years ago) link

Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat) at 4:41 20 Apr 21

I’m surprised that enough americans know who morrissey is to warrant a Simpsons parody but I then again I don’t know what young people are up to

He could sell out huge arenas in Los Angeles and maybe NYC in the early ‘90s, so a few oldsters remember him. And presumably, it’s the oldsters who are watching broadcast TV on Sunday nights.

yeah but he had the whole phenomenon of his big, young Latino fanbase in the mid oughts

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 21 April 2021 12:52 (two years ago) link

So many conflicted feelings on this throwback...

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/mst3k/images/8/83/MST3k_City_Limits-_MN_as_Morrissey.jpg/revision/latest/top-crop/width/360/height/450?cb=20121026180430

― avatar of a kind of respectability homosexual culture (Eric H.), Wednesday, 21 April 2021 13:57 (two years ago) link

so an old record store buddy of mine has a sense of humor.

― Totally different head. Totally. (Austin), Friday, 23 April 2021 19:10 (two years ago) link

three weeks pass...

...huh.

https://pitchfork.com/news/adollarap-rocky-says-morrissey-is-on-his-new-album-all-smiles/

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 19 May 2021 16:10 (two years ago) link

lol @ the url, "ADOLLARAP" is a good rap name

― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 19 May 2021 16:14 (two years ago) link

“Anything you need him to do, he show up and do,” Rocky said of working with the Smiths co-founder.

― the pinefox, Thursday, 20 May 2021 08:21 (two years ago) link

I thought this thread had been shut down and moved to another with a better title

― A viking of frowns, (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Thursday, 20 May 2021 08:25 (two years ago) link

Morrissey is a racist

― enochroot, Thursday, 20 May 2021 12:58 (two years ago) link

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