Morrissey is a racist

the context of mid 80s britain discotheques (in carlisle, dundee, humberside) is not one that would have been had much to do with black people or black music

I can't speak for some of them places in that song (and maybe neither can that cunt Mozza!), but in his own native city of birth, Manchester and even indeed the shitty little northern town I grew up in across the Pennines from that region, they are both areas with huge afro-Caribbean and Asian communities. Not places where the old discotheques were just full of white people.

I had heard about so many of these incidents, but somehow I hadn't heard about the "reggae is racist" one yet. What an absolute shitbag.

Also, jeez Moz, weird to see what all the specific "Top 40" acts you name have in common.

acc.freaky trigger commenter billy smart (ilxor by another name? ppssibly!) "reggae is vile" is from 1985

(i.e. two years before "panic" and unprompted by any accusation, tho in a sense prompted by being asked which reggae act he liked)

SOUL ACT: Nico

racist game recognize racist game

going to regret posting this but while morrissey is obviously massively racist and divining racism in his lyrics is quite a fruitful pursuit in general, the context of mid 80s britain discotheques (in carlisle, dundee, humberside) is not one that would have been had much to do with black people or black music

it's pasty white men in cheap suits and bad cologne dancing to spandau ballet and then having a fight and a kebab on the way home

agree that it's more "ugh, vulgar and tacky contemporary normie brit-culture" than "ugh, black people culture" per se, but it gets murky pretty quick when that vulgar modern world is counterpointed to his idealised 50s/early 60s B&W film (emphasis on the W) version of Britain, it's easy to trac a through line from that to the 'britain isn't really british anymore because of too much immigration' stuff he's come out with more recently

I can believe what jim said but it's "the music they constantly play says nothing to me about my life", not "the song he played has nothing to do woth dying kids" or something. That Chernobyl explanation always seemed far-fetched to me. 7xp

*with

acc.freaky trigger commenter billy smart (ilxor by another name? ppssibly!) "reggae is vile" is from 1985

(i.e. two years before "panic" and unprompted by any accusation, tho in a sense prompted by being asked which reggae act he liked)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_(The_Smiths_song)#Release_and_reception

Morrissey denied the accusation, and in a September 1986 Melody Maker interview with Frank Owen decried Owen's suggestion that he was leading a "black pop conspiracy". Additional criticism was sparked by the same interview, wherein Morrissey was quoted naming reggae as "the most racist music in the entire world."[13] Marr, in particular, was incensed by the article and in a 1987 NME interview threatened to "kick the living shit" out of the writer if he met him, such was his anger at the article's slant. He also countered that "disco music" could not be simply equated with "black music", saying, "To those who took offence at the 'burn down the disco' line [...] I'd say please show me the black members of New Order!"[14]

xps. good point, soref

i'll get me coat

Also from the Owen piece:

You seem to be saying that you believe that there is some sort of black pop conspiracy being organised to keep white indie groups down.

“Yes, I really do.” Morrissey goes on

Funny how the memory plays tricks! thanks for the correction, mark s

Paolo Hewitt comes out well from that wikipedia entry, I mean that without irony.

Although after hearing about Peart and the NME, idk if I should trust the author.xp

I think the Smiths were the recipients of considerably more good will in the NME than Rush. I doubt they ever got a bad review.

I don't think mark's correction is correct, though? For one thing, "Panic" came out in 86 and the Wikipedia article reference the reggae comment (although at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if Moz said it multiple times)

He also countered that "disco music" could not be simply equated with "black music", saying, "To those who took offence at the 'burn down the disco' line [...] I'd say please show me the black members of New Order

oooh he showed him!

lol!

if a double decker bus
crashes into us
to die by Moz's side
I'll be happy to know that he's died

would love to pivot to the racist/right-wing underpinnings of Joy Division/New Order...

Have they done anything beyond being REALLY REALLY REALLY TERRIBLE at naming their band? I actually don't know.

No.

The Nazi in the band killed himself.

The band’s demo EP An Ideal for Living featured a cover with a Hitler Youth member pounding on a drum. The inside artwork is the infamous picture of Jews with their hands up in surrender during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Curtis described the choice of artwork as “thought-provoking.” Kevin Martinez of the Socialist Equality Party penned an article in 2008, explaining the band’s relationship with Nazism: “While Curtis was not flirting with neo-Nazism, some of his bandmates indicate that they had a fascination with fascism at the time, and the whole thing suggests unseriousness and irresponsibility, as well as a growing social nihilism.”[7] Unfortunately, this did little to stop Nazi skinheads from attending Joy Division’s shows in droves or to deter regular accusations that its members were Nazis and/or supported fascism.

heh

I was kind of joking (Marr's attempt at misdirection is ironic) but fwiw there's some lengthy back and forth here: The Ian Curtis memorial thread

xpost - I'm not aware of anything specific beyond the terrible names and the artwork for that EP though.

yeah, the ideal for living cover artwork, bernard going by bernard albrecht, the song warsaw being about rudolph hess and bernard shouting "You all forgot Rudolph Hess!" before playing some song at an early manchester show. oh and curtis being a tory

i'm half right dan, admittedly i can't count lol (i forgot which year panic came out bcz i am old) but the actual line as cited (="reggae is vile") was not the one mentioned in wikipedia, and is (acc.billy smart ) from the regular nme mini-feature a "portrait of the artist as a consumer" panel of feb 1985 (not strictly speaking an interview tho the info was often gathered by phone iirc). in frank owen's 1986 melody maker piece he makes a differently worded charge against reggae

lol i might as well (re)link the entire piece as it tells the story reasonably clearly i think: http://freakytrigger.co.uk/hidden-landscapes/2018/05/other-jacksons-in-your-house/

bernard shouting "You all forgot Rudolph Hess!" before playing some song at an early manchester show.

Curtis surely?

Morrissey is a racist imo

xp it's clearly Bernard's voice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceHzceD8QpQ

What makes you so sure that's Barney though?

the context of mid 80s britain discotheques (in carlisle, dundee, humberside) is not one that would have been had much to do with black people or black music

within spitting distance of where morrissey grew up there were clubs with lots of british caribbean ppl that played soul, funk, reggae etc. as well as local sound systems. tony wilson and the factory records ppl were hanging out in these places. the likes of greg wilson were playing disco & electro in legends in the city centre to a mixed audience from the early 80s, plus, yknow, northern soul and all that. I don't think disco wld code as white to anyone in manchester back then

i guess you did have the bee gees

hanging a DJ for playing the bee gees seems wrong also

definitely fighting words in my house

(after his insane peace mission) Meanwhile, Hitler initiated Aktion Hess, a flurry of hundreds of arrests of astrologers, faith healers and occultists that took place around 9 June. The campaign was part of a propaganda effort by Goebbels and others to denigrate Hess and to make scapegoats of occult practitioners

I would have thought that the average late 70's punk/fascist edgelord might have gone for some other nazi than that cabbage tbh!

sorry slightly offtopic and very otm post by ogmor up there

i guess you did have the bee gees

... from Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

x-post Sounds like Barney to me. Flirting with Nazi imagery was very much in the air in late 70s Britain and Joy Division was definitely part of that. It's hardly a good look, but there's still quite a chasm between that and the overt racism of Morrissey.

I'd say there's a pretty direct line, actually

resentful white working class with a chip on its shoulder/eager to provoke ---> racism

and even the most resolutely anti-Nazi Mancunian had it in him to write "The Classical"

(full disclosure: out of the canonical Manchester bands under discussion - Smiths/Morrissey, JD/New Order, the Fall - I'll take the Fall, warts and all, in a heartbeat)

The resentful white working class were not generally the ones flirting with Nazi imagery fwiw.

We've had this conversation before though.

the national front v active in manchester round that time too of course. there has been a big irish/anglo-irish community in manchester since it industrialised and anti-irish racism was equally well-established (for the condition of the working class engels focused on the 'little ireland' area round oxford road which while poor and prone to cholera outbreaks was small & more limited in its squalor and criminality than angel meadows, the o.g. manchester no-go zone, but 'little ireland' had already been the subject of moral panic journalism with strong anti-irish flavour) and was still v much around in the 70s and 80s, and morrissey's ideas abt englishness seem like the same sort of relayed racism/traumatised overcompensating/punching down you see w/ loudly patriotic minorities desperate to be accepted by racist tories today

what's a better classifier/description?

xps

Of what?

Not in any way supporting punks flirting with nazi imagery, but there was really a lot of it going around, and they all seem to have been mortified by it within a few years.

Morrissey, however, cannot be given the benefit of the doubt, as there is absolutely no doubt.

of who was flirting with nazi imagery

xps