Morrissey is a racist

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

Bowie fans!

Resentful that they couldn't get their hair to stand up like Bowie's on the cover of "Aladdin Sane".

wait are you saying chorlton isn't in manchester or what

I'm saying it is!

ah ok! this classic photo from hulme in 85 seems just about relevant enough to justify posting

https://i2.wp.com/britishculturearchive.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/img_7506.jpg

Marr is such a fan of Chic that he named his son Nile. I wonder what Mozz thought of that, or what Marr thought of the "burn down the disco" bullshit.

and what made him a marvelous guitarist was the degree to which he eschewed lead guitar cliches and played rhythm, i.e. like a guy who spend his formative years playing Motown 45s.

Marr's guitar parts are really bizarre, I wish there was a muso breakdown book of them with tunings, tabs, etc. A lot of the chord structures in the songs are quite simple, but the multi-layered guitar parts are a maze.

I imagine he never told Mozza that "How Soon Is Now" was inspired by Hamilton Bohannon's "Disco Stomp" either.

I used to often walk through Hulme towards Deansgate when i lived in Whalley Range for a bit in the late 90's. I can't even imagine how much affordable housing is there these days!

xps about nazi imagery

the Bromley Contingent? lots of middle class London suburban art school dropouts (or would have been if they were a bit older) with swastikas and stuff is it? I'm more of a keen listener than scholar of music social history, but that is a thing that is in my head for some reason.

I have this bit in one of my Smiths books at home (surely not The Severed Alliance?!) with more detail:

Tell us a secret
The Smiths were planning a disco album.

I went through a lot of Marr stuff with my teacher once, and while there aren't many weird tunings iirc (aside from "How Soon is Now?"), there is a lot of capo use and some super-cool chords and patterns (and of course layers). And you can definitely catch the Nile Rodgers influence when you learn what Marr is up to.

besides the universities slowly sprawling out into it hulme hasn't seen too much development since the 90s tbh, more towards castlefield and the city centre. contra owen hatherley who sez its all gone downhill since they demolished the crescent and nothing good has come from manchester since a guy called gerald blah blah I think somehow despite being bulldozed and rebuilt twice since the war hulme has more of a legit proper community feel with co-ops and not totally horrible social housing and so on than most of south manchester. altho having said that a guy I went to school with got funding to build a music studio in the arts centre there and the only ppl he can ever get to come and use it are indie bands from chorlton

Morrissey never recovered from being seated between a DJ and George Michael, while being assigned to watch a hiphop movie

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5x78ql

It’s really fun to play smiths stuff on guitar ime

Flirting with Nazi imagery was very much in the air in late 70s Britain

and in the US in the NY and LA punk scenes

And, from the same 1986 Melody Maker interview with Frank Owen as the Diana Ross comments above:

Morrissey: "I don't think there's any time anymore to be subtle about anything, you have to get straight to the point. Obviously to get on Top Of The Pops these days, one has to be, by law, black. I think something political has occurred among Michael Hurll and his friends and there has been a hefty pushing of all these black artists and all this discofied nonsense into the Top 40. I think, as a result, that very aware younger groups that speak for now are being gagged."

Interviewer: 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.

Morrissey: "Yes, I really do."

This guy seems pretty racist

there is a light that should really go out

a kick in the balls
and I say
that's entertainment

If the guy’s been saying shit like this all along, it makes the “Why hasn’t he been canceled yet in America?” inquiries from earlier today seem even more pointless. Clearly, his fans on both sides of the pond have either been willing to ignore it, or have been generally ignorant of it, for decades.

https://media.giphy.com/media/7kFWNDCTwzsDm/giphy.gif

Like, you guys who are proud that he wouldn’t headline a festival in the UK anymore… What’s your excuse for 1986 to whenever?

the problem is, morrissey's music is good

and all four smiths albums are important if you care about the development of indie music or even british culture more broadly. this is like canceling shakespeare for being sexist or something

or picasso. critique is important, but what is meant by "canceling"?

I’m using it as shorthand. The question this morning (US time) was why he is allegedly more acceptable in the US than UK.

because he is a relic

he's an extant human who makes money by performing to paying audiences

sort of

i don't know, i feel worse supporting the meat industry than giving money to morrissey. or paying taxes that go toward cluster bombs for saudi arabia etc

I love old Smiths shit but y'know.....I also like Sufjan Stevens, but if he put out an album called "12 Fascist Folk Songs" that might ruin the beauty of his old music to me.

I'm not firmly in that camp, because I like a lot of music with problematic pasts, but I think right now many of us are feeling a little bit less tolerant given how much white nationalism is taking off across the globe and not wanting to be any part of it.

i don't think ILX is marching anyone to the gallows for singing "How Soon is Now?" at karaoke tho

I probably would but not because racism

in that case, I have the names of 47 people doing that right now

that's a good comparison with sufjan. i hold him to a different standard. morrissey has always been melodramatic, kind of a camp figure but able to derive pathos out of that. i would never look to such a person to have admirable beliefs. i also don't see him being an influential messenger for these ideas but maybe he is radicalizing people who knows

I mean the metal bands I listen to, I can't throw stones. but it's also that it's not like someone had to goad Morrissey into saying these things, he just does, and loudly, and that's in your head when you hear the songs.

now I'm also not a huge Moz or Smiths fan tho so that also plays into it. i'd have a hard time letting go of Iron Maiden if they wrote a song about Eddie being anti-semetic or some shit.

in the songs, morrissey comes across as a manipulative narcissist. it's part of the drama

i don't know, i guess i don't think i'd want to only consume art by "good" people.

I have heard Steve Harris's political views are pretty far from progressive

really? :(