Morrissey is a racist

Sucks about all the other bands turning a blind eye to this. I'm sure at least 95% of them know.

If you loved the Smiths and liked a couple of Morrissey albums in high school, that doesn’t mean you kept up with all his occasional racist lyrics, let alone his decades of public racism and racism-adjacent posturing. This is probably the situation for 90+% of younger bands that ostensibly revere him.

tbh you lost me with "liked a couple of Morrissey albums in high school"

*climbs off of "I've been calling Morrissey a racist since 1988" hobby horse*

plz can someone explain exactly how big Bad Manners are in the US? and also why?

DJP OTM. This hasn't been a secret.

the answer to both nickb's qs is surely ska

lol why i am posting abt buster bloodvessel instead of cornelius cardew doing the very detailed and deadlined work i'm being inadequately paid for

special brew
i love you
gonna write abt
cornelius cardew

I assume everyone is aware that this is in Los Angeles, where Morrissey has a massive latino following that doesn't care about his racist antics in the UK press. Combine that with the smaller audience of LA Gen X goths that are likely go for the nostalgia value, this is a perfectly understandable bill.

a massive latino following that doesn't care about his racist antics in the UK press

Have never heard of this (am neither British nor American fwiw).

Why wouldn't they care at all?

there's a p4k article about it

https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/does-the-mexican-american-community-still-love-morrissey-despite-everything/

Thx.

So it mostly boils down to 'we know, but we love his music more than we hate his racism'. Fair enough.

(lol @ at the automated suggestion that I read related article 'Is Lana Del Rey the American Morrissey?')

I think it's a simple as the fact that his racism hasn't been directed at the latino community tbh. And the other UK-centric stuff reads like inside baseball to non-UKers (ie, who is the Guardian? The UKIP? etc.)

i don't know, i think the quote "everyone prefers their own race" is pretty universally understandable

kind of funny that grasping some v. basic points about british politics is a bridge too far when ~95% of morrissey's cultural reference points are totally "uk centric inside baseball"

like how many people in the us know or care about reggie kray or whatever?

there was an American movie about the Krays

i guess the basic thing with morrissey music is feeling sad about yourself, not feeling sad for other people.

Yeah no I made this point earlier and I don’t think an American needs to know anything about British politics to think that

- calling Chinese people “a subspecies”
- repeatedly moaning about the UK “losing its culture”/ too many foreigns not speaking English on the street
- “Reggae, for example, is to me the most racist music in the entire world. It's an absolute total glorification of black supremacy... There is a line when defense of one's race becomes an attack on another race and, because of black history and oppression, we realise quite clearly that there has to be a very strong defence. But I think it becomes very extreme sometimes."
"But, ultimately, I don't have very cast iron opinions on black music other than black modern music which I detest. I detest Stevie Wonder. I think Diana Ross is awful. I hate all those records in the Top 40 - Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston. I think they're vile in the extreme. In essence this music doesn't say anything whatsoever."

Any of these or similar themes are not immediately understood by an American for what they are? That’s not niche. Not knowing about it, ok, but if you know and think it’s “inside baseball” idk

”Britain’s a terribly negative place. And it hammers people down and it pulls you back and it prevents you. Also, with the issue of immigration, it’s very difficult because, although I don’t have anything against people from other countries, the higher the influx into England, the more the British identity disappears. So the price is enormous. If you travel to Germany, it’s still absolutely Germany. If you travel to Sweden, it still has a Swedish identity. But travel to England and you have no idea where you are.”

Morrissey's last album was #4 in UK, and #95 in U.S. -- why is his con't popularity being discussed as an American issue(?)

Yeah but when push comes to shove it's all good:

I really like Mexican people. I find them so terribly nice. And they have fantastic hair, and fantastic skin, and usually really good teeth.

Probably because you need to sell about ten albums to break the top ten nowadays. (The point is about his acceptability, not his popularity, but yeah, point). I wonder if he’s got the far right buying his stuff here to show support?

xp this came up before (maybe earlier in this very thread) and the point was made that he sounds like he’s talking about animals rather than people

sorry my exasperation with morrissey and his fans is making my brian melt. i just meant it's ironic that people are happy to learn the words to songs about reggie kray and whatnot, absolute uk cultural trivia of no relevance in this day and age, but his racist remarks and support for a far right nationalist party are way too complicated (several xps)

But doesn't he love animals more than anything (aside from his own self, of course)? Checkmate, wokesters!

xp

there was an American movie about the Krays

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, February 12, 2020

British!

two of em!

xpost!
What's the American film about The Krays?

yes morrissey still gets some sales in first week of album release in the UK - but generally his live pulling power is pretty reduced, nobody gives a shit about the records, etc. he's a sad joke amongst music fans here.
he wouldn't headline a festival of any stature in the UK. nobody would want him to or ask him to. in contrast the news just doesn't seem to have penetrated in the U.S., to the point where members of Broken Social Scene, Grizzly Bear collaborated with him last year :-(

Legend?

Brian Helgeland, who wrote and directed Legend, is American, hence the confusion.

i think the answer as to why a lot of people don't know about morsel's view (not fixing that autocorrect) is he's a mainstream nonentity here and frankly his quotes on these subjects are too dull to be provocative, they're just very tedious opinions from a guy that virtually no one in the states cares about. and those who do care about him i think often excuse what he says as something taken out of context. i do think it's just a thing where for awhile his thoughts were underreported here except in certain outlets. i mean i'm fairly plugged-in and until recent years i didn't get the full scope of his idiot opinions.

omar is correct

too dull to be provocative, they're just very tedious opinions

Would you be making the same case if he was American?

i'm not making any case and i don't know what that even means, i just think there are a lot of famous UK racists that most americans don't care about whose opinions aren't reported on over here, at least not extensively, let alone tedious ones from washed-up musicians with cult followings.

The Smiths are great. You don’t need to wholly identify with the songs or the person singing them to enjoy the band. And the themes of loneliness and despair—especially his trademark twist of solipsism, which often comes with some self-aware/deprecating humor—are universal and that’s why he has so many Latino fans.

In the sense that the songs speak to everyone, they actually are working against Morrissey’s own perspective that national identity is what’s important (via Derridean analysis)

So the Smiths music, even though there are problematic lyrics here and there, on the whole isn’t something I’d give over to being like Ukip anthems. Just not what the songs are.

i'm picking this hill and i'm going to die on it, like joan of arc

the funny (well, ok not haha funny) thing about Morrissey-as-martyr (per the Joan of Arc ref) is that it's always been core to his identity/persona, it's just that now he uses it as a shield for his racism.

as a person, he should be strongly criticized for his racism. and it's part of the story of the songs and helps put them in context. i just feel like there is a stigma attached to the music now that isn't deserved -- the work is separate

I don't disagree but where that line is of separating the work from the artist is different for everybody

It's almost as if racism only exists if it's in an American context.

― High profile Tom D (Tom D.), Wednesday, 12 February 2020 10:44 (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I was going to gently dispute that statement then the rest of the thread went all out to corroborate it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yes, I thought I was pushing my luck a bit with that one but...

again everyone here who knows the story and know what he's say understands his racism and that it exists, but generally no one pays attention to Morrissey nor is he reported on. i was talking to a friend recently abt morrissey bc she's sort of a fan and i mentioned his "thoughts" on race and immigration and she'd never heard a thing about it.

Despite the fact that he's been racist for virutally his entire career?