Morrissey: “What does this tell us about the state of Art in 2025?”

Dear Morrissey,

In your latest excuse for cancelling yet another show, you ponder: “No label will release our music, no radio will play our music… and yet our ticket sales are sensational. What does this tell us about the state of Art in 2025?”

There are several answers to this question, and they’re all patently obvious to anyone who has spent any time awake on Earth in the 21st century. 

And they all come down to the fact it’s no longer the 1990s. We cannot cling to those old dreams any more. No record company is going to give you a quarter-million dollar advance to do whatever you want. And when you realise it’s not the 1990s any more, you might also notice that you’re not 30 any more either, and perhaps consider not booking such an “exhausting” tour schedule.

You bemoan the lack of finance from record companies for you to tour, but why would they? Nobody buys physical albums any more, and they haven’t for 20 years. Had you not noticed? These days if an album has a physical release at all, it’s more likely to be on fancy vinyl aimed at a niche market and cost about $70. Singles aren’t even worth thinking about. The average consumer gets all their music from streaming now. Yes, even your fans. 

Gone are the days when tours promoted record sales. Today, albums are a loss-leader to promote concerts. Personally, I don’t like this situation any more than you do, but it’s something every artist has had to adjust to, from the bedroom guitarist with high hopes right up to Bruce Springsteen. 

What exactly do you think ticket sales have to do with having a record deal? To pick just three of your contemporaries, Echo and the Bunnymen, New Order, and Culture Club all continue to tour without any of them having released an album this decade. It doesn’t hurt that when they tour, they show up on time and treat their promoters, crew, and audience with respect. 

You know who else is doing a massively profitable tour without a record company? Oasis!

Now sure, you’re not Oasis. But the people buying Oasis tickets are doing so for exactly the same reason people buy Morrissey tickets: Nostalgia! 

No-one wants to see their favourite artists disappear up their own back catalogue, forsaking any relevance to today. But no-one wants to hear only the new album either. The people buying Morrissey tickets are not coming to hear unreleased songs from Bonfire of Teenagers. They are coming to hear How Soon Is Now?, Suedehead, Bigmouth Strikes Again, November Spawned a Monster, and Interesting Drug. I promise you, no-one standing through the tedious 40-minute YouTube playlist you present at the start of your show is turning to their friend and saying, “I hope he does Life is a Pigsty.” 

They are there to see the Morrissey who reminded them that it takes strength to be gentle and kind, not the Morrissey whose world is shaken by hearing foreign accents in the high street. I know the latter attitude has made you something of a cause célèbre among freedom-fetishising alt-right podcasters and their fans, but I’ll bet you a Johnny Marr signature Martin none of them could hum two bars of any of your songs. They’re not the ones going to your concerts because they’re just as scared to leave the house as you are.

So let’s instead focus on the good aspects of the music industry in 2025. These days, anyone can release an album entirely on their own terms. They probably won’t become a millionaire from it, but artistic integrity is priceless, no? Bonfire of Teenagers could be out tomorrow if you wanted it to be. If Bandcamp is good enough for Peter Gabriel, it’s good enough for you Sonny Jim!

But that would mean taking responsibility for your own career and that’s not what you want, is it? What you want is plausible deniability. You want an evil record label, promoter, or management company to blame when you inevitably shit in the nest again. 

And you’ve had a bad run with all of them, haven’t you? In an industry awash with opportunists and hangers-on, you have achieved what should be impossible. You have completely run out of people willing to work with you. Despite excellent brand recognition, your reputation for being devious, truculent and unreliable precedes you to the point where even the most desperate try-hard refuses to touch you. Being Morrissey’s manager is like being Donald Trump’s lawyer. The first sign of incompetence is taking on the client in the first place. 

Having an ugly bust-up with one label or management company is to be expected. It’s virtually a rock and roll rite of passage. To have it happen with every company you’ve ever dealt with is a different story. 

It’s you, Steven. You’re the problem. 
   

Morrissey: I know it’s over

Many have pondered this week how Morrissey fans can possibly process some of the comments he has made in his latest interview. (You can read it here, if you must). Allow me to offer one fan’s thoughts.

First, I’ll establish my credentials. I first discovered The Smiths in 1988, just after their breakup. I became an instant fan and, by extension, a fan of Morrissey’s solo work which was essentially a continuation of The Smiths at first. I’ve also been a massive fan of Johnny Marr ever since and I’ve loved everything he’s done, including Electronic and Stex.

It took me 25 years to finally see Morrissey. When he first toured Australia in 1991, he cancelled the show due to ill health (which became something of a trademark of his tours). He didn’t tour again for 11 years and when he did in 2002, my date cancelled on me and I missed out again. He stayed away another decade and when his 2012 tour dates were announced, I was already booked to be out of the country. I had the option to change my travel plans but given his habit of cancelling shows, it wasn’t worth the risk. He came back less than three years later but only played the Vivid Festival in Sydney. Was it worth going in the ticket ballot and booking flights and accommodation for Sydney? It was not. Dates for the rest of the country were announced for October 2016 and finally, after a quarter of a century of delays and disappointment, I actually got to see Morrissey. Can you think of a more Morrissey story?

He was in fine form too. Although it was a pity he did World Peace is None of Your Business. More on that later.

So how do I rationalise his behaviour, if at all?

Well frankly, I have no problem with him advocating for animal rights as loudly and as confrontingly as he likes. I know there are those who prefer their animal activism in the form of starlets posing semi-nude for PETA, but as the latest reports of atrocities in the live export industry have shown, you have to get in people’s faces for them to take notice and do something.

If people are offended by the comparing of slaughterhouses to atrocities committed against humans, then that justifies him doing so because both have been done to living, sentient beings and it forces us to wonder how we would like that to happen to us.

You may find the tactic confronting but artists should be provocative and art should stand for something. It’s preferable though if their statements are factually accurate and intellectually consistent.

Then there’s the racism. Honestly, until now I had always found the accusations rather spurious. They were certainly plausible but not entirely convincing. The second track on Kill Uncle (the original version) was actually quite anti-racist as it portrays an English gang attacking a young Asian boy and concludes with the line, “I’m just passing through here, on my way to somewhere civilised.” The effect is ruined from the start though by the fact the song has the stupidly insensitive title Asian Rut.

The song that many took as proof of racism is The National Front Disco. The problem is he never makes it clear whether the song is intended as satire or not. And that is the artist’s prerogative. Roger Waters never makes it obvious that all the fascist imagery in The Wall is ironic. It’s left to the listener to work it out, but it does create an easy target.

But then, around the same time, he unveiled the Union Jack during his appearance at Madstock. Aha, right? Well hang on. To this day I have never understood why it was racist for Morrissey to display the Union Jack in 1992 but not for Noel Gallagher to paint it on his guitar in 1996. I’m happy to be educated on this. However, as an Australian, I’m for reclaiming the Southern Cross from the bogans, meatheads and racists who have co-opted it and I wouldn’t blame Britons for wanting to do the same for their national symbol. I’m not saying that’s what Morrissey was trying to do but honestly, I don’t get it.

Not racist                        Racist                          Not racist

His most overtly racist lyric was in Bengali in Platforms: “Oh shelve your western plans and understand, that life is hard enough when you belong here.” Even here, in the context of the whole song, I am (somewhat generously) willing to give Moz the benefit of the doubt that it was intended as a clumsy expression of empathy rather than an explicit declaration that foreigners don’t belong.

It is evident that Morrissey suffers some kind of depressive disorder and is quite possibly on the autism spectrum. This is not intended as any kind of criticism but seeking to possibly understand his behaviour. All criticism of his poor expression naturally feeds his feelings of paranoia and that the media is against him.

I believe a lot of the previous accusations against Morrissey have been beat-ups but one thing this latest interview shows is that whenever he grants an interview, the interviewer merely glances at a length of rope which Morrissey then picks up, fashions a perfectly formed noose, puts it around his neck, wraps the other end around a beam, and proceeds to stand precariously on a chair.


The US television personality Dick Clark used to be referred to as the world’s oldest teenager. When he died, I believe Morrissey took over the mantle, albeit for completely different reasons. The attraction of Morrissey’s songwriting was always that he understands the lonely and rejected. If you’re one of the people who always hated Morrissey from the outset (and there are millions), then you probably had friends at high school and knew how to form relationships. Good for you! Some of us didn’t, and Morrissey was the first one who made us feel like we might not be a minority of one.

Having said that, there’s something ever-so-slightly undignified about a man in his late fifties singing about not getting out of bed. If you write a song called Life is a Pigsty and you’re not an unemployed teenager, you probably need to take stock. It’s as if Moz leapt straight from tragic poetic teen to miserable old curmudgeon without any of the growth you might expect in between.

Morrissey began to wear out his welcome with me with World Peace is None of Your Business. Elvis Costello once said, “Morrissey writes wonderful song titles, but sadly he often forgets to write the song.” It was a rather harsh comment at the time but it’s never been truer than of World Peace… because he takes an excellent premise and wastes it. What’s unforgivable for me is the line, “Each time you vote, you support the process.” Oh RIGHT! It’s MY fault the way we’re governed is in such a parlous state because I exercise what tiny influence I actually have on it, and nothing to do with idiots like Morrissey who know what’s wrong with the world but refuse to take a bit of responsibility and VOTE.

Morrissey is not just the only artist, but the only person I know of whose understanding of the world and expression of it has actually become less sophisticated since his 20s.

It’s an unfair criticism that Morrissey has been repeating himself ever since The Smiths. It is fair to say he’s been doing it for the last 20 years though. In all that time, he’s just been rewriting the same three songs only gradually worse:
Everyone Hates Me
’E’s a Likely Lad Inn’e?
Politics? Bollocks, more like!

Evidently, the same goes for his interviews. Even though it was with a sympathetic interviewer on an officially sanctioned website, Moz chose to leap off the aforementioned chair, into a bath with a plugged-in toaster floating in it. They say you shouldn’t attribute to malice what can adequately be explained as stupidity. If so, Morrissey has been incredibly stupid. And I’m sure it has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that Johnny Marr – who writes far better lyrics than Morrissey does these days – has a new album coming out next month!

His description of halal slaughter as evil is acceptable because he considers all slaughter evil, but to link it to ISIS is calculated bigotry. To appeal to Islamophobia in his campaign for animal rights is as low as those who claim to care about animal welfare when the truth is they just hate Muslims. There is no plausible deniability for his race-baiting any more. (And if anyone wants to ask “What race is Islam?” then bring it on! I shall sup lustily on your triggered racist tears.) It causes me to question my previous forgiveness.

Sadiq Khan should not be above criticism but anyone who can’t spell Cemetery, thinks ‘destructors’ means the same thing as ‘destroyers,’ or writes the 120 pages of utter drivel that is List of the Lost, has no place judging anyone else for how they use the English language.

Knuckle to knuckle with the machete of justice?
Seriously, Morrissey? What the hell is this?

And apparently Hitler was left wing. I’m not even going to bother going into what an ignorant statement this is. Morrissey’s political naivety has always been evident but this is indefensibly stupid. What was his point anyway? Ah, who cares?

Will I keep listening to his music? Of course I will. There are certain artists like Ted Nugent and the Norwegian Black Metal scene in general who can go to hell. For all the others, it’s more nuanced than that. Enjoying art should never be considered an endorsement of the artist’s views or actions – although it certainly may be. Just ask anyone who has ever enjoyed Wagner, Lead Belly, Ike Turner or Phil Collins. And there are certainly plenty of gun-toting rednecks who love some John Lennon or Woody Guthrie. Should I burn my copies of Imagine and All Things Must Pass because Phil Spector produced them?

For the future though, the dear departed Sean Hughes once said, “Everybody gets over their Morrissey phase, except Morrissey.” (The singer replied, “Too true!”) Well, it’s taken 30 years, but I Know It’s Over.

The Morrissey reissues

Reissue, repackage, repackage! Slip them into different sleeves.
Yes, it’s so easy, isn’t it?

The release of the 20th anniversary edition of Vauxhall and I completes a slightly ad hoc series of reissues of Morrissey’s 20th century solo albums. In classic Morrissey fashion, these reissues follow neither a standard reissue/remaster campaign, nor an expanded edition model. Instead, what we get is more along the lines of a “director’s cut,” approach with some albums surviving mostly intact and others bearing only a passing similarity to the original versions – not that there was any particular outside interference on the originals. There is a fair dollop of rewriting history here, or at least, ‘This is what we should have done.’

So, is it worth re-buying your Morrissey collection? Or, if you’re starting one, which are the better versions to get? What follows is one fan’s assessments, in order of reissue.

I should declare from that outset that having first heard and bonded with (for that’s what you do when you’re a Morrissey fan) the original releases, I will be slightly biased towards the originals as being the ‘real’ versions.


Southpaw Grammar 1995/2009
Southpaw Grammar was Morrissey’s first album after completing the contract with EMI that was originally signed by The Smiths in 1987, and the beginning of a nomadic relationship with record companies that continues to this day*.  When it was originally released on the RCA label which was then owned by BMG, Morrissey indulged himself in making the album appear as much like a 70s RCA release as he could. Although the artwork has been completely redesigned, the RCA aesthetic remains with an obvious tribute to ChangesOneBowie.

Speaking of the packaging, the reissue includes a booklet with sleeve notes written by Morrissey, which describe the making of the album with wit and humility.

It was certainly a difficult album. Morrissey and band allowed themselves some experimentation by flirting with drum solos and classical samples, and both the first and last songs clocked in at over ten minutes.

One of the greatest crimes of Morrissey’s solo career was the way he hid one of his best ever songs, Nobody Loves Us, away on the B-side of lead single Dagenham Dave. It has now been added to the album along with three previously unreleased songs (Honey, You Know Where to Find Me, Fantastic Bird and You Should Have Been Nice to Me) in a completely rearranged track listing.

The first five tracks make the beginning of a much more consistent album than the original but dropping Southpaw in at track 6 disturbs the flow. It was always an excellent album closer, but putting it in the middle of the album just highlights the fact that it’s really only a five minute song with another five minutes of extended noodling left on at the end. After that, the re-ordered album lurches around all over the place. The Teachers Are Afraid of the Pupils is similarly stripped of its impact when bumped down from the opening track to track 10. Having already put the natural closing song on the first half of the disc, Nobody Loves Us is again sold short at the end of the album.

Southpaw Grammar was always a slightly flawed album and the revised edition is just as flawed, only in different ways.

The one to buy is:
Despite having only eight tracks, the original version makes more sense as a complete album. Having said that, the reissue has all the tracks from the original plus strong additional tracks and some enlightening sleeve notes, so you might as well get that one and program a playlist that follows the original track list if you so choose.

Reader Meet Author - original 1995 release

Reader Meet Author - 2009 remaster

Maladjusted 1997/2009
The new version of Maladjusted also comes with some explanatory sleeve notes, although they’re altogether more surreal and meandering. As with Southpaw Grammar, the track-listing has been completely shifted around but thankfully the opening title track has been left in its rightful position. Six tracks, previously released as B-sides, have been added. Some of the additions, like Lost and The Edges are No Longer Parallel are excellent while others, such as Heir Apparent and Now I Am a Was are B-side grade.

In fact, that’s the biggest problem with the new version of Maladjusted; it’s sixty minutes of songs that mostly belong on Side 2. Papa Jack and Roy’s Keen have been removed. Although they were both fairly unremarkable songs, the latter contributed some contrast to the original album. In fairness, it was only slightly more twee than The First of the Gang to Die, which everyone considered a triumph. Morrissey really shouldn’t be ashamed of his occasional moments of whimsy.

The inclusion of This Is Not Your Country adds some classic Moz controversy, of the same kind stirred by The National Front Disco, but it’s more about the feeling of not belonging than telling anyone they don’t belong.

The two closing tracks have been reversed. On this edition, Sorrow Will Come in the End (originally left off the UK version) now comes after Satan Rejected My Soul and it’s probably a mistake. Sorrow Will Come… is a thinly veiled response to Morrissey’s loss in the court case brought by Smiths drummer Mike Joyce. The spoken word piece sounded less petulant and ineffectual when followed by the self-mockery of Satan…  but as the album closer twelve years later, it just sounds petty and sad.

The redesigned album art is curious too. While Morrissey was understandably dissatisfied with Mercury’s design on the original, he did at least look maladjusted whereas on the new cover, he looks every inch the Good Looking Man About Town, which is kind of incongruous.

The one to buy is:
The original. While missing a couple of strong tracks it has a more satisfying light and shade while the reissue comes dangerously close to sounding homogenous.

Alma Matters - original 1997 release

Alma Matters - 2009 remaster

Bona Drag 1990/2010
I’ve already covered this in the best of the best ofs, but to recapitulate:
What was originally a stop-gap collection of singles and B-sides has by default become one of Morrissey’s strongest albums owing to the very high quality of his B-sides from 1988 to 1990.

The track order has not been changed as with the previous reissues, just the tracks themselves. Piccadilly Palare has gained a verse previously cut out (although, it’s not the “No, Dad,” version that has circulated online), Ouija Board, Ouija Board has lost the humourous, “Steven, push off!” section and Suedehead has had the ambient introductory strums cut off. Interesting Drug and November Spawned a Monster are now cross-faded together. As with the original release of Bona Drag, the achingly beautiful Will Never Marry is faded out early before the minor key coda.

There are six additional tracks added at the end of the disc, four previously unreleased. Unfortunately, the ruins the perfect “Goodnight, and thank you,” ending of Disappointed, but other than that, it’s the appropriate place for them.

Of particular interest are The Bed Took Fire (an alternative version of At Amber) and Morrissey’s demo of Please Help the Cause Against Loneliness, which he wrote with Stephen Street for Sandie Shaw. For no apparent reason, the long mix of Let The Right One Slip In from the Your Arsenal sessions concludes the bonus tracks. It has been a continuing pattern across the reissues to drop in tracks that belong to a different era to the rest of the album. Although his detractors claim all Morrissey’s songs sound the same, the truth is that he has gone through several phases which sound completely different to one another. Mercifully, the new closing track on Bona Drag does not scream too much at the rest of the album.

The one to buy is:
The reissue is the natural choice, given the added rarities, although it does mean that you’ll have to find a copy of Suedehead, The Best of Morrissey (now deleted) if you want to have the original versions of Piccadilly Palare and Ouija Board, Ouija Board.

Suedehead - Bona Drag original 1990 release

Suedehead - Bona Drag 2010 remaster

Viva Hate 1988/2012
Not to take anything away from Andy Rourke, Mike Joyce and especially Johnny Marr, but if you didn’t know in 1988 that The Smiths had broken up and you were told that Viva Hate was the new Smiths album, you would probably have believed them. Such was the skill with which Smiths engineer and co-producer Stephen Street rescued Morrissey’s career. It was, in short, a triumph.

Here’s what nobody said: “It would be even better if you chopped the beginning and end off of Late Night, Maudlin Street, and replaced The Ordinary Boys with, oh, I dunno, some demo that was never properly recorded so the vocal sounds like it was sung into a Walkman.”

Viva Hate has already been through the reissue wringer once before in 1997, where it was given a budget label style cover, and eight additional tracks, only two of which were contemporary to the album. This time around, the original cover photograph has been reinstated (no credit for hair this time, though) but the monochrome shade has been changed from blue to black and the title now appears in a gold, Old English style font. It gives an unnecessary Oi! look to the cover which might have been better avoided given Morrissey’s occasional flirtations with British nationalism, unintentional or misunderstood though they may have been.

The remastering was overseen by Stephen Street and it sounds beautiful but then again, it always did. Street has also made it clear that he objected to the changes that have been made to the album (the word “butchered” may have been used), but despite being the producer, arranger, composer, guitarist, bassist and indeed instigator of the album, his preferences were irrelevant.

The one to buy is:
The original. For the love of all things decent, the original!

Suedehead - Viva Hate 1997 remaster

Suedehead - Viva Hate 2012 remaster

Kill Uncle 1991/2013
Kill Uncle is universally recognised as Morrissey’s weakest album and not without reason. He was three years into his contract with EMI (actually signed by The Smiths) with so far only one album and a compilation of singles to please them, please them, please them. Having split with Stephen Street, Morrissey entered a songwriting partnership of convenience with Mark E Nevin, who had recently left Fairground Attraction. Curiously, Nevin is not mentioned once in Morrissey’s sprawling Autobiography, which might have come as a relief to him since Morrissey seems to have little but contempt for most other collaborators he has parted company with.

So with the album’s reputation for mediocrity unchallenged, it comes as a bit of a surprise that this rearranged and (slightly) expanded version is really rather good. In fact, by bumping Asian Rut (a well-intentioned song with a contemptible title) down from track 2 to track 5, side 1 of Kill Uncle suddenly becomes one of the strongest first sides Morrissey has ever made.

Pashernate Love and East West are added to the middle of the album. Although they stick out a bit – the former is a Your Arsenal era B-side and East West is the first time Morrissey has elevated a cover version to album track status – they serve as a kind of break between (what would be) sides 1 and 2, so they don’t disturb the flow too much.

The two closing tracks have been reversed with There’s a Place in Hell for Me and My Friends now preceding The End of the Family Line. That would almost work but the original version of …a Place in Hell… has been replaced with a live version first released on the Live at KROQ EP. The problem in doing this is that the line on the live version, “And looking back, I won’t forgive / And I never will, I never will,” really only makes sense when you know that the original line was, “And looking back, we will forgive / We had no choice, we always did.” The live version is a great reinterpretation, but it needs the original (recorded directly over Mark Nevin’s piano demo made in his front room) to stand in contrast to.

The one to buy is:
Despite the quibble over There’s a Place in Hell… the reissue is a much stronger album.

Our Frank - original 1991 release

Our Frank - 2013 remaster

Your Arsenal 1992/2014
Show me someone who says all Morrissey songs sound the same and I’ll show you someone who either hasn’t heard many Morrissey songs or paid very little attention when they did.

For the video to Sing Your Life, a rockabilly band was hired and subsequently became Morrissey’s touring band and songwriting collaborators. For their first album together, Morrissey adapted his style to theirs far more than they did to his. This, and working with Mick Ronson as producer, were undoubtedly good for him. Not only was Your Arsenal a return to form, but its raucousness smashed the stereotype of fey, bookish, diary-writing Moz.

Being so good from the start, the immediate worry was that Morrissey would tinker about with the reissue as he had done with all the previous ones. Such worries are unfounded though. The track listing is identical. The only advertised difference is that it includes the US mix of the closing track, Tomorrow. However, this is also a little misleading. The only difference between this version and the original is that the vocal does not fade out in the last line. The quirky piano coda (which I always liked) is still there, and even goes on for a couple of extra bars.

This may make it seem like it’s a rather pointless purchase but I can tell you it isn’t. The remaster is fuller, brighter and had more bass presence. It has been given a fair bit of volume limiting but there are some styles that this approach lends itself to and this is one of them. If you already own and enjoy the album, it’s definitely worth the upgrade without even mentioning the additional DVD.

The DVD was filmed live at The Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, on October 31st, 1991, about six months before the recording of Your Arsenal. As such, most of the set is drawn from Viva Hate and Kill Uncle, with previews of We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful and Pashernate Love.

As with the Live in Dallas DVD, it’s sourced from VHS and has had no restoration so both the picture and sound quality are as low as you’d imagine. The mix is very dry for a live recording and may even have come from monitor mixes. Despite the substandard quality, it really captures the barely organised chaos of a Morrissey show, where the quality of performance and production come a distant second to the experience.

The one to buy is:
The reissue. Calling it the Definitive Master may sound a bit wanky, but it is.

Tomorrow - original 1992 release

Tomorrow - 2014 remaster

Vauxhall and I 1994/2014
Following the return to form of Your Arsenal, Vauxhall and I was the album where it all fell into place. After several failed attempts, he had finally found some long term songwriting partners in Alain White and Boz Boorer, and their compositions for this album were an order of magnitude more adventurous than the previous set. This, combined with some excellent production from Steve Lillywhite makes it probably equal with Viva Hate as Morrissey’s best solo release.

It’s not a perfect album. There’s a noticeable side-2 slump but that is forgotten as soon as Speedway begins, with probably the only ever use of a two-stroke engine as a musical instrument, and builds to a crescendo four minutes later that almost leaves you breathless.

Under the circumstances then, there was a reasonable fear that he might butcher this one as well. Fortunately, he hasn’t. He’s just sold it awfully short.

Like all the reissues from Bona Drag onwards, it comes in a mini-gatefold cardboard sleeve with no lyric sheet and minimal credits. Full points for sustainability but you would expect a “definitive” edition to have just a little more, especially when the design of the original was so beautiful. So while the presentation is no more minimalist than the four previous reissues, Vauxhall and I looks particularly cheap and nasty even with a bonus live disc.

Having written that, it’s just struck me that the whole series of EMI reissues has the look and feel of the kind of mid-price, no frills reissues of classic albums that we used to see in the 80s. Given Morrissey’s long held focus on design and presentation (including the resurrection of several defunct company imprints from His Master’s Voice to RCA to Attack), this is quite possibly deliberate, if not particularly satisfying to fans who are probably buying these albums for at least the second time.

The sound quality is excellent, but it always was. It’s not a failure of the remastering that it hasn’t brought out nuances that weren’t there before, it just goes to show that it was kind of unnecessary. Although having said that, credit is due to the mastering engineers for not fixing something that wasn’t broken by just making it all really loud.

Of all the live sets that have appeared as bonus incentives on Morrissey reissues and compilations (Greatest Hits, Swords, Your Arsenal), this one, recorded at the Theatre Royal in 1995, is far and away the best. Typically, bonus live discs are not up to the standard of standalone live albums, but this one compares very favourably to Moz’s first solo live album Beethoven was Deaf. It’s certainly worth the purchase price and having a redundant copy of Vauxhall and I for.

The one to buy is:
The reissue if you want the live disc but otherwise, the original.

Speedway - original 1994 release

Speedway - 2014 remaster

* In fact, in the time between writing that sentence and completing this series of reviews, Morrissey (ahem) parted company with Harvest records and the new album released on that label has been withdrawn from sale, so you had better get it while you can.

Finally, we know Morrissey has a flair for dramatic language so “cancer scrapings” could possibly mean anything, but do get well soon, you contrary old devil.

The Best of the Best-ofs: Morrissey

Every one of these compilations will contain Suedehead, Every Day is Like Sunday, The Last of the Famous International Playboys and The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get.  After that, it becomes a question of who compiled it, what label it’s on, and which phase of his career he wants to remind people of at the time.  What all of these collections remind us of, in their own strange way, is how Morrissey can be both a neglected treasure and (dare I say it?) devious, truculent and unreliable. 

“Suedehead” The Best of Morrissey - 1997

You know it was the mid-90s because it was named after the best-known single.  Released by EMI at around the same time as the underrated Maladjusted was released on another label, which suggests they exercised a contractual option, this is probably as good a compilation as you could expect at the time.  It features all the notable singles, the rare cover of The Jam’s That’s Entertainment and the UK version of Tomorrow, which features an early fade of the vocal and the curious piano coda.  It was the first album to include the singles, Pregnant for the Last Time and the duet of Interlude with Siouxsie Sioux.

At all stages of his career, Morrissey has tended towards self-parody – sometimes deliberate, sometimes unintentional.  This collection avoids that tendency better than most.

For: First compilation, includes several non-album tracks.

Against: Seemingly minimal involvement from Morrissey himself, currently out of print.

The Best of Morrissey - 2001

Released right in the middle of his exile from recording, this North American release manages to avoid the problem of Morrissey’s mid-90s label-hopping and includes material from his time at EMI, BMG and Mercury.  As such, it’s the only collection to include selections from the whole of Morrissey’s solo career at the time of release.

It’s a genuine best-of, featuring singles, album tracks and rare B-sides such as Hairdresser on Fire and the brilliant Sister I’m a Poet.  It’s nice to see the inclusion of underrated singles like Sing Your Life and Alma Matters, despite conventional wisdom saying they were forgettable.  Do Your Best and Don’t Worry is a curious choice when there are better songs to represent the Southpaw Grammar album but it’s nice that it’s included at all, as well as the Maladjusted-era B-side, Lost.

For:  Broad selection

Against:  Difficult to find in some areas

Greatest Hits - 2008

Firstly, Greatest Hits is nothing of the sort.  It’s mostly a collection of what you might call the comeback years, but adds Suedehead, …Sunday, …Playboys and The More You Ignore Me, licenced from EMI.  The pop sheen of these earlier songs jars with the edgier production of the newer work.  Two previously unreleased tracks, All You Need is Me and That’s How People Grow Up were later included on the Years of Refusal album.  Although all the other tracks are bona fide chart singles, I Just Want to See the Boy Happy and In the Future When All’s Well don’t stand up among Morrissey’s best or his greatest hits.  It would have been better to leave the EMI-era stuff out completely and make it a true 21st century compilation.

Also, Greatest Hits has been given the everything-as-loud-as-everything-else mastering treatment which is almost tolerable on the recent tracks but does nothing for the earlier ones which had a bit of subtlety.

Greatest Hits comes with the option of a short bonus live CD recorded at the Hollywood Bowl, which makes it a slightly more attractive option for people who have all the music on the main disc already.  The special edition also came with a weblink to register for “A very special Morrissey release,” which hasn’t eventuated. 

For: Collects all the hits of the comeback years, bonus live disc.

Against: Brickwall mastering, not actually his greatest hits.

Very Best of Morrissey - 2011

It’s promoted as an overview of the classic years, which is both a euphemism for the EMI years and an implication that the years since have been less than classic.  A message from Morrissey on a fan site lamented the possibility that this might be his first album not to chart on release.  For this, he blamed EMI’s distribution which is a fair point, but the other factor is that there’s very little new here.  Obviously, you’re not supposed to expect anything new from best-of compilations but we should expect a new collection to do a little more than, to quote the classics, slip them into different sleeves. 

It does have the advantage of being selected by Morrissey himself and it’s a typically idiosyncratic mix.  The usual hits are there but the singles from Your Arsenal are left out, but the two grungiest tracks from that album, You’re Gonna Need Someone On Your Side and Glamorous Glue are included, the latter being released as a single to promote the album.  Kill Uncle is ignored completely but the melodramatic B-side from the same era, I’ve Changed My Plea to Guilty is featured.  Three other B-sides including Girl Least Likely To (written with Andy Rourke) and the full nine minutes of Moon River make the list.  It’s interesting that Moz has chosen Break Up the Family from Viva Hate, when he hasn’t shown any particular affection for the song previously.  Curiously, only one track is included from Vauxhall and I, despite it being regarded as one of his best works.  There is the US versions of Tomorrow and My Love Life,  with the latter having a later fade.  As with the reissue of Bona Drag (see below) the concluding verse of Ouija Board Ouija Board has been cut out entirely.

The attraction for fans who already have all of this already is the solo version of Interlude (identical to the duet version, but with Morrissey singing the entire song) and the option of a bonus DVD with remastered videos, four of which have not previously been available on DVD.

The album has an interesting flow to it, mostly starting out with the rockers, moving on to polished pop and concluding with torch songs.  It really would be a great collection if not for the fact that it covers the same material as many others.

For:  Decent remastering, compiled by Morrissey, bonus DVD.

Against:  Haven’t we heard all this before?

If you had to choose one, choose…

Well, not Greatest Hits because it isn’t.  Other than that, they all do the job well.  “Suedehead” is the closest to an actual greatest hits.  It was deleted just prior to the release of Very Best Of but there are still plenty of copies around.  The Best Of gives what it probably the most objective overview and I’m very tempted to choose that one.  Very Best Of has the advantage of being the one Morrissey has been the most closely involved with, so you might as well get that one.  At least it will make him happy.  Or perhaps not.

   Suedehead from "Suedehead" The Best of Morrissey

   Suedehead from The Best of Morrissey

   Suedehead from Greatest Hits

   Suedehead from Very Best of Morrissey

See also,

Bona Drag - 1990

With a new album due and not enough material to fill it, Bona Drag became a compilation of the singles and B-sides that Morrissey had released every three or four months in 1989 and 1990.  There was already ample precedent for this in Morrissey’s career.  The Smiths albums Hatful of Hollow and The World Won’t Listen were both collections of non-album tracks.  At the time of release, Bona Drag was completely redundant to anyone who had been buying the singles but today, it stands as a collection of some of Morrissey’s best work.  This was a time when many of his B-sides were as good as anyone else’s A-sides.  The lyrics of Interesting Drug are probably more relevant now than they ever were.  My one complaint is that the beautiful Will Never Marry is faded early and we miss out on the minor key coda.

World of Morrissey - 1995

1994’s Vauxhall and I was regarded as a triumphant return to form and Morrissey was reinstated as a national treasure, so it’s typically contrary that he would follow it up less than a year later with this bizarre, slapped together collection.  There was close to enough non-album material since Bona Drag to fill an album, but rather than do that, World of Morrissey is padded out with three tracks from the live album Beethoven Was Deaf and album tracks from Your Arsenal and Vauxhall and I. 

It’s a worthwhile sampler if you can find it going cheap, but otherwise pretty pointless.

My Early Burglary Years - 1998

Another North American release, this collection immediately scores points for being the first album release to include Nobody Loves Us, one of Morrissey’s best ever songs which was criminally hidden on the B-side of the unremarkable single, Dagenham Dave.  (It has since been added to the expanded edition of Southpaw Grammar.)  An excellent collection of rare tracks including the live version of T-Rex’s Cosmic Dancer, plus a couple of album tracks from Southpaw Grammar.  Unfortunately, as with World of Morrissey, the version of Jack the Ripper is the live version available on Beethoven Was Deaf rather than the much rarer studio version.

Swords -2009

Morrissey clearly saved up a lot of songs during his seven years without a record label – enough to make this full album’s worth of B-sides and bonus tracks from the singles released off You Are the Quarry, Ringleader of the Tormentors and Years of Refusal.  Most of them are just as good as, if not superior to those albums.  The exception is Sweetie-Pie, which is unlistenable, but Ganglord, Shame is the Name and Good Looking Man About Town are excellent.

As with Greatest Hits, a carrot for those who bought all the singles is another short live disc, this time recorded in Warsaw.  The sound quality of this live disc is pretty awful but this is almost refreshing in a way, now that most live recordings are so polished as to make you wonder.  Predictably enough, the live set focuses on Moz’s recent albums but two interesting inclusions are Why Don’t You Find Out For Yourself and You Just Haven’t Earned it Yet Baby.

Bona Drag - 20th anniversary edition - 2010

There’s something awfully meta about a remastered, expanded, anniversary edition of an album that was really only a company-pleasing stopgap in its day.  There are six additional tracks added but what is not mentioned is that several of the original tracks have been changed as well.  Piccadilly Palare has gained a third verse that was edited out of the original, although this is not the “no Dad,” version which has been posted on some fan sites.  The entire “table is rumbling” section has been cut out of Ouija Board Ouija Board and the ambient guitar strums have been chopped off the intro of Suedehead.  Sadly, the full-length version of Will Never Marry has not been restored.

Of the bonus tracks, most of them are worthy additions, especially The Bed Took Fire and the demo version of Please Help the Cause Against Loneliness, which was written for Sandie Shaw.  The problem is that by tacking these tracks on the end of the album, it ruins the end of Disappointed.  The self-deprecating “Goodnight, and thank you,” had been the perfect conclusion to the record.  I don’t know why Let the Right One Slip In has been included.  It’s a nice enough song, but all the other bonus tracks come from the same era as the rest of Bona Drag while …Slip In is from the Your Arsenal sessions.

Suedehead from Bona Drag 1990

Suedehead from Bona Drag 2010 remaster