Album of the Month: LOW IN HIGH SCHOOL by Morrissey

There's nothing esoteric about writing music reviews. There's no mystery. If anything, the idea is downright ugly in its simplicity: you have to be able to distinguish a good song from a bad song. To which you could, of course, say that everything is relative and there is nothing more relative than taste. To which I would say that yes, dear, certainly, but that's no excuse for saying Liam Gallagher is a songwriter. 

In other words, when I see NME (why oh why did I do this to myself?) call the first five songs on Morrissey's new album 'passable', I don't want to hear one word about relativity. Because this, at best, is a fucking joke. 

But then it's not about music, now, is it. It's Morrissey saying this, Morrissey saying that. It's Morrissey being for Brexit (I almost spilt a good cup of flat white when I opened the latest Uncut and saw the lyrical 'interpretation' of "Jacky's Only Happy When She's Up On The Stage"). It's Morrissey saying something positive about Nigel Farage. It's Morrissey writing a bad novel. It's Morrissey not dissecting the rotting corpse of Harvey Weinstein.  

By now, I honestly feel like my body is covered with a billion tiny snowflakes, and I'm not even on Twitter.

And not even because I care all that much, about Morrissey's views or any of it, but simply because Low In High School is one of his best albums. It's imaginative, well-written, provocatively bold. What more could you possibly wish from Morrissey? An album of Smiths' covers?

"Israel" has one hell of a vocal performance (also, I feel this is the right moment to say that Nick Cave got even higher in my esteem having agreed to play a concert in Israel despite any number of humourless people). "I Bury The Living" is both monstrous and monumental, and a great deal more inventive than most of people's entire careers. "Home Is A Question Mark" is powerful and heartfelt. "Spent The Day In Bed" just gets better with each new listen. "Who Will Protect Us From The Police?" has one of this year's greatest vocal hooks. The aforementioned "Jacky" is a stone cold Morrissey classic. 

I love the sense of urgency, I love the feeling of an artist having something to say. And I mean musically. God knows I mean musically, above all else. And also, just in case I did not make myself clear enough, I want Morrissey to keep inhabiting the world unpopulated by people who can't tell a good song from a Twitter feed.

Axes out

I'm just wondering... These people who dismiss the new album by Morrissey with such self-important vigour - are they the very same ones who call you sick if you say Kevin Spacey is a great actor?

Because I think they are.

travelling notes (xliii)

There's a lot to be said for Riga. The wine in the record store. The hidden corners of the river. The Soviet past, lovingly assimilated. Etc. And yet - forget about the trivia. In actual fact, it's all about The Left Door Bar and its Alchemical cocktail. Without a shadow of a doubt - the single most perfect drink I've had in my life.

Four-Letter Word

Just how did it happen, exactly? And why?

Ten years ago, when you used the word 'hype' (and you rarely did, because it's one of the most tasteless words in existence), you meant bullshit. You meant crap. You meant overrated rubbish. 

These days, every poor soul with seven followers to their name puts the word in pointless caps, adds a million exclamation marks and, crucially, means something totally opposite. 

This offends me. Nothing screams louder about the sheer insincerity of our times than this four-letter word. 

Ten years ago, you appealed to the content, and thus decried everything that may have looked presentable and well-advertised but had a huge hole inside. Like those albums by Razorlight that were on every wall in London in the summer of 2006 (people actually gave a damn about Razorlight, at some point). These days, you appeal to the shell. Presentation is all that matters and so hype is good since the actual content pales in comparison with the blandest of Razorlight records. 

As Ian McEwan puts it in his latest novel Nutshell, "These are new times. Perhaps they are ancient". The phrasing here is phenomenal. Because 'ancient' doesn't mean 'old'. It means 'primitive'.