I never followed Morrissey's career much beyond the first single. In some circles, event to say that might be considered flamebait, but, right or wrong, it's true. There was a song a few years back they played on the radio, First of the Gang to Die that I quite liked, but generally the stuff that I only half-heard sounded like a lame footnote to The Smiths. There came a point where Morrissey being Morrissey wasn't original any more, and his lyrics took on an air of unintentional self-parody. That line about people keeping their brains between their legs is a case in point: you can imagine him imagining the reviews as he wrote it, archly playing up to the Morrissey persona.
I really like the first single, though — especially the b-side, Hairdresser on Fire, which grew on me slowly over the years. "Within an hour, the power / to totally destroy me / or it could save my life." It captures something about London, and the circles of self-regard within it, that skewers its vacuous busy-ness at the same time as lending it a Wildean dignity (repressed, but remarkaby dressed etc,; "It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances").
It was on the strength of that, plus maybe the mention of Bona Drag at the start of Heartbreaker, that I bought the album when I saw it for a fiver in Fopp in 2001.
MusicBrainz entry for this album
Comments