The Best of Morrissey | Morrissey | "Everybody's Lost, But Pretending They Are Not"

The Best of Morrissey | Morrissey | If you don't know MOZ...

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The Best of Morrissey

	The Best of Morrissey Morrissey Rhino / Wea, 2001 average customer review:based on 40 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Morrissey hasn't released a new album in several years, but that hasn't put a damper on the willful eccentricity of his discography. "Best," in this instance, means not most popular but most characteristic. This American greatest-hits set is very different from its British equivalent, Suedehead, omitting half of his U.K. chart singles in favor of a curious lineup of high-aesthetic album tracks and B-sides, reportedly picked by the Moz himself. The original idea of Morrissey's solo career was to reach beyond the stylistic confines of the Smiths, but these songs are in basically the same line of work, with first Stephen Street and later Alain Whyte and others playing the Johnny Marr role of guitarist and musical foil. Generally, they're overmatched: "Interesting Drug" and "The More You Ignore Me, the Closer I Get" still have a wry buzz to them, but a lot of these songs are little more than vehicles for the star's lyrics and unstoppable vocal presence. --Douglas Wolk

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"Everybody's Lost, But Pretending They Are Not"

"The Best of Morrissey" is the Morrissey greatest hits collection for the American market. In Britain, and here in Australia, we get "Suedehead: The Best of". This version covers the first ten years of his solo career (1988-1997), and contains 21 tracks.

I remember when I first heard Morrissey's music. It was the last year of high school, and I was studying Oscar Wilde in literature. To help me study, I went on the net and searched the P2Ps for "Oscar Wilde", in case there was a reading or performance of one of his works I could download (I don't use that sort of thing these days, mind you). Nothing much came up except for something by a "Morrissey". I downloaded it, and there was a smooth voiced man speaking passionately on it about how incredibly quotable Oscar Wilde is, and how he thought that the upcoming "Importance of Being Earnest Film" was hopefully going to be really big. At the end of the track, there was a snippet of a song sung by Morrissey, singing his heart out. I found out much later the track was "Alma Matters", a kind of an appropriate song lyrically for the last year of high school. At the time, I had no idea, but I wanted to hear more, so I ended up getting a couple of compilations, one from his old band The Smiths, and the other from his solo career. Catchy tunes, witty lyrics, great voice, I quickly became a fan.

A lot of rock listeners prefer The Smiths to Morrissey's solo stuff. Though the quantity of classic tracks is a fair bit higher of a Smiths record than a Morrissey solo CD, I do prefer a good Morrissey solo song to a good Smiths one. The production is brighter, playful and colorful. The band toys with a lot more styles than The Smiths did. Morrissey sounds more like himself too, free to explore his interests more fully in his lyrics, be they "the romance of crime", boxing matches, or the music industry, along with his usual themes of unrequited love, boredom and the struggles of youth. It's a little deeper in its Britishness that the Smiths too (if that makes sense). He's a brilliant lyricist, and in this part of his career it's just as good as it was when he started.

If you're getting into Morrissey, I've got to warn you. Choose the compilation you get carefully. If you like what you hear and want to get more, you will end up with overlap, as Morrissey has rereleased and repackaged his songs in so many different ways. For that reason, I prefer the "Suedehead" compilation, as there are rare tracks there you won't find on any other full length CD.

Here's a rundown of how many of the songs on "The Best of!" you'll find on Morrissey's other full length discs:

3 are on "Viva Hate" (1988)
7 are on "Bona Drag" (1990, compilation)
1 is on "Kill Uncle" (1991)
5 are on "Your Arsenal" (1992)
3 are on "Vauxhall and I" (1994)
2 are on "World of Morrissey" (1995, compilation)
10 are on "Suedehead: The Best of" (1995, compilation)
1 is on "Southpaw Grammar" (1995)
1 is on "Maladjusted" (1997)
1 is on "My Early Burglary Years" (1998, compilation)
1 is on "Rare Tracks" (1998, compilation)

The "rare track" is Lost, a B-side originally from the "Roy's Keen" single. I would have preferred the B-side "I Can Have Both" (one of my favorites, and one Morrissey used to do live often), but "Lost" has grown on me. It's a mid-tempo song with lush production about a skywriter, a pilot of one of those planes that writes things with the smoke. It's well sung, and has some touching lyrics. "Everybody's lost, but pretending they are not." I know what he means...

This compilation comes with a nice thick booklet, which I always like. It contains full lyrics, a few pictures of Morrissey, a lengthy foreword of sorts by Michael Bracewell, speaking very highly of the music and its singer. I think he overanalyses a bit in it, but no matter. Where each song charted in both the UK and US is also listed, which is interesting. ("Lost" peaked at #671 in the UK. Hehe!). I also just notice that Morrissey himself recommends some albums for the listener to check out in the back page of the booklet. (Jobriath, Phil Ochs, The Ramones, Nancy Sinatra and Burt Bacharach). Interesting choices...

If you're looking for a one disc overview of Morrissey, this is probably the best one to get. If you think you may become a fan, (and if you like this, you probably will do) you might want to pick up another compilation (like "Bona Drag" or "Suedehead") to avoid a bit of overlap later.

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If you don't know MOZ...

... then you have lived under a rock, but it is not too late to try and be hip. A great starter cd for nerds and shut ins!

Morrissey Review from Baltimore,Maryland

I purchased this cd for my husband as a stocking stuffer...He loves it ! It has a varity of Morrissey's songs and get to sing to it takes us back to when we were 10 years old.

It's tough to be the voice of a generation

When Morrissey decided he was done with The Smiths, it was the usual comments about wanting to grow beyond the confines of the band. While some of the solo albums do make the creative break form the sound of The Smiths, a great deal of this "Best Of" sound like The Smiths with a few minor variations. Which says that while Johnny Marr's guitar was the perfect foil for Morrissey's manic/depressive lyricism, Morrissey possesses such a strong individual musical personality that he will always just be Morrissey. He still played against strong musical personalities after The Smiths, like Stephen Street, Alain Whyte and Mick Ronson, to name three.

Even they were only the coloration to Morrissey's mythology...lovable but unreachable, accessable but self-absorbed, and the words that millions of alienated young folks could wrap themselves up within like foggy London cloaks. The initial solo forays like "Suedehead" or "Every Day Is Like Sunday" were perfect transcriptions of the contradictions of being Morrissey, sounding first apologetic for the tragedy then repulsed by the intrusion. "Come Armegeddon, come" indeed!

This is a pretty good thing for us. Morrissey's individually unique vocal style is welded to his weirdly poetic creeds for all of this CD's 21 tracks. It is a generous sampling from his solo CD's from 1990's "Viva Hate" to 1997's "Maladjusted," with one previously unreleased b-side single. These are also songs that Morrissey himself decided should go here. Because while his US Cult of fans managed to pull every album into the American Top 100, only one - really! - single ever cracked the Top 100.

"The More You Ignore Me The Closer I Get" managed to claw its way to 46 on the American charts. Naturally, it leads off this CD. Then we are treated to a wide variety of instantly recognizable moping as only Morrissey can deliver. While his personality overrides everything, the musical styles do manage a few surprises. My favorites are when producer Mick Ronson and Morrissey endeavored to become the second coming of Ziggy Stardust on "Your Arsenal." (Morrissey must have dug it, too; five songs are taken from that album.) Coming off like a Bowie or Mott acolyte, the glam guitars that grind through "Glamorous Glue" and "We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful" are as close as the Moz came to 'rocking out.' (After listening to the tracks from "Your Arsenel," you are left to ponder: Any wonder that Morrissey championed the re-issue of tragic glamster Jobriath's anthology?)

The lyrical sarcasm and emotional kinks are all here on glorious disarray. One of my favorites is from "Disappointed," where he croaks out "this is the last song I will ever sing...No, I've changed my mind again!" atop a riff that quotes "How Soon Is Now," one of The Smiths' best moments. Post-Smiths, Morrissey was also able to mature a little. In the song "Sing Your Life," which sounds produced to hit a commercial bulls-eye by the chart-topper team of Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley, Morrissey seems to be outlining his musical autobiography. "Others sang your life," he beckons, "but now is your chance to shine...so sing your life! All the things you love, all the things you loathe."

That just about sums up the idiosyncrasies of Morrissey at his best. This "Best Of" covers plenty of ground for those looking for a starter kit, along with The Smiths' "Singles."

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Personally half the album is not good