YEARS OF REFUSAL BY MORRISSEY

I hardly buy CD’s anymore….This is partly because I very rarely hear a band that I like enough that I would want to buy a whole CD preferring instead to burn individual songs off the Internet….Of artists I have been a fan of for long periods of time, very few of them are still active….One artist who still releases music that I will always buy is Morrissey.

His latest CD YEARS OF REFUSAL however does not inspire me to write much….Not that it’s bad, there are a number of great songs (SOMETHING IS SQUEEZING MY SKULL, ALL YOU NEED IS ME, BLACK CLOUD, SORRY DOESN’T HELP) it’s just extremely short (less than 40 minutes I think) and many of the songs are very simple(even the ballads) comprising of two or three chords played at different volumes and relying on Morrissey to set the chord changes off by his voice.

Looking back at my personal history of music, Squeeze, Elvis Costello, and The Smiths are and were my favorites….Morrissey has now been a solo artist almost three times longer than, his past band, The Smiths, were together….He is also the only one of those three still making interesting music.

During the seven year hiatus between 1997 and 2004, when Morrissey toured constantly building his fan base but didn’t release any new CD’s, fan excitement really grew and I for one was not let down by his last two CD’s YOU ARE THE QUARRY and RINGLEADER OF THE TORMENTORS which I thought were excellent.

That’s why I’m puzzled by YEARS OF REFUSAL…. The meticulous production and excellent melodies are not on display here despite this being produced by Jerry Finn who produced YOU ARE THE QUARRY….Instead, the result is a bit sloppy although one cannot deny the energy of the musicians nor Morrissey himself who sounds great as always….He has long been my favorite singer and on that score this CD is alright.

Not a bad musical experience if you are a Morrissey fan like myself….Just much lighter compared to what has come before (I think I will do a future post describing the quality of individual Morrissey CD’s)….We will see if this grows on me over time.