Post by Fuggle on Apr 12, 2006 18:34:49 GMT -5
NEW TRICKS FOR THE MOPESTER
Morrissey provokes with new challenges to old questions.
By Armond White
“Life is a pigsty,” Morrissey sings on his new album, Ringleader of the Tormentors. But he ends the track pledging, “I’m falling in love again.” That roller coaster up-and-down accounts for Morrissey’s irresistible, undeniable charm. It’s why he’s a pop music giant. One is torn and galvanized all within the same song.
This attraction/repulsion game is implicit in the new disc’s very title. It’s not that Morrissey takes the side of all our oppressors; rather, he assumes the revolutionary’s stance as provocateur of our deepest, sorest pangs.
Each song on Ringleader is a memento mori; that is, a reminder that we are frail and strong, unsatisfied and desirous—human.
You don’t achieve such complex awareness without risking repulsion and that, of course, is the flip side of magnetism. Banal music listeners are not used to an artist who offends in order to exult. (It’s why they buy Coldplay, Radiohead, U2, The Strokes, James Blunt.) But that trick is central to enjoying Ringleader, the album in which Morrissey does his most extravagant and thrilling singing.
On “Life is a Pigsty,” Morrissey’s long, pessimistic overture (“It’s the same old S-O-S”) resolves into an equally lengthy, passionate declaration of desire. It’s unlike most pop music that teenagers (and aged teenagers) are encouraged to attend. There is thrilling mastery in the way Morrissey vocally expresses his pell-mell descent into emotional abandon. You have to go back to the torch singers of the 1950s, and it’s doubtful if any of them (mostly female—Ella, Sarah, Billie, Gogi) revealed such extravagant, intimate sensation.
But before getting to such revelation, Morrissey rigorously ascertains everyday obstacles to happiness. In a keen, plainspoken apercu about life’s ugliness, he asks, “If you don’t know this, then WHAT do you know?” For desire to achieve its full value (the heavy weight of tragedy), one has to face the reality of disappointment, the dreadful dejection that life may well be a pigsty. And that’s what the song conveys before it employs necessary philosophical contradiction—insisting upon never ending desire which is, ultimately, faith.
Pop music is usually reassuringly light, but Morrissey’s offhand profundity is a reminder of how great pop music can be. If he can dare it, we can take it. Ringleader rejects mindless happiness to consider the worldview and personal realization we expect of the blues and/or the best punk. Those are Morrissey’s seldom-recognized influences. It’s when he goes bluesy or punky that he is most original. And damn, if he doesn’t find that unexpected mix in the raucous elegance of glam rock. Producer Tony Visconti (T-Rex) inspires Morrissey’s just-so band to play with surprising aplomb. And Morrissey’s singing was never before so heartening.
With Visconti, Morrissey’s vocal virtuosity makes up for songs that are half-narratives yet rich with personal sentiment. The album’s highlight is “The Father Who Must Be Killed.” Not merely an arch-feminist tirade, the song exults in domestic terror and sad, sad escape. It’s bewilderingly great. If Johnny Rotten sang it, no one would be puzzled. From Morrissey, it implies extraordinary tragedy, confronting the world’s unfairness (“There’s a law against me now!”) with a dearly recognizable challenge.
Morrissey provokes with new challenges to old questions.
By Armond White
“Life is a pigsty,” Morrissey sings on his new album, Ringleader of the Tormentors. But he ends the track pledging, “I’m falling in love again.” That roller coaster up-and-down accounts for Morrissey’s irresistible, undeniable charm. It’s why he’s a pop music giant. One is torn and galvanized all within the same song.
This attraction/repulsion game is implicit in the new disc’s very title. It’s not that Morrissey takes the side of all our oppressors; rather, he assumes the revolutionary’s stance as provocateur of our deepest, sorest pangs.
Each song on Ringleader is a memento mori; that is, a reminder that we are frail and strong, unsatisfied and desirous—human.
You don’t achieve such complex awareness without risking repulsion and that, of course, is the flip side of magnetism. Banal music listeners are not used to an artist who offends in order to exult. (It’s why they buy Coldplay, Radiohead, U2, The Strokes, James Blunt.) But that trick is central to enjoying Ringleader, the album in which Morrissey does his most extravagant and thrilling singing.
On “Life is a Pigsty,” Morrissey’s long, pessimistic overture (“It’s the same old S-O-S”) resolves into an equally lengthy, passionate declaration of desire. It’s unlike most pop music that teenagers (and aged teenagers) are encouraged to attend. There is thrilling mastery in the way Morrissey vocally expresses his pell-mell descent into emotional abandon. You have to go back to the torch singers of the 1950s, and it’s doubtful if any of them (mostly female—Ella, Sarah, Billie, Gogi) revealed such extravagant, intimate sensation.
But before getting to such revelation, Morrissey rigorously ascertains everyday obstacles to happiness. In a keen, plainspoken apercu about life’s ugliness, he asks, “If you don’t know this, then WHAT do you know?” For desire to achieve its full value (the heavy weight of tragedy), one has to face the reality of disappointment, the dreadful dejection that life may well be a pigsty. And that’s what the song conveys before it employs necessary philosophical contradiction—insisting upon never ending desire which is, ultimately, faith.
Pop music is usually reassuringly light, but Morrissey’s offhand profundity is a reminder of how great pop music can be. If he can dare it, we can take it. Ringleader rejects mindless happiness to consider the worldview and personal realization we expect of the blues and/or the best punk. Those are Morrissey’s seldom-recognized influences. It’s when he goes bluesy or punky that he is most original. And damn, if he doesn’t find that unexpected mix in the raucous elegance of glam rock. Producer Tony Visconti (T-Rex) inspires Morrissey’s just-so band to play with surprising aplomb. And Morrissey’s singing was never before so heartening.
With Visconti, Morrissey’s vocal virtuosity makes up for songs that are half-narratives yet rich with personal sentiment. The album’s highlight is “The Father Who Must Be Killed.” Not merely an arch-feminist tirade, the song exults in domestic terror and sad, sad escape. It’s bewilderingly great. If Johnny Rotten sang it, no one would be puzzled. From Morrissey, it implies extraordinary tragedy, confronting the world’s unfairness (“There’s a law against me now!”) with a dearly recognizable challenge.