March 8, 2009

"It's not your birthday anymore! There's no need to be kind to you!"

Morrissey - Years of Refusal
Verdict: Love More (<3)

There are three things that I always think about whenever someone mentions Morrissey:

This picture.

This video.

And this song.

I was taken aback by the cover of this album when I opened it up (isn't he famously asexual? where did this kid come from?), but also kind of shocked that he was still making music. I was a little skeptical, because a few of the aging artists that have released albums recently haven't done very impressive things. This album is not an album to be added to that list.

However, while listening to it I have a trouble figuring out whether or not I like it. The album is, over all, surprising and not surprising. It's super clean and well mixed, but it's freakin Morrissey, so what do you expect? But it's got this dirtiness, this oversexuallized weirdness to it that you would think may not be there now that he's pushin 50, but, yet, it's there. He's clearly been influenced by contemporary artists (the one that really seems to come out is Murder By Death, but that might just be that MBD pulls certain similar influences), but it still has this signature Morrissey feel to it, which is probably hard for Morrissey to ever escape.

All the songs are just so perfectly composed that it feels a bit like he's calling it in, but I know that's not the case, because he always kind of sounds disinterested, that's just the way his voice sounds...

So I don't really know. I get this feeling that I could really really fall in love with this album, but that the sound isn't on the edge of anything new, so I'm not really going to put it on that often. It's not a classic, so the classic-style doesn't do much for it. Gosh, now I've worked myself into a hizzy. Everything about this album is perfect, you even want to be singing along as jsoon as it starts, and you almost feel like you can, something my friend Cody clued me onto as a phenomenal gage of goodness. I really enjoy listening to it, and I hope I continue to for a while.

Morrissey - All You Need Is Me

Morrissey - When I Last Spoke to Carol
Morrissey - It's Not Your Birthday

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