Morrissey - Live at Earl's Court
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Free Music Notes for Live at Earl's Court
Free Music Review: "I can't be wrong about _everything_..."
Hit: 4 Stars
LAEC is a joy to listen to, with some of the strongest songs from the recent album (I Have Forgiven Jesus is given a particularly stellar treatment) as well as indispensable Smiths classics (that opening riff of HSIN almost brings tears to the eyes). The new cover of Redondo beach is also classic - figures he would choose to cover a song containing the words 'dreary,' 'dismal,' 'suicide' and 'gone.'
A couple of songs benefit from little lyrical innovations - "As you sleep, I will creep / into your _bed_ like a bad debt...etc." he sings in The More You Ignore Me; but for the most part, the songs are similiar to their studio versions. A bit too similiar in some cases. The production is very crisp and polished, and it seems to me like some of the atmosphere, the live energy, is lost. With There is a Light That Never Goes Out, for example, it's just not the same without the crowd ecstatically chanting along on the chorus.
Still, it's a good live album, and definitely worth buying.
Free Music Review: 'Beethoven' is better
Hit: 4 Stars
Long time fans may be a little disappointed with Earls' Court as it doesn't have the energy and spontaneity of 'Beethoven was Deaf'the live offering released in 1993 which featured so many songs from 'Your Arsenal'. Morrissey should have held to his statement,"Reggae is Vile" and omitted Patti Smith's Redondo Beach.Likewise, The version of 'Bigmouth Strikes Again'here is toothless and non-threatening whereas the live version on the Smiths "Rank" taped in October of 1986 was nasty and aggressive.
Of course when the Mozzer is given 18 chances, he succeeds more often than not. 'How Soon is Now?', the opening track, is excellent, brooding and menacing and well -rehearsed without being generic. My favorite is "Shoplifters of The World, Unite", and the b-sides "Don't make fun of Daddy's voice" and 'Friday Mourning' are welcomed here as it saves completists money and the inconvenience of buying more cd-singles released by the greedy Attack Records machine.
Free Music Review: One of his best
Hit: 4 Stars
Wow - Morrissey sounds like he actually cares about what he's singing. He sounds energized by the crowd and the live setting. Somewhat of a "Greatest Hits" package live. The Smiths numbers are pretty great - they just miss a bit by not having Johnny Marr on guitar, although Morrissey's band acquit themselves rather well. The lyrics are enunciated very clearly and given a delivery that shows Morrissey's growth as a vocalist. A few vocal embellishments here and there are well chosen and add to the interest of what is admittedly a limited range of pitch. Very strong outing by Morrissey, and possibly my favorite of his solo outings.Free Music Review: wish I was there
Hit: 4 Stars
an enjoyable live performance that surprisingly demonstrates how well the classic Smiths' stuff goes with the new Morrissey. The songs are arranged nicely as the listener is treated to an array of themes: among which are lust, cynicism, a lot of black humor and light-hearted moments. Morrissey makes some interesting sounds with his voice on this work and improvises some of the lyrics, providing alternately strange and refreshing accents to the songs.
Ultimately it's about the uniqueness of this artist and the ongoing passion he brings to the music world. The band is tight and the singer has only gotten better with time.
Free Music Review: After Twenty Years, He's Won Me Over
Hit: 3 Stars
If nothing else, Morrissey surely deserves a medal for the best song titles of all time; "Shoplifters of the World Unite", "I Have Forgiven Jesus", and "Hairdresser on Fire" represent only a small smattering of examples. And the lyrics? They're even more incredible, although his are definitely an acquired taste. What do you make of a song with the following chorus;
"Don't make fun of Daddy's voice because he can't help it.
When he was a teenaged boy, something got stuck in his throat",
especially when sung with a forceful effeminism?
Morrissey's new pair of live releases proves that that he is still a vital performer. His recent material sounds great here. Old favorites from Morrissey's days with the Smiths are liberally distributed throughout the CD and DVD too, and are also performed quite admirably, especially "How Soon is Now?" (from the CD only, for some unknown reason) and "There Is a Light that Never Goes Out", with lyrics that still astound me for their forthright and darkly humorous airs;
"If a double-decker bus crashes into us
To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die,
And if a ten-truck kills the both off us,
To die by your side, the pleasure, the privilege is mine."
I first heard those words on my car radio some time in the `80s, and the pure sentiment made me laugh back then. Remarkably, they still do. As an American, it's hard to imagine the fan worship that surrounds Morrissey for that exact reason. He sports a wry detachment that cannot disguise the raw emotion underneath. The DVD contains `extra' footage from a festival in Manchester where the audience sings along on every single word, including those written above.
Twenty years past his prime years with the Smiths, Morrissey now looks like somebody's dicey uncle. Although it has been a verboten topic, his sexuality has always been an issue with his fans, although it is ultimately moot. Gay, straight, bisexual, ambisexual or asexual, Morrissey's lyrics and companion melodies address individuality and self-obsession (which includes self-loathing) as their main concern. Both the new CD and the DVD convey this in a more adequate manner than any of his previous solo disks, and perhaps even more so than his work with the Smiths, although without the same aplomb. Besides writing good material, the Smiths were a band with plenty of charisma. Morrissey's new group is incredibly efficient, but all of them combined cannot muster the appeal of Johnny Marr. Perhaps this is the reason that the CD manages to convey more excitement than the DVD. The new band plays admirably on both, but never gets past the role of well-rehearsed and extremely dynamic sidemen - mysterious friends of the dicey uncle. This leaves all of the attention to be focused squarely on Morrissey, and he doesn't seem to mind at all. Over twenty years into his career, Morrissey still sounds great - and looks great, too, in a `dicey-uncle' kind of way - and still writes material that holds up against his catalog of work.
A word of warning - one `extra' on the DVD contains a graphic documentary film that intends to put you off of meat forever. Watch it, and you may never eat meat again. CD = B+ DVD = B Tom Ryan