Southpaw Grammar

Morrissey - Southpaw Grammar

Southpaw Grammar
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Category: Music CD
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Music CD Cover

Artist: Morrissey
Brand: MORRISSEY
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
CD Release Date: 2009-02-03
Music Label: Rhino Flashback
Soundtracks:
  1. Teachers Are Afraid of the Pupils
  2. Reader Meet Author
  3. The Boy Racer
  4. The Operation
  5. Dagenham Dave
  6. Do Your Best and Don't Worry
  7. Best Friend on the Payroll
  8. Southpaw

Free Music Notes for Southpaw Grammar

Free Music Review: Caveat emptor
Hit: 4 Stars

This re-release is identical to the original CD, Southpaw Grammarand Southpaw Grammar. I suspect the low price is an effort to clear out inventory of this CD before the remastered version with bonus tracks comes out later this year. Do not buy this thinking it is the remaster. In fact, there is little reason to buy this at all unless you're a particularly OCD sort of completist.

The music, though, is good. "Southpaw" is an atypical and epic track; one of the best compositions I've heard from any of Morrissey's bands. The lyrics and vocals are simple but compelling.

"The Operation" features an extended drum intro - which is fine - but detracts from the overall quality of the song. Minus the intro, the song could have been a single. "Reader Meet Author" and "The Boy Racer" are probably the most listener-friendly tracks and Morrissey has included them in live sets more than the other songs. "Dagenham Dave" is one of his worst singles, but excepting the chorus it has grown on me. It only took 10+ years for me to appreciate it. The opener bores me to tears - maybe it's more relevant to his British audience. The other songs are not notable.

Southpaw Grammar Poster

Originally released in 1995, Southpaw Grammar was Morrissey s fifth solo album, charted at No.4 in the UK charts on release, and featured the fans favourite singles Dagenham Dave and Boy Racer . This re-issue has become a very personal project to Morrissey, who wanted to re-sequence the tracklisting, adding in four previously unreleased tracks, and give it completely new artwork. The album features new design by Anthony Lui, and previously unseen photographs by Linder Sterling.
Pop stars who last more than a decade often survive but change: U2 goes from righteous to cartoonish, Sting from new wave to adult contemporary, Prince from purple to nameless. Morrissey, though, survives by staying the same, by pushing the flashing-red alienation buttons of each new year's crop of outsider adolescents. So while fans tend to grow out of the great Moz sometime after they lose their virginity, there's always a new, larger batch of pubescent mopers to take their place. For older listeners, it may seem Morrissey hasn't written a consistently incisive or catchy album since his first solo effort, 1988's Viva Hate, which itself pales next to his classic work with the Smiths. Since going solo, he's completely abandoned evocative poetry, opting instead for funny titles (remember the empty tease of "Hairdresser On Fire"?). Southpaw Grammar, Morrissey's fifth studio record, has a number of stellar song names--"Best Friend on the Payroll," for instance--but musically, adds up to just another indistinguishable mush of groaned haiku ready to be heaped onto the pile of other cleverly titled but otherwise forgettable releases. To be fair, Southpaw Grammar is not all bad. A moody epic like the 11-minute orchestrated opener "The Teachers Are Afraid of the Pupils," a classic Morrissey modern-day crucifixion tale, at least balances the recycled MTV-fare of "The Boy Racer" and "Dagenham Dave." There's even a hint of career development: Long instrumental sections, such as in the 10-minute finale "Southpaw," plus an overall heavier rock sound, indicate more creative input from the band. But would anyone put on a Morrissey record to hear a two-and-a-half minute drum solo like the one that starts Southpaw's "The Operation"? Then again, perhaps we should just be thankful Morrissey didn't use the moment to berate us with more shameful triteness like Southpaw's "Do Your Best and Don't Worry."

And yet, the man's popularity steadily grows. For grown-up, former fans, it seems the more we ignore him, the closer he gets to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. --Roni Sarig

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