Album Review: Morrissey- World Peace is None of Your Business
Steven Patrick Morrissey. Mozzer. The Pope of Mope. The
Sultan of Sulk. Or, simply, Morrissey.
You may know him as the former lead singer of the seminal
band The Smiths, as a solo artist, as a mouthpiece for PETA, as a performer of
questionable health, as an author, or all around curmudgeon. The truth is that
Morrissey is all of these things and more.
Despite recently attracting attention for the controversy
surrounding his recent string of canceled tour dates, Morrissey occasionally
records an album when he’s signed to a label, and coming five years after his
last solo outing, Universal subsidiary Harvest was kind to pick him up so he
could record his 10th LP, entertainingly titled World Peace is None of Your Business.
As expected, World
Peace is incredibly dramatic, but also full of shit-eating grins, as Mozzer
is one of the few artists in contemporary popular music that is some how able
to walk the line between taking himself too seriously and not taking himself
seriously at all—e.g. lyrics like “People
having babies, babies full of rabies,” or a song named “Kick The Bride Down
The Aisle”—
Kick the bride down
the aisle
Look at that cow in
the field
It knows more than
your bride knows now
She just wants a slave
to break his back in pursuit of a living wage
So that she can laze
and graze
For the rest of her
days
Full disclosure—I’m not, like, super well versed in
Morrissey’s solo canon, but I do find the overall sound of his solo output to
have taken a fascinating trajectory over the last 20+ years. Starting out with Viva Hate, which still owed much to the
sound and style of The Smiths, he’s eased his way into a much fuller, theatrical,
and at times, heavier sound, thanks to his current backing band, lead by
guitarist Boz Boorer. In comparison to 2009’s Years of Refusal, World Peace
is (mostly) less aggressive musically, but because Morrissey, it’s as, if not
more, aggressive and incendiary in its lyrical content.
World Peace is None of
Your Business is rather dense affair, and at times, the album’s attempts at
stone-cold seriousness, and self-indulgent tendencies, allow it to drag on. The
didgeridoo intro to the title track that awkwardly folds into the actual
beginning of the song, and the 90-seconds of eerie tones and tape hiss that
serve as a prologue to the already lengthy “I’m Not a Man,” could both be done
without, and most of the tracks border into the five minute running time, which
can be a dangerous thing in 2014.
As a public figure, Morrissey is incredibly polarizing. Some
love his world-weary outlook, his animal rights activism, his criticisms of the
royal family, etc, but then some just don’t get it. And that’s okay, because
Steven Patrick Morrissey probably doesn’t give a shit about if you “get it” or
not, and more than a little bit of that attitude leaks over into his lyrics on World Peace—specifically looking at the
condemnation of governments on the title track, and the many (and often
hilarious) asides on how shitty the human race is overall—“Humans are not really very humane,” he bluntly states on “Earth Is
The Loneliest Planet;” then, later on “Mountjoy”: “What those in power do to you, reminds us at a glance how humans hate
each others guts, and show it given a chance.”
Musically, Morrissey and the band’s sound is much more
dynamic than it was on Years of Refusal,
and that may be thanks in part to their work with producer Joe Chiccarelli—who
has manned the boards for a long and diverse list of artists. On World Peace, he manages to balance out
the pomp and gusto of Mozzer’s pontificating, and gives the band a big, yet
orderly, sound. The only time things backslide into a somewhat flat sound is on
one of the bonus tracks, “Art Hounds.”
There are a few points on the album where I feel like the
band, or Chiccarelli, is attempting to “modernize” Morrissey—who, as a figure,
is not exactly stuck in the past, per se, but is definitely not a man of the
times. These points usually include slick production techniques or
effects—guitar pedal fuckery, compressed and distorted percussion, airy synths,
and what sounds like turntable scratches on “Earth is The Loneliest Planet” but
is more than likely just fast, processed guitar chugs. These tricks don’t
exactly fall short, but they can seem a little out of place when backing
Mozzer’s bombastic voice.
Even when the album meanders, or runs a little long, it
never becomes intolerable or unlistenable—some of the songs just work better
than others, and there are even some surprising moments—the stark beauty of
“Mountjoy,” arriving late in the sequencing, is one of the album’s finest songs.
And the triple shot of “Staircase at The University, “The Bullfighter Dies,”
and “Kiss Me A lot” all have some element that is reminiscent of The Smiths’
style of song writing; whether it be running time, rhythm, or cheery lyrics (“Staircase at the university—she threw
herself down, and her head split three ways.”)
Morrissey has never been a “feel good” artist, but even when
this record starts to fall under its own weight, it still stands up thanks to
his ability to dress up misanthropic lyrics with up-tempo pop arrangements.,
and there are two questions that remain by the time you reach the conclusion of
World Peace is None of Your Business.
One of those is—if it’s none of MY business, whose business IS world peace?
The other is this—as Morrissey unsteadily enters the third
decade of his career, with more of that time spent a solo artist and being “the
former frontman of The Smiths,” much like any other artist that has had this
kind of longevity, what does a late in the game album like this mean for them?
Taking seven years off between solo efforts, Mozzer hit a
three-peat stride with his mid to late 2000’s resurgence in the form of You Are The Quarry, Ringleader of The
Tormentors, and finally, Years of
Refusal, all of which charted well both Stateside and in the UK. And
certainly someone will always be discovering The Smiths—thanks in part to their
reference in The Perks of Being a
Wallflower—but similarly to last year’s surprising return of David Bowie, World Peace is None of Your Business is
not so much a game changer, or a career redefining effort, but it is a welcome
comeback for someone that didn’t ever really leave, but spent the last five
years being known for things other than the title “recording artist.”
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