Morrissey - Greatest Hits

Since the break up of the Smiths in 1987, Morrissey has had a more successful solo career than I think anyone would ever have predicted. Certainly by comparison to former Smiths member Johnny Marr, Morrissey has been one of the few major rock stars to settle well into old age, adapting to current trends while retaining everything that people love him for: In particular, that velveteen crooner of a voice, which sounds just as smooth and polished today as when Moz – as he’s chummily referred to in the British tabloids – was singing “How Soon Is Now?” back in 1984.

Still, there is little doubt that the man’s best days are behind him. His strongest solo records – the irresistibly dark and vicious “Viva Hate” and the terse, muscular “Your Arsenal” – spanned the period 1988 to 1994, and though his most recent releases have been perfectly solid efforts, they show the star settling into a comfortable rut rather than really pushing himself. His last release, “Ringleader of the Tormentors” was especially worrisome: save for a handful of tracks, it was Moz on auto-pilot, lazily working his way through his usual themes of paranoia, cynicism and self-hate over a thoroughly middle-of-the-road modern rock sound.

Oddly enough, on Morrissey’s new compilation album, very misleadingly titled “Greatest Hits,” it is the recent stage of the man’s career that is given wildly disproportionate emphasis – of the album’s already skimpy fifteen tracks, a whopping ELEVEN are culled from the last four years. To any first-time listeners, Morrissey sounds like a fairly bland rocker with a fantastic voice, someone whose career – at least going by the track-listing – only really got going in 2004. He doesn’t sound anything like the revolutionary musical innovator who, in my opinion at least, very nearly deserved the award of “most influential artist ever,” which London-based music mag NME granted him several years ago in typically hyperbolic style.

It’s not that the album’s tracks are bad necessarily. It’s just that they give listeners a drastically poor representation of the singer’s talents. The tracks from “Ringleader of the Tormentors” are especially average, most of them tuneless, repetitive rockers of little note – though I must say, I do have a soft-spot for that album’s first single, “You Have Killed Me,” a charismatic, swooning slice of glam rock with a chorus that ranks among Morrissey’s best.

The other recent album given disproportionately large space here – his 2004 commercial comeback, “You Are The Quarry” – luckily fares better, shown off well by tracks like the cynical-yet-romantic “Let Me Kiss You,” the hook-laden “First of the Gang to Die,” and, best of all, the deliciously spiteful “Irish Blood, English Heart,” in which a typically snarky Moz “[dreams] of a time when the English are sick to death of Labour…and spit upon the name Oliver Cromwell.”

Still, the man’s recent work pales significantly by comparison to any of the compilation’s pre-2004 songs, here represented by a pitifully meager four tracks. Ranging from the majestic, heartbreaking “Everyday is Like Sunday” to the stalkerish witticisms of “The More You Ignore Me, the Closer I Get,” all four songs are masterpieces which stand shoulder-to-shoulder with his Smiths singles. But seriously, there are so many other brilliant solo singles that could have been included here – and in a crime that’s positively a breach of the Geneva Convention, not a single track is culled from what is widely regarded as his best solo record, “Your Arsenal.” Couldn’t they have let go of one of his recent songs just to include the stomping, gritty glam rock of “You’re Gonna Need Someone on Your Side,” arguably Moz’s greatest solo moment ever?

All in all, everything about this compilation is a mystery. If this is meant to win new fans, it does a terrible job; if it’s meant to satiate old ones, it does an even worse one. The only interesting thing you’ll learn from buying this album is that Morrissey really is gay. After years of dodging questions and refusing to publicly come out, releasing an album with shiny purple-pink packaging and a double-page spread of a man’s arse in the sleeve booklet to me pretty much equals leaping out of the closet in bright rosy spandex. It’s just a shame the record’s music doesn’t equal its outrageously flamboyant presentation.


"Greatest Hits" released 11 February, 2008 by Decca Records.
Images courtesy of Decca Records and Empire Online.
Published in the Review.

Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul

Ten years ago, Oasis were the biggest band in the world. They were compared to the Beatles, to Led Zeppelin, to the Who – to basically every big, dumb, classic rock band there ever was – and they spear-headed a long-delayed second British Invasion, alongside bands like Blur and Radiohead. But where Blur and Radiohead were critics’ darlings, “cerebral” and “challenging,” Oasis were anything but, always pandering to the lowest common denominator.

Now, that may sound like an insult, but at their prime, Oasis’ music was stupid in the best way: stupid like Led Zeppelin’s hairstyles, stupid like Pink Floyd’s concept albums, stupid like Ozzy Osbourne eating a dove or Jimi Hendrix playing a guitar with his teeth. That’s what made Oasis such a sensation. After the artifice and make-believe that defined eighties pop and rock, Oasis represented a return to everything that people loved classic rock for: huge egos, massive riffs, brash machismo, and, of course, that crucial ingredient of British-ness. When people heard “Champagne Supernova” they really heard the Beatles reincarnated; when they blasted “Wonderwall” it was Liam Gallagher’s seventies rock star-sneer that really got them going.

That was ten years ago, though, and imitation can only get you so far. In the long, painful time that has passed since then, Oasis have gone from truly being the “biggest band in the world” to being the world’s biggest has-beens, as out-moded and desperately unfashionable in this world of indie rock domination as Led Zepp or the Rolling Stones were at the apex of punk. In the British media, songwriter Noel Gallagher is the go-to guy for grouchy dismissals of contemporary music; his widely scorned condemnation of hip hop as “totally wrong” for the British music festival Glastonbury only solidified his status as an old, behind-the-times crank. But forget Britain, where Oasis’ reputation as the ultimate ‘lads down at the pub’ band is inextricably tied up with issues of class. Just go ask any American on the street what they think of Oasis and I can guarantee you the answer will be simple: “didn’t they break up?”

Well the answer is no: they did not break up. Even after releasing three critically-mauled albums in a row. But then again, Noel and Liam Gallagher aren’t known for their humility, that much is clear from their music: and here they are again in 2008, horrendously uncool, horrendously dated, and dropping their latest album “Dig Out Your Soul.”

And you know what? If you divorce it from all your expectations – from the karaoke-dirge of “Wonderwall,” or the memory of the time when “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory” was the biggest album in the world, or everything that’s happened in popular music since 1998 – it’s actually a decent rock album, short, catchy, and undemanding. But as with every album released by a has-been band, it’s impossible to forget how good they used to be; and while it may be the job of a critic to try to detach oneself from preconceptions and judge music on its own terms, sometimes that’s just not going to happen.

As usual Oasis are ruled by their influences, and many songs here can be traced to other, better bands, from the bluesy Zeppelin stomp of “Waiting for the Rapture,” to the soft, Stone Roses-like shuffle of “Falling Down.”

Still it’s the Beatles who overshadow the album, and on “Dig Out Your Soul” the Gallagher brothers take their well-documented Beatles obsession to new heights, ripping off George Harrison on the distorted, zither-laden “To Be Where There’s Life,” and effectively reproducing the ending of “Sgt Peppers” on the album’s psychedelic closer, “Soldier On.” There’s also the gloopy, cringe-inducing “I’m Outta Time,” Liam Gallagher’s attempt at writing a Lennon ballad that ends up sounding more like a Celine ballad.

In one way however, “Dig Out Your Soul” is a distinctly different record from the rest of Oasis’ discography. Within the first few seconds of the opening track, anyone who’s faintly acquainted with the band will no doubt be struck by how tight and stripped down the sound is, and it’s a restraint that characterises much of the album. Gone are the deafening wall of sound productions that made the band’s name, gone the choruses seemingly designed to be sung by drunken football hooligans. It’s a major change, one of the first signs that Oasis have stumbled out of their classic rock time machine into an awareness of what’s going on in contemporary music.

Now, when I say “stripped down” of course it’s not Leonard Cohen or Elliott Smith or anything; Oasis churn out loud, commercial rock, and they always will. But there is a sense of self-control here that has certainly never before been heard before on an Oasis album, from the gritty, strutting “Bag It Up,” to the terse blues of “(Get Off Your) High Horse Lady.” Even more standard Oasis rockers, like the blazing, horrendously catchy single “Shock of the Lightning,” are surprisingly stream-lined.

And on the whole, it’s a change for the worse. Sure, it may finally show Oasis moving on from trying to recapture the heady excess of their glory days, but in going for this more ‘tasteful’ approach, Oasis have decisively abandoned what made them great in the first place. Listening to “Dig Out Your Soul” made me nostalgic for the time when Liam Gallagher would sneer away over a gloriously uncontrolled mess of smashing drums and chaotic guitars – and that’s the last thing I expected to feel when I bought the disc, because it’s also that un-ironic sense of excess that made Oasis seem like such relics among the relentlessly hip posturing of contemporary rock.

But hey, if ridiculously uncool genres like eighties pop and disco can be appropriated and reconfigured into the height of cool, who’s to say that one day Oasis won’t be looked back on as the hipsters of their time? Okay: it’s unlikely, but I’d rather see Oasis being themselves than thinning out their sound like they have on “Dig Out Your Soul,” an appropriate title perhaps for their most breezily enjoyable album in a long time, but also for their most easily forgettable.

After all, if I’m being honest with myself, it was always Oasis’ obnoxious arrogance that made their music so darn fun to listen to, and hearing them in 2008, watered down and polite, really sounding like 40 year olds for the first time in their career, is more dispiriting than the fact that the music itself is actually quite listenable.


"Dig Out Your Soul" released 6 October, 2008 by Reprise Records.
Images courtesy of Reprise Records and Empire Online.
Published in the Daily Princetonian.

Rick Ross - Deeper than Rap

Rick ross makes for an unlikely rap star. First off, he’s not remotely sexy. T.I.’s got the looks, Lil Wayne’s got the wit, and Kanye’s just got that ego, but the tubby, Miami-based rapper kind of looks like a whale — an image not helped by him going shirtless in the video to his 2008 single “The Boss.” One word: flaps.

Rappers also, you know, need to sound good, and the bad news for Ross is that his voice is about as unappealing as his body: a wheezing, heaving bellow with all the deftness of a sledgehammer. On his last album, the ridiculously successful “Trilla,” Ross rapped like a monster truck carving its way through an obstacle course. It was a rare thing — an album that succeeded in spite of its star.

And as if that wasn’t enough, Ross was recently exposed as a corrections officer, a revelation that, rather amusingly, rocked the contemporary rap world to its foundations. After pictures of the rapper in uniform surfaced on the internet last summer, Ross repeatedly denied their authenticity, letting rip with caustic diatribes like, “Fake pictures are created by the fake, meant to entertain the fake.” But as the evidence became overwhelming, Ross was forced to bite his words and admit that he had worked in a Florida prison during the 1990s. The fact that Ross models himself on legendary drug trafficker “Freeway” Ricky Ross made the story particularly humiliating, and the affair reached its absurd pinnacle when his lawyer let slip that the rapper had actually never sold drugs or worked in a gang. Fake images are created by the fake, meant to entertain the fake? Oh, the irony.

So “Deeper than Rap” is actually a surprisingly apt title for the portly emcee’s third album. With anyone else on the mic, it would sound like just another boast in a genre founded on braggadocio, but for Ross, this is the chance to prove that he’s more than a desperate poser. And the good news? He doesn’t back down a bit. No apologies here, folks, no heart-on-sleeve tearjerkers either — “Deeper than Rap” is the most gloriously hedonistic rap album of the year so far, and that’s saying something.

From the wildly overblown cover art, framing Ross as a modern-day Scarface, to songs with names like “Rich Off Cocaine” and “Mafia Music,” Ross exposes the facade of rap music and revels in it. After all, if anyone can play with these stereotypes, it’s him, and on “Deeper than Rap” Ross dives into the role with the zeal of a hip-hop Daniel Day-Lewis. Hearing him rap things like “Never had a gun and badge / Back in the day I sold crack” is almost as much fun as watching Day-Lewis chew up scenery in “There Will Be Blood,” because you know they’re both acting — and they know you know.

It doesn’t hurt that Ross has turned into a nimbler, more elastic lyricist. On the gleaming, futuristic “All I Really Want,” Ross pulls off an internal rhyme scheme within the first 10 seconds, and on “Usual Suspects,” he holds his own next to Nas, which is no small feat. And even when Ross is unable to keep up with his own elaborate rhymes — which is quite a lot of the time — that’s half the fun. Hearing him strain to deliver incomprehensible tongue-twisters like “Kill all the middle men / I’m the militant Gilligan / speaking Creole and gentlemen as I cruise the Caribbean” is kind of like watching an elephant jumping through hoops — as uncomfortable as it is entertaining. The same goes for the man’s frequent lyrical hiccups, my personal favorite being the utterly bizarre imagery of “Fuck them all / they sweat from my balls.”

Thankfully, Ross knows better than to present himself as an artiste, and unlike most rappers he never brags about his skill on the mic. Being rich, sure, getting it on, OK, but being talented, not so much — and it’s a self-awareness that makes his mammoth clumsiness all the more endearing.

As with all of Ross’ albums though, the lyrics aren’t really the point, and half the time you can’t understand what he’s saying anyway. It’s the production that keeps him going, and “Deeper than Rap” is easily the most musically accomplished record of the rapper’s career. No wonder Ross named his record label, “Maybach Music,” after a $500,000 luxury car — the music here glistens like a Bentley fresh out the shop, swirling with sugar-sweet vocal samples and rumbling, primordial synthesizers.

And lest we forget, the true artist isn’t the name on the cover, but the incomprehensible misspellings in the fine print: producers like the J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League, the Inkredibles and the Runners, who handed Ross his first certified hit in 2006 with the booming, bass-heavy screw of “Hustlin’.” All three producers weigh in heavily on the track listing, creating an album that gleams like polished gold. It’s the kind of music that doesn’t even need videos — listening to the airy synths and plastic saxophone solos of “Maybach Music 2,” you can almost picture Miami Beach. “Escapism” isn’t a strong enough word for it; this is music that refuses to deal in anything but fantasy and projection, and party-poopers like “reality” are nowhere to be found.

You might disagree with me then, but sitting here listening to songs like “Yacht Club” and “Cigar Music,” I think “Deeper than Rap” might be the perfect recession record — perfect, that is, because it’s so wildly, obnoxiously inappropriate. Who wants reality, anyway? “Deeper than Rap” is the musical equivalent of a summer blockbuster, transporting listeners into a sun-bleached fantasy world where, in Jay-Z’s immortal words, “money ain’t a thang.”

Like Jay-Z, Ross knows this is an ephemeral dream, and you can tell precisely because he never admits it — and thank the Lord, because the album wouldn’t be half as much fun if he did. “My money long / my money strong / if you ain’t getting money that mean you done something wrong,” brags Ross in the album’s opening minutes, and it’s a line he reprises throughout the record under a million different guises. On “Deeper than Rap,” Rick Ross is doing pretty much everything right — he deserves every cent coming to him.

"Deeper than Rap" released 21 April, 2009 by Maybach Music Records.
Images courtesy of Maybach Music Records and Empire Online.
Published in the Daily Princetonian.