Everyday Is Like Sunday

To be a lifelong Morrissey fan(atic) such as myself is to above all else endure, to slough off the scorn and derision of the pedestrian music fan whilst defending to the grave Moz tunes great and small. [Such as the merits of the studio version of "Jack The Ripper" versus the more widely-disseminated live version, or whether the crooning direction of his cover of "Moon River" is worth further exploration.] And the older I get, the more intractable I become with my musical affections, which explains why Years Of Refusal is one of my favorite '09 albums. [And why his adolescent Coachella walk-through was my biggest disappointment of the fest.]

So when it was announced that two of Morrissey's least-celebrated works (Southpaw Grammar from '95 and Maladjusted from '97) were being reconfigured to Morrissey's ephemeral yet exacting standards -- from track listing to cover art to liner notes -- it was clear that no matter my hesitations, I would lay down the long green to buy them (even though it meant buying them from the U.K. version of Amazon, as no self-respecting American company would release these commercially and critically neutered dogs). And as usual, with these reissues Morrissey has succeeded once again at confounding my expectations, seizing defeat from the gaping maw of semi-victory.

For my money, Southpaw Grammar was one of the glittering gems in Morrissey's two-decade-long solo career; while it didn't have any killer singles a la "The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get" (his only Top 40 radio hit, from Vauxhall & I one year earlier), it had some quality rock tunes bracketed by two sprawling ten-minute-plus tracks: album opener "The Teachers Are Afraid Of The Pupils" (a thrilling narrative flip on "The Headmaster Ritual" with arch strings and muscular guitars) and album closer "Southpaw" (a vivid and graceful coda). So for reasons known only to Morrissey, the reissue places those epics in the middle of the new track listing, surrounding them with rather minor unreleased tracks to pad the proceedings. [This padding includes a rocker from the Your Arsenal sessions produced by former Bowie guitarist Mick Ronson called "Fantastic Bird," which stands out like a red pubic hair in a bowl of cheddar soup.] This has the effect of diluting the impact of a once-great album, shaving the charms away and burying any emotional or visceral impact, a real disappointment that makes me question my love for the original in the first place.

Which leaves the least-regarded effort in the entire Morrissey canon, the 1997 D.O.A. excretion called Maladjusted (as close to a Morrissey-by-the-numbers release as there is). The reissue solution? Significantly improve the cover art (an unhesitating plus) and add several period b-sides to take the length past an hour. On that score, the results are mixed, as it now takes an already somewhat tedious album even longer to unspool. As always, there are some lyrical and musical jewels, such as the rollicking rocker "Satan Rejected My Soul" (one of his best titles ever) and the unsettling and hypnotic "This Is Not Your Country" (previously relegated to an import single). However, the childish petulance and tossed-off airs that permeated the original is heightened by the decision to close the album with "Sorrow Will Come In The End," written after some post-Smiths legal troubles were not resolved in his favor.

Because of this perceived slight (and the fact that Maladjusted was ignored on both sides of the Atlantic), Morrissey didn't release another album for seven years. And now that he's revivified with the renewed vigor of his three most recent releases, it's easy to forget the mid-'90s trough in his career. So in one sense, these reissues are essential to the Morrissey fan(atic), as they are monuments to hubris and pride that are paradoxically appealing and repellent. In other words, essential Morrissey.