Morrissey...Morrissey...Morrissey. Where do you begin ?
There are two types of people in this world. Those that get Morrissey. Those that don't. I feel lucky to be in the gang that do. Or at least I think I do. The people that can relate to his sometimes macabre and darkly humorous approach to others, to life, to himself. He pulls no punches at any time. How many parties have you reluctantly walked into mumbling "I've come to wish you an unhappy birthday".... Don't you just hate it when your friends become successful ? He plucks our darkest thoughts out of the air and crafts them into glorious songs so we no longer feel alone in having these bad feelings. His wordplay and barbed insight into modern life is beyond compare and stir the emotions like no other singer. Who else would sing about the Moors Murders in their first album and profess to forgiving Jesus in their last. Nobody.
The Smiths saw me through my teenage angst years and Morrissey on his own has helped me though my 30s and now my 40s though I admit I lost the faith for a while around the Kill Uncle period. Now it's back with a vengeance following the outstanding You are the Quarry closely followed by Ringleader of the Tormentors.
This is a great collection of his songs from the last 20 or so years though I'm dissapointed it omits the frankly brilliant but disturbing November spawned a Monster. I think this is a good album for the casual Morrissey fan (as if you're reading this you'll probably already have all the tracks already) but I'm not sure such a thing exists.
Visionary, radical, depressive, lunatic, genius. He's all those things and we're lucky to have him.