release date: Aug. 28, 1995
format: cd
[album rate: 3 / 5] [3,18]
producer: Steve Lillywhite
label: RCA Records - nationality: England, UK
Track highlights: 2. "Reader Meet Author" - 3. "The Boy Racer" - 5. "Dagenham Dave" - 7. "Best Friend on the Payroll" (4 / 5) (live on BBC)
5th studio album by Morrissey is his first after leaving EMI and signing with RCA Records. The album is like the predecessor produced by Steve Lillywhite; however it represents another change of style by Morrissey who hasn't released similar albums after launching his solo career. Naturally, he's very dependent on musical collaboration work when writing new songs as his strengths are not in the musical composition chair. He writes lyrics and sings songs and very much rely on other peoples contributions when it comes to arrangements and the final musical output. On the debut album he was brought together with longtime The Smiths producer Stephen Street, which secured a recognisable sound, but already on his follow-up album, he had turned to Mark E. Nevin (of Fairground Attractions) and Clive Langer, which completely altered his style into more mainstream pop / rock, and on his 3rd solo album he mostly worked with guitarist and composer Alain Whyte, and together with producer Mick Ronson they assisted and collaborated in giving birth to his so far best rocking album. On his 4th solo album it was both Whyte and (new) guitarist Boz Boorer, but also Steve Lillywhite who, again in a collaboration work, made a new style shine through, which perhaps was the album that is closest to his solo debut.
Now although, both Whyte, Boorer and Lillywhite also has worked with Morrissey on this album, the style is much more experimental, progressive and introvert, and altogether strangely makes a rather big step away from Vauxhall and I. Some tracks like "Reader Meet Author", "The Boy Racer", "Dagenham Dave", and "Best Friend on the Payroll" are stylistically close to the predecessor but it also contains two tracks of more than 10 minutes playing time and "The Operation" (6:53 min.), which has a drum intro of more than 2 minutes, an outtro of approx. 2 min. (and a great middle part of almost 3 minutes) consisting of mostly noise rock and all three being tracks where Morrissey [?] experiments with a progressive alt. rock, which is completely new and ultimately less successful.
The front cover is rather different from all of his solo albums as they all feature a photo of himself. Here it's a photo of American "southpaw" [left-handed] boxer Kenny Lane (from 1963) that underlines an overall theme about boxing. In 2009 the album was reissued (and remastered) with 4 bonus tracks (and a different track list), which was released with a b/w front cover of... Morrissey.
All in all, I'm not particular fond of this album that I suspect of being a bit of record label manoeuvre. With a new artist under its roof, the management could use something to be remembered by. Sadly, the result is not one for the better.
[ allmusic.com 2,5 / 5, Rolling Stone 3 / 5, Q Magazine 4 / 5 stars ]
