I can turn the conversation off

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

27/03/20 : I Am Not A Dog On A Chain - Morrissey



Morrissey, Morrissey, Morrissey - what are we going to do with you?  The man has been responsible for some very fine music in the past, but his political views these days are, shall we say, somewhat, well, shit (and they've never been particularly good).  Which brings us to the immortal question - can you separate the art from the artist?  For The Smiths, I can because he was only part of the appeal and Johnny Marr is a thoroughly decent bloke so provides a counterbalance.  For his solo work, it's trickier - I'd generally say no, but "Everyday Is Like Sunday" is a fine track and it was a long time ago now.  So it is all that bad to say I still like it?  But under ordinary circumstances there's no chance I would have listened to this, so I am approaching it with trepidation.

And, oh dear, the very worst thing possible has happened.  Yes, I quite liked it.  Damn.  However, there's plenty of albums I like but never revisit with no good reason, so there's no danger of me revisiting this one.  Or encouraging others to visit it.

We're at #3 in the charts with a new entry this week and I wasn't surprised that he just managed the one week - although I'm interested in whether it's old fans checking him out for old times sake or new fans drawn by his politics.  And I also suspect I don't really want to know the answer.  Other new entries in the top ten are The Weeknd at #1 (at the start of a 75 week run), Slow Readers Club at #9 (at the start, and end, of a 1 week run) and, errr, David Bowie at #10 (another 1 week run - it's a 6 track EP of older songs re-recorded in 1997, which does sound possibly a bit niche).  There's also a re-entry - Kenny Rogers' Greatest Hits, on account of his death during the week at the grand old age of 81 (and whilst not everything he's done is entirely to my taste, I do love a bit of "Coward Of The County").

Back to Morrissey (because I suppose we should) Wikipedia doesn't have an awful lot on the album - the critics mostly liked at least some of it and it did better than I'd have expected across Europe.  "Customers also listened to" other Morrissey albums and Smiths albums - and I'll be sticking with them Smiths albums from back in the day, I'm afraid.  Even though I liked this, I shall leave the last word on the matter to Billy Bragg - "Don't threaten me with Morrissey"

20/03/20 - Not exactly my usual kind of thing
03/04/20 - Forgotten it already

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