Morrissey
Maladjusted
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Morrissey
Maladjusted
Mercury, 1997
RiYL: The Sundays, The Beautiful South, The Smiths, The Judybats, Gene |
Perhaps with that in mind, Maladjusted, the Mozzer's seventh studio album, turns the tables on the artist's lyrical wit, offering to-the-point, almost too-simple lyrics stripped of the profuse irony that earned Morrissey his reputation as a rabble-rouser.
That doesn't mean all of Maladjusted strays far from Morrissey's past solo work. Indeed, the core players -- producer Steve Lillywhite and songwriting partners Alain Whyte and Boz Boorer -- are the same.
And musically, not much is new. "Alma Matters" steps in as the standard hooky first single, and rip-roaring lyrical dud "Satan Rejected My Soul" oozes comic sarcasm as the album's closer. The crafty "He Cried" purges the narrator's buried feelings of love. All are standard Morrissey fare.
But Maladjusted's main themes center around Morrissey coming to terms with his adulthood. In the snappy, cymbal-heavy "Ammunition," he sings "I don't dwell on things I'm missing / I'm just pleased with the things I've found."
"Trouble Loves Me" recasts the singer as a crooning lounge act, complete with the line "trouble loves me / trouble needs me." The slow, swaying "Wide To Receive" is the most honest song Morrissey has penned in years, gently admitting "I've never felt quite so alone as I do right now."
But Morrissey's miserable outlook on life is par for the course, and it doesn't necessarily serve him well. The spooky "Sorrow Will Come In The End" is an unnecessary attack against two ex-Smiths band-mates who had recently sued Morrissey for years worth of back royalties. The lyric "legalized theft leaves me bereft / I get it straight in the neck" is plain ugly. The song was actually deleted from import versions of the LP by slander-fearing record company execs.
And as usual, the album's least satisfying moments occur while Morrissey wallows in his own self-pity. The first line of " Maladjusted," "I want to start from before the beginning," seemingly wipes the slate clean, but the song's remaining verse-only, four-plus minutes go nowhere slowly. Along the same lines, "Ambitious Outsiders" drowns the Mozzer's sorrows in gaudy Victorian string and synth arrangements.
Neither a leap forward nor a step back, Maladjusted is nevertheless a portrait of an artist struggling to matter in an increasingly fair-weather musical climate. At 40 years of age, Morrissey has never had trouble speaking his mind. Here, he's speaking from his heart. And hopefully someone's still listening.
JONATHAN COHEN | Jonathan Cohen co-created Nude As The News with his Indiana University mates Troy Carpenter and Ben French. When not traversing the globe for business and pleasure, he holds down the fort as a senior editor for Billboard in New York. Stop him and he just may ask, "what for lunch?"