Morrissey - Low In High School

The Quietus

Waking up to my usual breakfast of parboiled kippers, grapefruit juice, quinoa cakes and a rusty petrol can of the stored piss of an alcoholic tramp who died in 1972, I take up my headphones to listen to an advance copy of the latest Morrissey album, Low In High School, which has been hailed as a “landmark record”. Said Morrissey last year of the music industry in which he works, “It is severely controlled and monitored to make sure that any singer with a political message cannot get through.” To counter this, he has peppered his latest offering (produced by Joe Chiccarelli who previously worked with The White Stripes) with certain politically charged remarks of his own, particularly concerning the hard-done-by state of Israel, coupled with remarks about how very lonely he is.

F*** me with a f***ing gladioli stalk, “landmark record”? Skidmark record, more f***ing like! In a f***ing career with pillar after forgotten f***ing pillar of desiccated, fey, morose f***ing moosewank, this one takes the f***ing prize wank biscuit! Actually, the f***ing music industry is controlled and monitored by managers, executives and producers to make sure that any conceited, grossly overrated singer who thinks he's got something f***ing important and political to say doesn't make a complete tit of himself by going ahead and f***ing saying it! They’re f***ing looking out for you, but once again you've managed to slip through the bellend net, talking bollocks, arse and shite in equal f***ing measure!

To say this is a f***ing dog's arse of an album is a f***ing insult to dogs’ arses! Put it this way, if you were to take a small needle and rotate it for 40 odd minutes at 33 1/3 rpm around the interior of a dog’s arse, the pained howls that would result would be infinitely preferable to the the f***ing bleating bill of fare on offer here, the unedited f***ing musings of a superannuated, superfatted, greying teenager who went up to his bedroom to sulk in f***ing 1978 and has mentally never f***ing come back downstairs!

Where do we begin? I'd like to f***ing begin three seconds before the f***ing end, the sooner I could haul the thing off the machine and clay pigeon shoot the f*** out of the thing! But we have to begin at the f***ing beginning, I suppose. ‘My Love I’d Do Anything For You.’ “Teach your kids to despise and recognise the propaganda - filtered down by the mainstream media… hey, hey, hey…” warbles the gusset-faced twat!

‘I Wish You Lonely’. A recurring theme on the album – turns out that unaccountably, no f***er can be persuaded to spend any much time in Morrissey's company. Ooh, he says, walk a mile in my f***ing moccasins of misery and you’ll know what it’s all about. Did it f***ing occur to you to title the track ‘Could It Be Because I’m A C***’? Because you’d be f***ing onto something there! Mind you, how he can complain about being f***ing lonely on this album when he's surrounded by about 250 session musicians parping and strumming away like they're fantasising that they're playing on f***ing Sergeant Pepper, I don't f***ing know!

‘Jacky's Only Happy When She's Up On The Stage’. Well, as is the case with every f***ing Morrissey song, there's no f***ing need to read beyond the title, sparing you minutes of exposure to his lachrymose f***ing foghorn vocals! Here’s a song about Jacky. Who’s only happy when she’s up on the stage. Meanwhile, the rest of us are only f***ing miserable when Morrissey’s up on the f***ing stage!

‘Home Is A Question Mark’. Pity poor f***ing Morrissey, he’s made so much f***ing money swindling adolescents by making them believe there’s something rare and f***ing precious about their f***ing acne-stricken emotions, he’s got homes all over the f***ing shop and can’t decide which one is the real one. F*** off to F***chester, you shirtbursting waste of f***ing hair gel!

‘Spent The Day In Bed’. Well, you did us all a temporary f***ing favour there, didn’t you? “I recommend that you stop watching the news / Because the news contrives to frighten you / To make you feel small and alone / To make you feel that your mind isn't your own.” Jesus, the c***’s got about as much sense of f***ing lyrical rhythm and meter as a f***ing goat with a coal scuttle tied to its f***ing hind leg, hasn’t he? Kids. I highly f***ing recommend that you watch the f***ing news. Because the news contrives to tell you what the f*** is going on and if you don’t know what the f*** is going on, you’ll turn into a festering, know-nothing f***wit like f***ing Morrissey!

‘I Bury The Living’. In which Steven Patrick Morrissey, aged seven and three quarters, explains, using a box of toy soldiers, why war is horrible and there wouldn't be any if people simply didn’t fight them. Double f*** off with extra fudge, you vacuous f***ing arsecock!

‘In Your Lap’. In which, once again, Morrissey vacillates between his vacuous f***ing fantasies about dictators burning and canvassing for f***ing volunteers to splay themselves as he buries his faceful of f***ing eyebrows and wrinkles in their f***ing crotch. It’s f***ing tumbleweed time!

‘The Girl From Tel-Aviv Who Wouldn’t Kneel’. Lots of f***ing zingers in this tiramisu of f***ing toss. “The American way… is to show lots of teeth and talk loudly.” Ooh, yes, Morrissey, for the love of Ada, them Yankees, with their loud shirts and swing music and chewing gum and one of them put my Auntie Betty in the family way during the war… Stop f***ing deriving your f***ing ideas about foreigners from a f***ing 1950s cartoon strip, you addled old c***!

‘All The Young People Must Fall In Love’ is barely any better. “Presidents come, Presidents go and nobody remembers their name two minutes after they go.” Yeah, that's f***ing right, Mozzer. Who but a professor in American Constitutional Studies these days remembers the name Barack Obama? Or Ronald Reagan? Or George Bush? Remind me never to f***ing double up with you on Pointless, you f***ing thicko!

‘When You Open Your Legs’. Jesus f***ing HP Lovecraft – Morrissey and sex, doesn't even bear f***ing thinking about, let alone listening to. A f***ing mental image of your granddad wanking would be f***ing preferable!

‘Who Will Protect Us From The Police?’ starts with a f***ing cop car siren. Subtle touch there – unless it’s the actual police, turned up to arrest the f***er for recording an album without due care and attention!

‘Israel’. See, you know how all you leftie liberal types complain there’s something illegal, immoral and f***ing unjust about the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians? Or “bitch and whine”, as the lyric here has it? Well, not Morrissey, because he’s so special and fascinating he holds entirely the opposite f***ing point of view! “And they who rain abuse upon you – they are jealous of you as well.” Yep. That’s the opposition to Likud, Netanyahu kissing Trump’s arse, the f***ing settlements programme, the f***ing bulldozing of protesters, all sussed for what it really is – plain old green-eyed jealousy. The same as how those who f***ing criticise Theresa May and the Tories are doing it because they're f***ing jealous of England! Go f*** yourself from all directions, you swollen, dried up f***ing troll!

Of course, you won't get to hear any of this, because, muzzled as he is by the mainstream, Morrissey has only been able to give vent to his fatuous f***ing feelings on a major f***ing record label and in every f***ing music magazine on the f***ing stand. Repressed! Repressed!

Listen, you f***ing nagging lump of pure, toxic f***, the reason so few f***ing people will hear your message isn’t because you're the voice of f***ing truth in the f***ing wilderness – it’s because you've decided to f***ing swallow Piers Morgan and Katie Hopkins whole, shit out the results and pat and mould them into your stinking public persona for the f***ing 21st century! No one will hear your message because the world needs another Morrissey album like it needs a boil on the f***ing penis tip! Now f*** absolutely and forever off, you attention-seeking, self-parodying, pitifully contrarian, withered old wanksock who means the arse end of f*** all to anyone under f***ing 40 and retire to a giant f***ing castle built of unsold copies of this f***ing album.

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The Guardian 60

Some brilliant lines gleam through the noise on Morrissey’s 11th album, but others – about war and Israel – are sneering and reactionary

‘There are not many artists around today that can compare to Morrissey,” offered record label BMG, when the singer inked the deal that brings us his 11th album. “He is prodigious, literate, witty, elegant and, above all, courageous. His lyrics, humour and melodies have influenced many generations.” An enthusiastic tribute, but perhaps hard for long-time observers of Morrissey’s career to read without immediately thinking: yeah, I’ll give this relationship six months.

Related: Morrissey fans are about to give up on him – Johnny Marr, please stage an intervention | Stuart Heritage

Related: When did charming become cranky? Why a middle-aged Morrissey is so hard to love

Pitchfork 57

Though the music is often engaging and exciting, *Low in High School* is Morrissey’s second consecutive release that feels regrettably tethered to his increasingly alienating public persona.

The Guardian 40

(Etienne)

Morrissey’s 11th solo album finds him on his own label, squelching with newfound keys on songs like Spent the Day in Bed, and riffing on favoured themes: loneliness and world affairs. As ever, the messages are mixed, on many levels. Bodily pleas for comfort – “I just want my face in your lap” runs In Your Lap – vie with come-ons. “Wrap your legs around my face”, invites Home Is a Question Mark. It all goes south, however, on the orchestral mariachi of When You Open Your Legs. Morrissey’s broadsides – against police violence, for example – are let down by misfiring attempts at electronic rock and a less-than-compassionate worldview that undermines the moral authority he once had.

Drowned In Sound 30

Shoddy solo album follows shoddy solo album as reliably as ignorant quip succeeds drearily ignorant quip. The ex-Smith’s latest indiscretion occurred on the BBC, which has been promoting Low In High School with veritable gusto via plenty of radio play and invitations from Graham Norton and Jools. Performing a lengthy set at Maida Vale for 6Music, with 35 years of showbiz experience under his straining belt, Morrissey’s between-song banter exhibited all the wit and charisma of a seasoned poo. It included a comment about the Ukip leadership election being 'rigged' in favour of a more moderate candidate over the Islamophobic and far-right associate Anne Marie Waters. When that went down like a lead balloon, Morrissey added, 'You didn’t get it, did you? You obviously don’t read the news.' This came approximately ten minutes after he’d just warbled his way through the single ‘Spent the Day in Bed’ on which Morrissey recommends that we all stop watching the news.

This is not the first time Morrissey has flirted with rightwing nationalism and his official merchandise webstore still includes a t-shirt design featuring a black-and-white Union Jack with switchblades in the form of a cross and a font which can only be described as significantly more fascistic than comic sans.

I’m not saying Morrissey is a bigot. That’s the last thing I want. But if you spotted Morrissey waving a [REDACTED] flag at a [REDACTED] rally while saluting [REDACTED] and kicking [REDACTED] in the face then you wouldn’t exactly be surprised.

It’s weird how Morrissey has become one of those gummers who pines for the olden days when you could call a spade a spade and everybody spoke English because, as documented in his arrogantly Penguin Classic-ed autobiography, Morrissey (like countless others) had a bloody miserable time back when most toilets were outdoors, life was much bleaker and literally everybody ate meat.

Mind you, you can’t blame Morrissey for harbouring a rose-tinted sentimentality for previous times. We listeners pine for an earlier age too, specifically that era when Morrissey had the ability and necessary collaborators to create music of substance. Remember the good old times when Morrissey spoke for gentle outcasts and well-read oddballs instead of speaking exclusively for the mutant hatechild of Paul Nuttall and Alf Garnett? Remember when Morrissey last did something good?

Sure, bad people often make good art. Like all record collections, yours and mine are brimming with the names of deeply unpleasant power-tripping egomaniacs who have held deeply reprehensible views and committed countless terrible acts. We needn’t worry much about that dilemma in this case because Low In High School is not very good art at all.

On it, the worst English novelist since Katie Price moans about the mainstream media with his tinfoil hat firmly in place, gets distracted several times by the spaces between people’s legs, rhymes “train” with “rain” without feeling ashamed, pronounces the word “news” in a manner that suggests his time residing in Rome, LA and elsewhere has impinged on his own ability to maintain a native accent, spends seven sanctimonious minutes explaining that soldiers are quite heavily involved in the process of war (who knew?), expends another five minutes on the revelation that many armed conflicts are driven by the American thirst for oil (mind blown!), and champions the state of Israel as if Julie Burchill had gelled her hair into a quiff and swapped provocative print journalism for the more candid communicative medium of ranting at strangers from behind a greasy karaoke microphone.

The saddest thing is that all the emotionally flat crooning and awkward lyricism is set to the most blandly serviceable of arena-rock backing tracks complete with by-numbers horn and string parts (the orchestra being the last refuge of the uninspired rockstar), performed by session musicians who’ve honed their craft from stints backing the likes of Alanis Morissette and Billy Corgan. The net result makes The Killers look like Throbbing Gristle.

Just the other day, Morrissey cancelled a concert in California because the stage was 'too cold'. A couple of days later, a third date was added to his London shows next year due to 'phenomenal demand'. Where is this demand coming from? Who are these people eagerly queuing up for those ropey renditions of his older, better songs? How do they tolerate the new material? Are they members of that section of the so-called 52 percent who hope that Anne Marie Waters could be our very own, more successful Marine Le Pen? Are they so militantly vegetarian that they believe it’s big and clever to call the Chinese 'a subspecies' and use a Norwegian massacre to opportunistically highlight how many chickens have been seen off by Colonel Sanders? Are they the most forgiving fanbase on the planet? What if you spend £60+ on a ticket only for Morrissey to storm offstage if he gets a little too chilly? Or when somebody hurls a sausage at him again?

Low In High School is the latest in a long string of wet sausages that Morrissey has cruelly inserted into the ears of his audience. It’s hard to understand why his followers don’t storm off instead, for good.