Published on May 1, 1999
I swear, if there ever is a rock version of
Hamlet staged, someone should contact Steven Morrissey about
playing the the melancholy Dane. The man has made a career out of
being miserable, and often, he knows how to turn it into a solid
pop hook. (I didn’t get into The Smiths until I got involved in
college radio, and I didn’t get into Morrissey’s solo works until I
started dating one girl.)
Morrissey’s 1991 release
Kill Uncle finds him in the same mindframe, but this time,
not all the material lives up to expectations, possibly a sign that
Morrissey needed to find a new muse to spice up his writings.
Usually, any solo album from Morrissey has one song that is an
immediate standout.
Bona Drag had several of them, the most noteworthy for me
being “The Last Of The Famous International Playboys”;
Your Arsenal had “We Hate It When Our Friends Become
Successful”.
The first thing that strikes me about
Kill Uncle is that there isn’t any one song that stands out
among the group of ten as the most memorable. I’m not saying there
are no good songs on the album; far from that. But the fact that
there isn’t one standout is a red flag, especially for an artist of
Morrissey’s caliber.
Starting off strongly with “Our Frank,” Morrissey and his band
(guitarist Mark E. Nevin, bassist Bedders and drummer Andrew
Paresi) quickly fall into a bit of weirdness on “Asian Boy”. This
isn’t a song that has a style that one would normally associate
with Morrissey, and I thought the songwriting needed a bit more
development to add some maturity to it.
The album falls into a bit of a rut until a strong run of
tracks, “King Leer,” “Found Found Found” and “Driving Your
Girlfriend Home”. Tracks like these re-instill faith in the
listener that Morrissey hasn’t lost his touch, though I do admit I
occasonally found myself wishing that someone would slip some
anti-depressants in his tea. I mean, can his life (or the
reflection of his life through his songs) be that much piss and
vinegar?
The bulk of
Kill Uncle isn’t anything special, nor is it terrible. (One
has to wonder if Morrissey gets paid by the word for some of his
song titles – e.g., “The Harsh Truth Of The Camera Eye,” “There’s A
Place In Hell For Me And My Friends”. ‘Nuff said.) If anything,
it’s
ordinary, a surprise coming from an artist who’s anything
but ordinary.
Of course, the diehard Morrissey freaks will slobber over every
track on
Kill Uncle – more power to them. For the rest of us, this
could be the album you pick up when you want to complete your
collection. While there are some good songs on
Kill Uncle, it’s hardly the place where you’d want to start
your collection.