This week, I particularly liked this http://www.allmediascotland.com/articles/3647/18022009/belated_recognition_for_bbc_alba_tale on the ever-excellent allmediascotland site.
It speaks legions about how denuded and netuered our domestic press has become. Here's a very decent, home-spun tale about something which is - yes - historical, but which has massive ramifications on the present, and even the future - ie Scotland's ability to govern itself and state collusion to suppress this.
Yet our poor, weakened press refuse to pick it up, preferring to rely on the poisonous drip-feed of wire and agency copy.
This is not a reflection on the quality of Scottish journalists at the nationals - but rather on their state of demoralisation.
Why be arsed to stand up such a tale when:
A. Management don't seem to give a toss what stories you break.
B. Let's face it, it's easier to just take the agency stuff and hope to get out the office roughly on time and
C. Anyone who would have been capable of taking the tale forward is no longer on staff or is keeping their heads down. And trying to get out the office on time.
Journalism, at its best, has always been a weird mix of people feeling the pull of calling and ego. With this comes sacrifice - whether in time or effort.
When you're undermined and decimated continually, you're left with just entropy and withering.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Morrissey - Years of Refusal
Below is my review of the new Morrissey album, written for the Scottish Socialist Voice.
MORRISSEY – YEARS OF REFUSAL
LET’S be honest, we’re fond of a spot of historical revisionism on the left. Sometimes that’s good, mostly it’s bad.
But here’s a goodie. So prepare yourselves, comrades. Well, those of you who care about these things anyway.
The Smiths were Morrissey’s second difficult adolescence. Their slight-ish body of work was sublime, but in the grand scheme of their singer’s now-long career, it’s juvenilia.
The evidence? It’s there in spades in his post-87 solo work. In the years since the Smiths split, Morrissey has released nine proper albums, each of them covering much more difficult ground – lyrically and sonically - than the Smiths ever dared, or got round to.
We loved it when the Smiths bared their bums to the Queen, still do – but solo, Morrissey has been able to awkwardly skewer such issues as race, disability, identity and alienation in an ever-more layered and complex manner.
His career suffered as a result, but his art got deeper.This review starts with a big caveat for a big reason, because every new Morrissey album comes with a tiresome chorus of Smiths To Reform stories and ‘not as good as the Smiths’ dismissals.
And this one more than others, arriving as it does in the wake of the recentish Sound of The Smiths retrospective, and the resultant reformation rumours.
It won’t happen, people. And why should we want it to? Here we have probably Morrissey’s most accessible and – heaven’s above – upbeat record since Vauxhall and I, the Moz album it’s officially OK for Johnny (Marr) come lately Smiths fans to like.
It starts at a furious pace with the hilarious Something is Squeezing My Skull, and rarely lets up. It’s all clattering drums, big rock guitars, distortion and – on When I Last Spoke To Carol – whistling and mariachi galloping from there on in.
If 2006’s Ringleader Of The Tormentors was a fan’s album (all torch songs about shagging and death), then YOR sees him reaching out.
And don’t worry - that your embrace, should it come, will inevitably be accompanied by a dagger in the back is already anticipated in cataclysmic closer I’m OK By Myself.
Let’s not re-write history too much. The Smiths were a great band, but the Smiths is dead, boys. Morrissey is alive, kicking and spitting.
Inevitably, he’ll be accused of treading water. Wrong. Where others tread, Morrissey walks.
MORRISSEY – YEARS OF REFUSAL
LET’S be honest, we’re fond of a spot of historical revisionism on the left. Sometimes that’s good, mostly it’s bad.
But here’s a goodie. So prepare yourselves, comrades. Well, those of you who care about these things anyway.
The Smiths were Morrissey’s second difficult adolescence. Their slight-ish body of work was sublime, but in the grand scheme of their singer’s now-long career, it’s juvenilia.
The evidence? It’s there in spades in his post-87 solo work. In the years since the Smiths split, Morrissey has released nine proper albums, each of them covering much more difficult ground – lyrically and sonically - than the Smiths ever dared, or got round to.
We loved it when the Smiths bared their bums to the Queen, still do – but solo, Morrissey has been able to awkwardly skewer such issues as race, disability, identity and alienation in an ever-more layered and complex manner.
His career suffered as a result, but his art got deeper.This review starts with a big caveat for a big reason, because every new Morrissey album comes with a tiresome chorus of Smiths To Reform stories and ‘not as good as the Smiths’ dismissals.
And this one more than others, arriving as it does in the wake of the recentish Sound of The Smiths retrospective, and the resultant reformation rumours.
It won’t happen, people. And why should we want it to? Here we have probably Morrissey’s most accessible and – heaven’s above – upbeat record since Vauxhall and I, the Moz album it’s officially OK for Johnny (Marr) come lately Smiths fans to like.
It starts at a furious pace with the hilarious Something is Squeezing My Skull, and rarely lets up. It’s all clattering drums, big rock guitars, distortion and – on When I Last Spoke To Carol – whistling and mariachi galloping from there on in.
If 2006’s Ringleader Of The Tormentors was a fan’s album (all torch songs about shagging and death), then YOR sees him reaching out.
And don’t worry - that your embrace, should it come, will inevitably be accompanied by a dagger in the back is already anticipated in cataclysmic closer I’m OK By Myself.
Let’s not re-write history too much. The Smiths were a great band, but the Smiths is dead, boys. Morrissey is alive, kicking and spitting.
Inevitably, he’ll be accused of treading water. Wrong. Where others tread, Morrissey walks.
The Night of the Living Thread
My God, it's been a while, hasn't it? Just checking this is still working really. Harrumph. Clears throat. Prepare the damp squib for relaunch.
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