Yesterday, Ringleader of the Tormentors came out. I found out when I saw a review, then checked his website and saw that the release date was 4/03. Then I went and got it.
I listened to it once, but I didn’t give it a good listen so I can’t really comment on it very much. His love for the New York Dolls shows through more than on his last album.
Sorry that this post is so boring, but I don’t really have anything else to say right now. Is anyone else here going to get it?
Last I heard, he defined himself as being asexual. I’ll take him at his word.
I’ve only had a chance to listen to “Ringleader” once so far, so I don’t want to write a review. But at this point, it doesn’t come close to his most recent (IMHO) great album: ‘Your Arsenal’.
Unfortunately, I am protesting the album’s realease based on the artists’s country of of origin. Do you know how many innocent animals are slaughtered in the UK every year? It’s worse than Nazi Germany over there!
I’m not the world’s biggest Morrissey solo fan (I much preferred The Smiths), but I have a friend who is, and has been playing Ringleader incessantly since he downloaded an advance copy a couple of weeks back. (No worries about piracy - this is a guy who’d probably die if he didn’t own a legit copy of everything Morrissey has ever been associated with.)
I have to say that I like the album, though. “Life is a Pigsty” is probably my favorite track so far.
I’ve given it a few listens, and I quite like it. “Dear God Please Help Me” is a bit slow for my taste, but it’s growing on me. I love the children’s chorus on “At Last I Am Born” and the Middle Eastern influences in “I Will See You In Far Off Places.” The store also gave me a promotional copy of the “You Have Killed Me” single on 45, but I don’t have a record player to even see if it’s a diferent version of the song, or find out what “Good Looking Man About Town” even sounds like.
You know, while I love his solo stuff, one gets the impression that the world’s biggest Morrissey fan probably requires the sort of obsession that some people might classify as criminally insane.
Okay, I’ve given it a couple more listens. So far it doesn’t really grab me like You Are the Quarry did, but I do like the songs well enough.
betenoir, I’m afraid that I might have set you up for a big disappointment! It doesn’t sound that much like the New York Dolls. It mostly comes through in the guitar playing in some songs. It sounds more like Mick Ronson than Johnny Thunders, but I mentioned the NY Dolls since Morrissey was the president of their fan club when he was younger.
I once read an interview where Morrissey said that he doesn’t really hold himself to the whole asexual thing anymore. Unfortunately, getting laid doesn’t seem to have improved his disposition, as Cat Fight has alluded to.