The Beat Surrender

Morrissey is probably one of the most (if not the most) iconic figures in music that this country has ever produced, some probably won’t agree with that statement but very few other musicans still have that same magical aura about them that he does after such a lengthy career.

He’s one of them artists that even when he’s bad by his standards, he’s usually a damn site better than most out there, he’s obviously a legend from his days as frontman for The Smiths, but he’s also come up with the magical goods as a solo artist, maybe not as consistently but everytime he gets written off he seems to come back with a real brilliant album, the two i’m thinking of being Vauxhall And I and You Are The Quarry, both of which probably even his biggest fans thought were beyond him at the time.

Just as The Smiths back catalogue is now littered with a mish mash of best of’s, greatest hits and singles collections, Morrissey’s is also heftily peppered with them as well. This is at least the third that I can think of and still even after this release I don’t think they’ve managed to release a collection of tracks that truly pulls together his best solo work.

This of course has been difficult with his changes of labels and as a result this album does feel a little bit unbalanced to me, with too much of a leaning on his newer material than some of his solo albums. It’s also not strictly a greatest hits either which makes me think they could have picked out better album tracks than what is on here.

For instance Now My Heart Is Full or Why Don’t You Find Out For Yourself from Vauxhall And I, surely it should have contained November Spawned A Monster, You’re The One For Me Fatty and Interesting Drug? The biggest miss of all though has to be his brilliant haunting ballad with Siouxsie Sioux called Interlude.

Continue