How do you solve a problem like Morrissey? I think there are some pretty decent tunes on his 14th album, Make-Up is a Lie. Over an eclectic jangle of genres – post-punk, chanson, soul-disco bops – the 66-year-old singer is in fine, velvety voice, crooning his classic stock of despair, defiance, devotion, disdain and drollery into a microphone he’s always seemed to love more than his fellow humans. But instead of falling face-first into music as we once did and enjoying a good old wallow in self-pity, we must now approach it as a minefield. Oh, sweetness, was he only joking when he said…?
He doesn’t make it easy. Partly out of exhaustion, I thought I might have a go at reviewing this record without getting into Morrissey’s many controversial worldviews. But that’s not what he wants. Quite the opposite: he gets straight into it on album opener “You’re Right, It’s Time”, telling us over moodily meshed guitars, swerving synths and propulsive bass line, “I want to speak up and not be trapped by censorship”. Presumably, he’s still cross that his previous label, Parlophone, didn’t release his single about the 2017 Manchester bombing, “Bonfire of the Teenagers”, in which he condemns a society he claims went “easy on the killer”.
