Morrissey fans are born, not made. It’s in the genes. Morrissey is the eccentric cousin you love unconditionally, but when you take him to a party and he mounts the coffee table, declaring, ‘I have explosive kegs, between my legs’, you can no more disown him than you might your racist Granddad. You’re together until one of you dies. I’m not trying to convert anyone, because Morrissey is not a choice.
Greatest Hits enters a field already over-populated with World of/Best of/Live compilations. So selection is paramount. The focus is here is on the reincarnation of Maz as globe-trotting, gun-toting, sharp-suited Mafia don on the so-so You Are The Quarry and the triumphant Ringleader of The Tormentors. 8 tracks come from the aforementioned, along with four predictable classics. The exercise is justified by the presence of two new tracks and an (already released) cover version. The 1980s’ greatest romantic getting a little cynical, perhaps?
To be fair, it’s joyously incongruous to hear Morrissey waltz through the loping feminist reggae of Patti Smith’s ‘Redondo Beach’ like the old queen he is. New tracks ‘That’s How People Grow Up’ and ‘All You Need Is Me’ are instant classics of the kind he’s pulling out like magic handkerchieves these days: musically concise, vocally theatrical, and hilariously bleak lyrically. The rest are a fair introduction to one of our most unapologetically idiosyncratic pop stars, which will probably either change your life or disgust you. Fans will ruefully count off the neglected classics, particularly, ‘Now My Heart is Full’, but then this CD, like all Greatest collections, wasn’t really made for them in the first place. Morrissey won’t worry; as the beatific cover picture suggests, he knows we’re stuck with him to the bitter end.by Richard Woodall
