Andy Rourke and Johnny Marr were very close school friends and spent a lot of time together playing in various bands as teenagers so your “Want Ad” theory, much like the rest of this piece, is frankly incorrect.
Robert Quark
1 year ago
Terrible article, which is so full of inaccuracies and misapprehensions that I am caused to wonder whether he is even the fan he purports to be.
To cherry-pick just a few absolute howlers…
“[N]obody ever compares Morrissey’s solo albums to the Smiths albums.” Yeah, if you’ve read absolutely nothing to do with him/them in the past 33 years that may be true. “His racism which is at such odds with his peace love and understanding persona.” His what, now?
Then to pose the question, how odd that they probably don’t even communicate with each other from one decade to the next, only to state the answer further down, that the drummer sued them for £1m… kind of answered your own question there, Dougie…
Last edited 1 year ago by Robert Quark
Michael J
1 year ago
“…he was right about so many things back in the past, things like vegetarianism and veganism, as well as his proto-woke sense of underdoggism.” You what?
Bizarre for an author to write an opinion piece on a topic of which he knows so little. A simple bit of online searching would have revealed some of the inaccuracies.
Jorge Espinha
1 year ago
“His racism”? Because he doesn’t love the religion of peace? Jesus. I had high expectations for an article written by a writer. I was wrong.
john barry
1 year ago
So the drummer was out of order after not getting his (tiny) fair share of the money? Even after years of heavy lifting and helping the singer and guitarist become famous. That’s the music industry for you.
Andy Salo
1 year ago
A disappointing article which shows an astonishing lack of research.
The Smiths were not cobbled together from Wanted Ads as you’d expect any fan to know. Especially a fan deciding to write about how the Smiths formed! Also, to simply assume that someone is a racist without even examining the matter is journalism at it’s irresponsible worst. The feeling you get is of an article quickly cobbled together (the phrase may have been understandably on his mind) in the final hours before a deadline. Perhaps after another zopiclone blackout Or, to echo his own style: Douglas Coupland wrote this after a zopiclone blackout.
cecil mccclintock
1 year ago
This article is 10 minutes of my life I will never get back. A total load of cobblers and full of inaccuracies too many to list. Why can’t we just enjoy Morrissey and his wonderful lyrics.
Adrian Maxwell
1 year ago
Well thats 5 minutes I won’t get back, totally wasted, unless I use it to ensure I avoid anything written by Douglas Coupland. Life can be cruel, Doug (see the comments) but to write that an episode of the Simpsons was ‘astonishingly cruel’ to the singer takes the biscuit for the most banal, egregious and mawkish thing ever to appear in Unheard. Why is Unheard floating such drivel?
Stephen Boyle
1 year ago
What utter rubbish! Morrissey was, at best 45% of the band. Without Marr’s genius, The Smiths would never have become The seminal band of the 80s.
You sir are an idiot!
DH Saunders
1 year ago
He’s right about the Simpsons. That episode was cruel & inaccurate. ALL of The Smiths were vegetarian/vegan, not just Morrissey.
He’s wrong about the racism. I think people use that tactic in order to misrepresent/smear Morrissey & his true message of animal rights as a personal/ political act . This has always been his humanitarian message & it has never wavered in 40 years. He was and is a visionary. He has also been a key influencer to millions for decades & thus to his haters he is still dangerous.
Last edited 1 year ago by DH Saunders
Alan Osband
1 year ago
I love Morrissey ( discovered him very recently) but this is a silly banal article by ‘an award winning Canadian writer and artist ‘
Last edited 1 year ago by Alan Osband
Caspian Prince
1 year ago
This is dreadful. If you grew up loving the Smiths and were mortified when they split up, you will know that this is full of inaccuracies, irrelevance and stupidity.
Last edited 1 year ago by Caspian Prince
Roger Inkpen
1 year ago
I’ve never had the pleasure of reading anything by Coupland before. Is this how he usually writes?
Who uses the term ‘to pony up’ – even in Canada? I suspect Coupland has been watching too many Guy Ritchie films from the 90s.
As for ‘everyone’ loving The Smiths. Again, perhaps in Canada, but I’d say they were as equally loathed as loved (I am a fan BTW). A certain well known Radio 1 DJ never hid his contempt when introducing anything by the band.
He’s the man who wrote Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture and thereby made ‘Generation X’ a thing. (It’s also the name of one of Billy Idol’s bands, so it may be that the term had some currency before the book came out.) But he pretty well defined it there. By the way, plenty of people in Canada loathed The Smiths, too. I think there were rather more Canadians who disliked Coupland than The Smiths, starting with all the members of Generation X who weren’t losers living in their parents basements, blaming the boomers for having gotten to everything first, and who didn’t like having this person annointed as the spokesman for their generation.
I read several of his books. I can’t justify why I did it. By the second book (Infoserfs) I hated the characters. But I plough through his “œuvre”. I was young and stupid.
What next ? The Stones world tour without Mick Jagger ?
Paul Smithson
1 year ago
Maybe so, although speaking to youngsters today I get the impression that they wish they were growing up in any decade than than the 2010s or 2020s. Music today, the musicians, the club’s, the concerts … seems to have lost that innovative and exciting edge. It is very corporate and all about the money, with the odd exception, who would have been a success no matter which decade they were in.
Ian Stewart
1 year ago
Gawd how I loathed the Smiths music, and especially Morrissey’s singing style.
But I love that he’s proven to to be such an ornery individual, with strong opinions. Proper oyster grit.
Rob Wright
1 year ago
Disliked the Smiths intensely. Quite partial to Morrissey’s solo stuff. Punchy rockabilly, glam rock, misfit Americana….Ringleader of the Tormentors was a tremendous effort. Saw him live a few years back – energetic and powerful show. Really pushed the animal rights activism. I enjoyed it a lot. Intense performer.
Jorge Espinha
1 year ago
“I’d been heavily using the sleep drug zopiclone for the first time ever in the days leading up to the interview.” Is this good English? I’m not a native speaker, so I ask.
No. It’s poor English, badly structured. I’d put “In the days leading up to…” at the start to improve the sentence flow. And I suspect the drug is a trade name so should be Zopiclone.
I wasn’t going to read this article, not being interested in pop musicians, but I dived in belatedly when it popped up in the Unherd email. Lucky I did, or else I would have missed out on the terrific comments slamming the article.
Paul Smithson
1 year ago
My totally innocent comment with six upticks vanished too. What is going on?
Mike Michaels
1 year ago
Tell that to Gary Glitter.
Paul Smithson
1 year ago
Why did my innocuous comment vanish? Unherd’ seems to be moving towards a censorship regime that the CCP would be proud off.
I think it is just dodgy technology. I have had innocuous ones vanish and punchy ones get through.
SIMON WOLF
1 year ago
Great songs unfortunately his voice does not work for me.
Amani Sofia
1 year ago
What a poorly written article. So many inaccuracies. Yes Morrissey has fallen very far. There are legions of Smiths fans,myself included, who would never pay to see his concert now. You left out the part where he is such a diva he cancels shows for no reason. Johnny Marr should just get together with the other band members and maybe Brandon Flowers and do a world tour. I would pay big money to go to that. Also the square root of -1 is actually i. Ask anyone that took an algebra 2 course.
Wouldn’t that be like a Stones world tour without Mick Jagger ?
Do you find ‘writing frightening verse to a buck toothed girl from Luxembourg’ problematic ?
And is ‘frightening’ anyway a ‘transferred epithet’ from the girl to the verse ?
Mick Jagger hasn’t turned into a total racist a-hole. You tube Brandon Flowers singing smiths songs. He does a pretty good jobs. At Glastonbury he was even accompanied by Johnny F***in Marr and it was amazing. In that moment you can see the potential of a Smiths tour without the boorish Morrissey. Like I say I would pay good money to see that, I may even fly across the pond to catch the show.
Well they will have to pay Morrissey to use his songs so let’s hope he donates some of it to his favourite ‘new’ political party .
Aren’t you worried about your effect on Gaia ‘flying across the pond’ to make a crass anti -racist point ? Or are you so woke you’ve grown wings ?
Christine Hankinson
1 year ago
I thought it was great article
Ingrid Nozahic
1 year ago
I can’t think of many characterising aspects of the 80’s I disliked more than Morrissey. However, clusterfuck has become my word of the day
Andy Rourke and Johnny Marr were very close school friends and spent a lot of time together playing in various bands as teenagers so your “Want Ad” theory, much like the rest of this piece, is frankly incorrect.
Terrible article, which is so full of inaccuracies and misapprehensions that I am caused to wonder whether he is even the fan he purports to be.
To cherry-pick just a few absolute howlers…
“[N]obody ever compares Morrissey’s solo albums to the Smiths albums.” Yeah, if you’ve read absolutely nothing to do with him/them in the past 33 years that may be true.
“His racism which is at such odds with his peace love and understanding persona.” His what, now?
Then to pose the question, how odd that they probably don’t even communicate with each other from one decade to the next, only to state the answer further down, that the drummer sued them for £1m… kind of answered your own question there, Dougie…
“…he was right about so many things back in the past, things like vegetarianism and veganism, as well as his proto-woke sense of underdoggism.”
You what?
‘Underdogging’ surely ?
Bizarre for an author to write an opinion piece on a topic of which he knows so little. A simple bit of online searching would have revealed some of the inaccuracies.
“His racism”? Because he doesn’t love the religion of peace? Jesus. I had high expectations for an article written by a writer. I was wrong.
So the drummer was out of order after not getting his (tiny) fair share of the money? Even after years of heavy lifting and helping the singer and guitarist become famous. That’s the music industry for you.
A disappointing article which shows an astonishing lack of research.
The Smiths were not cobbled together from Wanted Ads as you’d expect any fan to know. Especially a fan deciding to write about how the Smiths formed! Also, to simply assume that someone is a racist without even examining the matter is journalism at it’s irresponsible worst. The feeling you get is of an article quickly cobbled together (the phrase may have been understandably on his mind) in the final hours before a deadline. Perhaps after another zopiclone blackout Or, to echo his own style: Douglas Coupland wrote this after a zopiclone blackout.
This article is 10 minutes of my life I will never get back. A total load of cobblers and full of inaccuracies too many to list. Why can’t we just enjoy Morrissey and his wonderful lyrics.
Well thats 5 minutes I won’t get back, totally wasted, unless I use it to ensure I avoid anything written by Douglas Coupland. Life can be cruel, Doug (see the comments) but to write that an episode of the Simpsons was ‘astonishingly cruel’ to the singer takes the biscuit for the most banal, egregious and mawkish thing ever to appear in Unheard. Why is Unheard floating such drivel?
What utter rubbish! Morrissey was, at best 45% of the band. Without Marr’s genius, The Smiths would never have become The seminal band of the 80s.
You sir are an idiot!
He’s right about the Simpsons. That episode was cruel & inaccurate. ALL of The Smiths were vegetarian/vegan, not just Morrissey.
He’s wrong about the racism. I think people use that tactic in order to misrepresent/smear Morrissey & his true message of animal rights as a personal/ political act . This has always been his humanitarian message & it has never wavered in 40 years. He was and is a visionary. He has also been a key influencer to millions for decades & thus to his haters he is still dangerous.
I love Morrissey ( discovered him very recently) but this is a silly banal article by ‘an award winning Canadian writer and artist ‘
This is dreadful. If you grew up loving the Smiths and were mortified when they split up, you will know that this is full of inaccuracies, irrelevance and stupidity.
I’ve never had the pleasure of reading anything by Coupland before. Is this how he usually writes?
Who uses the term ‘to pony up’ – even in Canada? I suspect Coupland has been watching too many Guy Ritchie films from the 90s.
As for ‘everyone’ loving The Smiths. Again, perhaps in Canada, but I’d say they were as equally loathed as loved (I am a fan BTW). A certain well known Radio 1 DJ never hid his contempt when introducing anything by the band.
He’s the man who wrote Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture and thereby made ‘Generation X’ a thing. (It’s also the name of one of Billy Idol’s bands, so it may be that the term had some currency before the book came out.) But he pretty well defined it there. By the way, plenty of people in Canada loathed The Smiths, too. I think there were rather more Canadians who disliked Coupland than The Smiths, starting with all the members of Generation X who weren’t losers living in their parents basements, blaming the boomers for having gotten to everything first, and who didn’t like having this person annointed as the spokesman for their generation.
I read several of his books. I can’t justify why I did it. By the second book (Infoserfs) I hated the characters. But I plough through his “œuvre”. I was young and stupid.
What next ? The Stones world tour without Mick Jagger ?
Maybe so, although speaking to youngsters today I get the impression that they wish they were growing up in any decade than than the 2010s or 2020s. Music today, the musicians, the club’s, the concerts … seems to have lost that innovative and exciting edge. It is very corporate and all about the money, with the odd exception, who would have been a success no matter which decade they were in.
Gawd how I loathed the Smiths music, and especially Morrissey’s singing style.
But I love that he’s proven to to be such an ornery individual, with strong opinions. Proper oyster grit.
Disliked the Smiths intensely. Quite partial to Morrissey’s solo stuff. Punchy rockabilly, glam rock, misfit Americana….Ringleader of the Tormentors was a tremendous effort. Saw him live a few years back – energetic and powerful show. Really pushed the animal rights activism. I enjoyed it a lot. Intense performer.
“I’d been heavily using the sleep drug zopiclone for the first time ever in the days leading up to the interview.” Is this good English? I’m not a native speaker, so I ask.
No. It’s poor English, badly structured. I’d put “In the days leading up to…” at the start to improve the sentence flow. And I suspect the drug is a trade name so should be Zopiclone.
it’s a bit clumsy
I wasn’t going to read this article, not being interested in pop musicians, but I dived in belatedly when it popped up in the Unherd email. Lucky I did, or else I would have missed out on the terrific comments slamming the article.
My totally innocent comment with six upticks vanished too. What is going on?
Tell that to Gary Glitter.
Why did my innocuous comment vanish? Unherd’ seems to be moving towards a censorship regime that the CCP would be proud off.
I think it is just dodgy technology. I have had innocuous ones vanish and punchy ones get through.
Great songs unfortunately his voice does not work for me.
What a poorly written article. So many inaccuracies. Yes Morrissey has fallen very far. There are legions of Smiths fans,myself included, who would never pay to see his concert now. You left out the part where he is such a diva he cancels shows for no reason. Johnny Marr should just get together with the other band members and maybe Brandon Flowers and do a world tour. I would pay big money to go to that. Also the square root of -1 is actually i. Ask anyone that took an algebra 2 course.
Wouldn’t that be like a Stones world tour without Mick Jagger ?
Do you find ‘writing frightening verse to a buck toothed girl from Luxembourg’ problematic ?
And is ‘frightening’ anyway a ‘transferred epithet’ from the girl to the verse ?
Mick Jagger hasn’t turned into a total racist a-hole. You tube Brandon Flowers singing smiths songs. He does a pretty good jobs. At Glastonbury he was even accompanied by Johnny F***in Marr and it was amazing. In that moment you can see the potential of a Smiths tour without the boorish Morrissey. Like I say I would pay good money to see that, I may even fly across the pond to catch the show.
Well they will have to pay Morrissey to use his songs so let’s hope he donates some of it to his favourite ‘new’ political party .
Aren’t you worried about your effect on Gaia ‘flying across the pond’ to make a crass anti -racist point ? Or are you so woke you’ve grown wings ?
I thought it was great article
I can’t think of many characterising aspects of the 80’s I disliked more than Morrissey. However, clusterfuck has become my word of the day