Do I Viva Hate? No, I Viva love baby! (Viva Hate - Morrissey)

Member Name: DanielKemp

Product:	Viva Hate - Morrissey
Date:	15/05/09 (52 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Everyday is Like Sunday is the best thing to happen in 1988, Morrissey is in good voice

Disadvantages: A few of the songs sound typical of the decade they were recorded in, which is criminal

Morrissey - Viva Hate (1988)

Producer: Stephen Street

Alsatian Cousin
Little Man, What Now?
Everyday is Like Sunday
Bengali in Platforms
Angel, Angel, Down We Go Together
Late Night, Maudlin Street
Suedehead
Break up the Family
The Ordinary Boys
I Don't Mind if You Forget Me
Dial-a-cliché
Margaret on the Guillotine

For his solo debut Morrissey got on board Stephen Street, who had been a producer on The Smiths' final studio album, Strangeways, Here We Come.
Viva Hate was released in 1988 and just 6 months after Strangeways. Because of this it primarily sounds like a continuation of The Smiths, rather than the truly independent sound that Morrissey would carve out for himself later in his career.

On their final album The Smiths were moving towards lush orchestration and further experimentation within the band. This continues within Viva Hate and some of the tracks feature prominent string sections and rousing semi-orchestral arrangements.

The album has a little bit of a false start with Alsatian Cousin, and doesn't so much as sprint out of the starting blocks as trip over and fall flat on its face. The production is clean, yet the guitars are muddy, and together it just doesn't work. Morrissey's vocals become lost underneath the hideous splatter of noises and it leaves the first time listener with their head held in their palms, weeping.

Everyday is Like Sunday is where the fun really begins. This song shouldn't need an introduction and if it does then you need a slap round the mush with a wet kipper! For me, it is the quintessential Mozza song. The opening lyrics are so fastidious in their observation over the monotony of life, "Trudging slowly over wet sand, back to the bench, where your clothes were stolen...". This song has the most adventurous string section on Viva Hate and really hinted as to what Morrissey could achieve now that he was his own man.

Bengali in Platforms is gorgeous, really it is. It has a foreign flavour to it, with gently picked acoustics and the production is... SO DAMN GOOD, seriously, it milks my udders! The lyrical subject will be playing it a little too close to the bone for some, but Morrissey is merely remarking that immigrants don't always have it easy, rather than actually airing an opinion on the matter. He reminds us that, "Life is hard enough when you belong here..."

Angel, Angel, Down We Go Together is another string-laden joy. It only clocks in at 1 minute 40 seconds but leaves the listener captivated and dying to hear more. YOU TEASE MORRISSEY, you utter tease. Lyrically it is your pretty standard Morrissey affair, but the violins do a great deal to spice things up.

Late Night, Maudlin Street is very well written but is at least 2 minutes too long when considering that the final running time is 7 minutes 40 seconds. The lyrics are as down to earth as you get on the album, no more so than when Morrissey recounts, "When I sleep with that picture of you framed by my bed, I know it's childish and it's silly, but I think it's you by the bed...". I can certainly think of worse things to do with my time than listen to this almost Mozza classic.

The debut solo single by Morrissey was Suedehead and it is one of the better songs from Viva Hate. It has much in common with some of The Smiths' final singles, particularly with regards to the jangly guitars which bring to mind some of Johnny Marr's work on Strangeways. It reached number 5 in the UK chart, which meant that it got higher than any of The Smiths work had ever done.

In my opinion the album should have ended with Break up the Family, as everything which follows it is unnecessary filler, perhaps with the exception being Margaret on the Guillotine. I genuinely believe that Break up the Family has one of Morrissey's most tender and affecting vocal performances of his entire career. When he makes it known that he longs to, "see all his old friends" and that he wishes to, "put his arms around them", he sings it so beautifully that he certainly has my heartfelt empathy.

I said that the entire back end of Viva Hate is tosh and the biggest wrongdoer is I Don't Mind If You Forget Me. The lyrics I actually find to be some of the album's best, so it does nothing to drop the ball there, but the production and squealing guitar has made it exactly how I never want a Morrissey recording to sound - like a song that could have been made by anybody else. One of the guitars is simply shocking and sounds like a bee stuck in your skull until the song is brought to a close. It's little more than 3 minutes long but it seems like a lifetime prison sentence.

Without the filler I would give Viva Hate a higher rating, but as it is, I have to bring it down a mark or two. It's still a strong entry in the Morrissey catalogue though and makes for an impressive start to the man's solo career.

7/10

Daniel Kemp

Read more of my reviews at www.danielkempreviews.co.uk

Summary: Morrissey's solo debut is well worth picking up!