{"id":160800,"date":"2026-03-11T21:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T21:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/160800\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T21:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T21:50:09","slug":"feature-the-queens-not-deadyet-an-analysis-of-morrisseys-make-up-is-a-lie-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/160800\/","title":{"rendered":"FEATURE: \u201cThe Queen\u2019s Not Dead\u2026Yet\u201d – An Analysis of Morrissey\u2019s \u201cMake Up is a Lie” Album\u00a0\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Neil Young once declared it was \u201cbetter to burn out than fade away.\u201d At 80, it was advice he should have heeded, as it\u2019s been 30 years since he released a decent album that wasn\u2019t sandbagged material from the seventies left in the vault. What makes a great artist like your Iron Maidens and David Bowies is consistency. How are you holding up 14 albums into your solo career? This is the question we ask going into the newest Morrissey release, Make Up is a Lie (Sire Records).\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Moz has become an anti-hero of sorts. His cult-like following continues to pay for tickets to concerts, most likely facing cancellation. I myself am numbered among these, as he has cancelled on me the same number of times as I have seen him\u2026ten. Granted, this includes three cancellations for the same ticket in one case. It is not unlike being in an abusive relationship, when my friends question why I am spending another 200 dollars on him, I tell them\u2026<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s going to be different this time, he\u2019s changed, you\u2019ll see, heaven knows we are going to be miserable together, and hopefully a ten-ton truck kills both of us, because to die by his side would be a wonderful way to go\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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But when it comes to Moz, that is the low-hanging fruit; the concerts I\u2019ve gotten to witness are some of the best I\u2019ve ever seen, though two years ago, when I caught him in Tampa, it was clear age was ticking away at his vocal cords, making me leery going into this album. Leaving the concert tonight, I said he was great, but I think I wanted that preserved in my mind rather than see him descend further into his senior years onstage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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There are other artists we made excuses for in this regard, Rob Halford and Geddy Lee come to mind, piercing tenors whose songs can only be done justice after dropping into lower keys once or twice. It was even hard to watch Ozzy on his throne<\/a> for his pre-death concert. Morrissey is an odd juggling act of class and ego that you expect to bow out promptly, as he has shown similar restraint in not reuniting with The Smiths. But perhaps, his reasons for returning to the studio are driven by a different motivation.<\/p>\n

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His ticket sales have proven he is beyond cancellation. People don\u2019t like his opinions; he extends a courteous British middle finger in their direction. He was once the Elvis of hipsters, and the Smiths were thought of as the Led Zeppelin of coffee co-ops and craft breweries. Granted, it was well-deserved idolization considering the Smiths saved music in the eighties from just being drawn to the frat boy Van Halen side of the spectrum, making it ok to have emotional depth.<\/p>\n

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Then, maybe 10 years ago, those fairweather fans began to backpedal with claims they only listened to the Smith because of Johnny Marr and could not stand Morrissey. Some are even idiotic enough to say the Smiths would have been better without Morrissey. Bitch please, there is no Smiths without Morrissey. Johnny Marr is without a doubt one of the most groundbreaking guitarists of his time, but if his songwriting was so great without Moz, then why does his work with The The, Electronic, or Modest Mouse not even come close to the ball sweat of \u201cViva Hate\u201d or \u201cYour Arsenal?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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These sentiments are given further exploration in Moz\u2019s new album. The Smiths do not define him, nor are there many hints of eighties nostalgia, maybe a guitar tone on \u201cNotre Dame.\u201d\u00a0 But there is none of the jangle and a more deliberate sense of melody, not unlike Stevie Ray Vaughn\u2019s playing on Bowie\u2019s \u201cLet\u2019s Dance\u201d album. Instead, Moz shows a fondness for the music he grew up with from the sixties and seventies. So much so that he reflects upon Lester Bangs, the writer for Creem and the Village Voice, who reviewed some of Moz\u2019s favorite bands, the New York Dolls and Roxy Music. Speaking of Bryan Ferry and friends, Moz covers the 1973 Roxy Music song. \u201cAmazona\u201d \u2013 staying both true to who he is while honoring the original.<\/p>\n

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As far as the songwriting credits go, longtime collaborators Alain Whyte and Jesse Tobias returned for the sessions. This brings a sense of familiarity, while multi-instrumentalist Gustavo Manzur and Juan Galeano round out the line-up. This might puzzle Moz\u2019s detractors, who have accused him of being racist, to learn that half of his band is of Latin descent, but things like these are a mere inconvenience to illogical axes to grind. These axes to grind are sharpened by Moz\u2019s refusal to play nice within the industry and to be anyone other than who he is.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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This leads to early reviews of the album trying to downplay the fact that this is an album of what Moz does best. Some complained of his morose moaning and whining or generally bleak and depressing lyrical outlook, but is that not what a Morrissey album is supposed to be? I find it unlikely this one is going to win over any new fans, none of the songs really lend themselves to TikTok, leaving younger audiences to discover him from the praises Deftones\u2019 Chino Moreno or Converge\u2019s Jacob Bannon might sing for him, as both vocalists have claimed Morrissey\u2019s work was a crucial influence in their creative development.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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This might not be Morrissey\u2019s best work, but it does not need to be, as it\u2019s at least on the same level as \u201cMaladjusted\u201d and \u201cRingleader of the Tormentors.\u201d In other words, short of \u201cYou are the Quarry\u201d or \u201cVauxhall and I,\u201d which is still better than 90% of all the other music coming out these days. Morrissey fans rejoice and unite with the shoplifters of the world, as the Pope of Mope is back with what you want from him. Perhaps one more album, and he will be ready to bow out with grace and dignity, rather than wrestle for relevance with Post Malone duets. There is a light that never goes out, and that is his legacy, which this album upholds.<\/p>\n

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Buy the album here:
https:\/\/amzn.to\/3N1bvsJ<\/a><\/p>\n

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9 \/ 10
WIL CIFER
Follow his work here:\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

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\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Neil Young once declared it was \u201cbetter to burn out than fade away.\u201d At 80, it was advice…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[66353,57202,66352,66354,66355,1106,33288,8887,66356,66357,66358,66359,66360,9,24,63,66361,122,124,123,66362,66363,66364,66365,66366,66367,66368],"class_list":["post-160800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-make-up-is-a-lie","tag-album-reviews","tag-amazonia","tag-by-wil-cifer","tag-emo-roots","tag-features","tag-ghost-cult-magazine","tag-goth","tag-johnny-marr-vs-moz","tag-morrissey","tag-morrissey-album-review","tag-moz","tag-music-reviews","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-post-punk","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-rock-album-reviews","tag-roxy-music","tag-roxy-music-cover","tag-sire-records","tag-the-pope-of-mope","tag-the-smiths","tag-wil-cifer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}