some folks here have the strangest expectations of him. Wanting albums from him that they continually slag before even hearing them, or going to his gigs and expect him to be a human jukebox because they feel entitled to it simply because they purchased a ticket, as if they own him, etc, etc.
Anyway, M may want recognition, but always on his own terms. Maybe some folks on here would prefer the smooth and uniform operations of the corporate machine that is Taylor Swift, that’s not to say she doesn’t work hard and she certainly has a gift for writing vapid pop that are easy to swallow. But even the blind can see that M wouldn’t put in that kind of ‘graft’ or want to be recognized for that. After all he is an Artist, born troublemaker, just as we want them to be.
No idea why i can look at something and see something obviously and clearly, and then if the same thing is shown to the next 100 people, and they might see absolutely nothing that i was able to see at
all.
The line in music, and also in the fine arts, has really become
very blurred over the last 30-60 years, between art and the mass commercialization of product. That really works in some instances, and in others, not at all.
Morrissey took on an absolutely
colossal challenge in his work - in this specific arena in which he has chosen to pour out his talents - probably without even thinking about it in these explicit terms when he very first started. But it’s worked out great, actually, because i do think he has a
very strong aspect to his character where he is o
not someone who has ever been aftaid of a challenge. In fact I see this, and I really love this about him.
But anyway, what i was going to say is that in a lot of ways, modern pop music is a last frontier. It is
the single, absolute most
difficult arena
within the arts in which someone can successfully differentiate themselves based on their own effort and their own talents - exactly due to the fact that there are
artists, and then there are alllllll the vapid, one night wonder throwaway acts, and THEN there are also the billiion dollar commercialization machines alongside them, and none of these three things are the same animal, and none of them are trying to be the other, and yet they are all showcased together in a manner of speaking, and there are also people comparing them as though they’re comparing something that
ever should have been compared or measured by the same yardstick to begin with. You basically have to be a gladiator, to even
think that you want to go up against this.
I think 99% of the time, 99% of people are generally just not operating from
any level of conscious thought or awareness.
And although pop music
is full of
entertainers, and yes, all of those people who play in this realm are collectively referred to by their industry and by everyone else as “talent” and as “artists”, the problem in these semantics is definition driven, because i think a lot of those people not operating from any level of self-awareness are probably approaching this from the assumption that “artist” has one flat, UN-nuanced, single-dimensional meaning across the board. Which in the context of everything i’ve just described, it most definitely does not.
Because an “artist” playing out their hand in the dedicated mass marketing commercializatiin machine, should rightfully be correctly only referred to as an
entertainer. It would confuse people that are easily confused, likely less.
Morrissey had the courage to enter and to play in this field and in this industry, but his work did what very few singers in pop manage, or ever managed, to do - and that is that his creative output was so culturally and creatively inspired and multi-layered, that his work - even in the early days - transcended the simplistic box of “pop music” and went straight
into the Arts. If i wanted to be trite, I could say that where others are pop stars who are placated by being told they’re artists, that is nothing but a kind of masquerade. Whereas Morrisssey is artist first, pop star second.
The line in the samd is that his work successully crossed from the pop arts, - into the fine arts. Literally. It’s also specifically why I’ve said here before that if he never recorded another word or never stepped on another stage again as long as he lived, his work has more than secured his place in history, in the Arts, through his contributions to music, literature, verse, and modern culture.
I do, of course, really agree with every word of your post, but the human jukebox comment is one that i always really feel to my absolute CORE. It drives me up the wall when i see that behavior and attitude, and that level of stupidity and entitlement.
I think what’s for sure is if they hadn’t started calling all categories of entertainers “artists” a long, long time ago, then a lot of people would be having way less of a hard time with all of any of this right now.
I have seen over the years, from the very far away absolute periphery, that i can trace with my fingers a little of bit of the perimeter outline of how his mind works, and i wished he could have also explored mine. To me, it’s crystal clear it would be an enthralling and spellbinding mix.
www.telegraph.co.uk
My avatar is just a badly-edited and humorous version of this.
I feel it to my core 
