B-sides are drying up

Jukebox Jury

Jukebox Jury

Retired
As with The Smiths, Morrissey as a solo artist has produced some brilliant B-sides - in a lot of cases even better than the A-side.
You Are The Quarry Spawned 11 B-sides from 4 singles (including one cover)
Ringleader of the Tormetors had 7 B-sides from 4 singles (including two covers)
Years of Refusal has had just 4 b-sides from 4 singles.

I appreciate there was 7 years between 'Quarry' and it's previous album so more time to write material.

The live b-sides do not interest me. Surprised Buzzcocks 'You say you don't love me' wasn't recorded for 'Skull' - the inclusion of live recordings only means I wont be buying it.

Jukebox Jury
 
Oso Blanco said:
Actually, it's 12 b-sides from YATQ and 8 b-sides from ROTT.
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And really, if he wants to get technical, 'Years of Refusal' has only had 2 studio B-sides. Though "All You Need Is Me" appears on YOR it was released as a single in promotion of 'Greatest Hits' so "My Dearest Love" and "Children In Pieces" don't count...not to mention, they were recorded BEFORE the Refusal sessions ever took place.
 
Why "Christian Dior" wasn't on ROTT flips me.
 
I would say they HAVE dried up.

The b sides to skull really are a piss take, live recordings do nothing for me but maybe in the past you got to hear a band deliver an old song in a new and interesting way but this is 2009, we hear this stuff anyway, pretty much every gig is downloadable and the bbc put up high quality versions of this stuff for us to download. I'm sure Morrissey will blame the low sales on radio airplay and rattle on about how the industry doesn't support him but if he releases singles with absolutely no new material on then he can't expect anything else.

Go into the studio and spend a couple of days doing even sweetie pie style experimental material, anything, I'll buy it but I can't buy this.
 
Morrissey doesn't have enough time to write good songs, and perhaps same with his band. He tours, goes to studio, puts out album, and tours again. Everything done very quickly/ He needs to take a break--time for inspiration and brilliance to take hold. Why doesn't he? Well a lot of people claim musicians need to tour more to make money, a result of illegal downloading. Maybe true, maybe not.

Does the guy even have a place of residence?
 
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Could the lack of B-sides this albim , not be to do with Jerry Finns sudden death. i mean the b-sides may have not been fully finished and maybe moz feels that to let somebody else do it would be in some way disrespectful to jerry
 
DavidMich said:
Morrissey doesn't have enough time to write good songs, and perhaps same with his band. He tours, goes to studio, puts out album, and tours again. Everything done very quickly/ He needs to take a break--time for inspiration and brilliance to take hold. Why doesn't he? Well a lot of people claim musicians need to tour more to make money, a result of illegal downloading. Maybe true, maybe not.
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I think it's more true than not. Although, this being said, I love "Years Of Refusal" more than the previous two albums, so I'm not complaining about the quality of the music. I just miss the excellent b-sides. The past few ones were just okay for me. Morrissey b-sides used to be him at his best. Now they just sound like b-sides.

Stephane
 
Stephane,

Do you think another single might be squeezed out of YOR?
Do you think it would have some fresh B-sides?

Also, in your opinion, why did Morrissey release these live b-sides? I KNOW he has songs in the can he could have used, even from these last YOR sessions. He mustve realized most of his fans want to hear new b-sides and not tired old live ones?
 
The Southpaw Grammar b-sides springs to mind, two studio recordings for the first single and four live tracks for the second. And that album only had eight tracks. Still, it was/is his best album and Nobody Loves Us was one of those two b-sides.
 
Erik said:
Do you think another single might be squeezed out of YOR?
Do you think it would have some fresh B-sides?
Click to expand...

I have no idea what is being planned. I guess it all depends on the chart success/radio play (or lack of) of "Something Is Squeezing My Skull".

If Morrissey decides to go for one more single, he could make it a double a-side of "When Last I Spoke To Carol" and "It's Not Your Birthday Anymore". It could improve his chances of airplay, and those two songs are the ones most people prefer from the new album. And if he only wants to put one b-side per format as he's been doing this year, at least potential buyers would be getting 3 songs. This might help sales. Might.

"Birthday" would appeal to many non-Morrissey fans, and "Carol" would make a nice summer song.

But then this would have had to happen earlier. I'm afraid "Skull" is not going to do well and that'll be the end of "Years Of Refusal".

Morrissey should have written a song titled "My career is a succession of bad choice of singles".

Erik said:
Also, in your opinion, why did Morrissey release these live b-sides? I KNOW he has songs in the can he could have used, even from these last YOR sessions. He mustve realized most of his fans want to hear new b-sides and not tired old live ones?
Click to expand...

But singles are not designed to appeal to fans in the first place, that is preaching to the converted. Labels want to please the fans, but they also want to attract new ones.

I don't know whose decision it was to go with the live songs. The press release is plugging the upcoming UK dates, so that could be the reason why there are live songs, to sell the shows. God knows Morrissey is probably making more from the shows than from album sales. Artists used to tour to promote albums, not they release material to plug tours.

There is material left in the vaults. But as with every album, there are compositions that Morrissey doesn't want to see released. Some of it hasn't turned out good enough (to his or the label's opinion) and some of it is not being released for, I believe, personal reasons.

Something Morrissey doesn't do much but I think should try is to release alternate takes/studio arrangements as b-sides. He would not need to go back in the studio to do these as most recording sessions already have different attempted takes. Sometimes they try to add an instrument in the mix, or remove one, slow down a song, make it acoustic, etc. Of all the different attempts, one gets released, but it doesn't mean the other arrangements are bad. Fans love this kind of stuff, and non-fans could be getting alternate takes of tracks from the new album. This could raise interest in "Years Of Refusal" through the singles.

Stephane
 
I wouldn't be surprised if that strange remix of Carol being played before shows recently doesn't turn up on the next single (if there is another single that is).
 
Stephane said:
"Birthday" would appeal to many non-Morrissey fans
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I really have to disagree. This song would be a terrible radio song. It's WAYYYY too different than what's on the radio right now. The vocals are way too intense.

This would be met with, "What the f*** is that?"

Morrissey's best song in the US in terms of getting attention was The More You Ignore Me. People were reporting that song being heard on top 40 stations, not just college/alt radio.

The video got decent airplay.

Morrissey had just come off the success of Your Arsenal and the Tomorrow video also got a lot of airplay. They put him on Hangin' With MTV. He did a "live" performance of You're Gonna Need for 120 minutes.

V&I was loved by the critics.

Morrissey had his chance to reach out to the US audience and instead, he didn't tour and didn't do another video for the radio only Billy Budd and the pointless attempt at an edited and not-at-all promoted Now My Heart is Full.

The follow up to TMYIMTCIG should have been Speedway. Everyone of my friends who doesn't care for Moz loves this song. Packaged with a video and a tour and more things like he did to promote Your Arsenal and I think he would have broke onto the American music scene.
 
The most radio-friendly song on YOR is "Sorry Doesn't Help." Nobody here seems to like it much, but to me it sounds most like what I hear being played on the radio.
 
bored said:
I really have to disagree. This song would be a terrible radio song. Morrissey's best song in the US in terms of getting attention was The More You Ignore Me.
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I wasn't thinking of the US. The American market is not a singles one in the first place, and you can't get attention in the States if you don't have a video showing big boobs and booty. Boobs and booty help sales in Europe, but it's not mandatory to have them in your video. You can still get some people's attention without them.

I just mentioned "Birthday" because of all the songs on the album it's the one non-Morrissey-fans around me prefer. It has that harder edge and Morrissey doesn't sound so much like that old poof that he is (not my words!).

As for the non-radio-friendliness of the song's subject, it can't be worse than psycholeptics/anxiety drugs, and Morrissey's just about to release a song dealing with those as a single.

Stephane
 
Stephane said:
I wasn't thinking of the US. The American market is not a singles one in the first place, and you can't get attention in the States if you don't have a video showing big boobs and booty. Boobs and booty help sales in Europe, but it's not mandatory to have them in your video. You can still get some people's attention without them.

I just mentioned "Birthday" because of all the songs on the album it's the one non-Morrissey-fans around me prefer. It has that harder edge and Morrissey doesn't sound so much like that old poof that he is (not my words!).

As for the non-radio-friendliness of the song's subject, it can't be worse than psycholeptics/anxiety drugs, and Morrissey's just about to release a song dealing with those as a single.

Stephane
Click to expand...

You make a good point and I don't mean to sound flippant here, but since when do radio listeners care about the words? 9 in 10 won't be able to say what "Something Is Squeezing My Skull" is about, let alone disapprove of a song about anxiety drugs.

Half of them will probably ask, "Who is Samantha and what is she squeezing, again?" :)

They will remember the catchy vocal hooks.
 
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