If anyone diminishes Grammy winner Thelma Houston, plenty will say Morrissey himself has done so with his cynical tokenism of late.
For plenty of Smiths/Moz fans, the 1986 'Melody Maker' interview with Frank Owen was the beginning of where many of us who are (or were) followers take issue with the man himself as regards race and music.
To see him berate and belittle those who were peers of or were influenced by Thelma herself makes for most revealing reading in itself. Here's the passage - in its entirety - from said interview which even now, shapes how Morrissey's seen: either by his admirers, or his detractors.
BLACK POP CONSPIRACY
“Pop has never been this divided,” wrote Simon Reynolds in his much-lauded, recent piece on the indie scene, referring to the chasm that now exists between indie-pop and black pop. The detestation that your average indie fan feels for black music can be gauged by the countless letters they write to the music press whenever a black act is featured on the front page.
It’s a bit like the late Sixties all over again with a burgeoning Head culture insisting that theirs’ is the “real” radical music, an intelligent and subversive music that provides an alternative to the crude showbiz values of black pop.
Morrissey has further widened this divide with the recent single, Panic – where “Metal Guru” meets the most explicit denunciation yet of black pop. “Hang the DJ” urges Morrissey. So is the music of The Smiths and their ilk racist, as Green claims?
“Reggae, for example, is to me the most racist music in the entire world. It’s an absolute total glorification of black supremacy… There is a line when defence of one’s race becomes an attack on another race and, because of black history and oppression, we realise quite clearly that there has to be a very strong defence. But I think it becomes very extreme sometimes.”
”But, ultimately, I don’t have very cast iron opinions on black music other than black modern music which I detest. I detest Stevie Wonder. I think Diana Ross is awful. I hate all those records in the Top 40 – Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston. I think they’re vile in the extreme. In essence this music doesn’t say anything whatsoever.”
But it does, it does. What it says can’t necessarily be verbalised easily. It doesn’t seek to change the world like rock music by speaking grand truths about politics, sex and the human condition. It works at a much more subtle level – at the level of the body and the shared abandon of the dancefloor. It won’t change the world, but it’s been said it may well change the way you walk through the world.
“I don’t think there’s any time anymore to be subtle about anything, you have to get straight to the point. Obviously to get on Top Of The Pops these days, one has to be, by law, black. I think something political has occurred among Michael Hurl and his friends and there has been a hefty pushing of all these black artists and all this discofied nonsense into the Top 40. I think, as a result, that very aware younger groups that speak for now are being gagged.”
You seem to be saying that you believe that there is some sort of black pop conspiracy being organised to keep white indie groups down.
“Yes, I really do.”
Morrissey goes on:
“The charts have been constructed quite clearly as an absolute form of escapism rather than anything anyone can gain any knowledge by. I find that very disheartening because it wasn’t always that way. Isn’t it curious that practically none of these records reflect life as we live it? Isn’t it curious that 93 and a half percent of these records relect life as it isn’t lived? That foxes me!”
“If you compare the exposure that records by the likes of Janet Jackson and the stream of other anonymous Jacksons get to the level of daily airplay that The Smiths receive – The Smiths have had at least 10 consecutive chart hits and we still can’t get on Radio 1′s A list. Is that not a conspiracy? The last LP ended up at number two and we were still told by radio that nobody wanted to listen to The Smiths in the daytime. Is that not a conspiracy? I do get the scent of a conspiracy.”
“And, anyway, the entire syndrome has one tune and surely that’s enough to condemn the entire thing.”
People say that about The Smiths. And it seems to me that you’re foregrounding something that isn’t necessarily relevant to a lot of black music, especially hip-hop. It’s like me saying that I don’t like The Smiths because they don’t use a beatbox.
”The lack of melody is not the only reason that I find it entirely unlistenable. The lyrical content is merely lists.”
Do you dislike the macho masculinity of many of the records?
”No. I don’t find it very masculine.”
Well, a lot of it is about…
”What? Chicks?” he sniggers.
No. One upmanship. Having the best, the biggest.
”Mmmmm. It’s just not the world I live in and, similarly, I’m sure they wouldn’t care that much for The Smiths.
I don’t want to feel in the dock because there are some things I dislike. Having said that, my favourite record of all time is “Third Finger, Left Hand” by Martha and the Vandellas which can lift me from the most doom-laden depression.”
Why is it that people like yourself can eulogise Sixties black pop and yet be so antagonistic towards present-day black pop? Nostalgia?
”No. It was made in the Sixties but I don’t listen to the record now and say, ‘Well, I must remember this is a Sixties record and it’s 1986 now so let’s put it all into perspective.’ It has as much value now as ever. We shouldn’t really talk in terms of decades.”
It seems to me that nostalgia is something that afflicts the whole indie scene. They can’t face up to the fact that pop music is no longer created; it’s assembled, quoted and collated. That’s why so many indie bands are caught in a timewarp with ‘real’ musicians playing ‘real’ music on ‘real’ instruments. Isn’t that the reason for The Smiths’ much-vaunted Luddite tendencies? Can’t hi-tech have a liberating aspect, enabling non-musicians to construct music? And isn’t this well in tune with the punk ethic that the indie scene is supposed to draw its inspiration from?
”I hate the idea of having to learn to play the instruments, too. But it makes it so easy. It means that anyone with no arms, no legs nor a head can suddenly make a superb LP which will obviously go platinum. I can’t help it. I love Wigan, I love George Formby, I love bicycles. I love Wigan’s Ovation.”
”Hi-tech can’t be liberating. It’ll kill us all. You’ll be strangulated by the cords of your compact disc.”
Suddenly, Morrissey breaks off and stares at me as I munch my way through the giant bowl of crisps on his hotel room table. “Why are you eating all those stale crisps?” he asks. “You’ll regret it in the morning.”
Suddenly, there’s a knock at the door. “Shall we see who it is?” I suggest. “No. It’s probably a cockroach,” he replies. Such is the Morrissey interview experience.
