Morrissey A-Z: "The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get"

Terrible garbage.
For this to be Mozzer's biggest US hit is outrageous.
Sorry Boz, but that main riff is fookin terrible. One of the most annoying riffs ever. I don't even know if its in an actual key, it sounds so sour.
Its as bad as the main riff for 4 Non Blondes - What's Up.
Fookin awful.

Hideous.
Just Hideous.
0.001/10
 
Does anybody else remember Chris Morris playing this song on his "Blue Jam" radio show, with the sound of a woman screaming in terror (increasing, as the song went on) over the top of it? It was one of the funniest / creepiest things I've ever heard.
 
fell in love with this when I first heard it as the closing track on the suedehead best of. that riff <3
 
I like it, but I don't love it.
It's a great single for sure, but I agree with @Nikita, insofar as it's my least favourite track on Vauxhall - which is an indication of just how strong the material is on that particular album.
 
Overrated, lacks urgency and excitement. The riff is relatively lumpen; possibly should have been strummed lightly instead, or played as a bassline.
 
It's not so much about whether other fans criticise this production. I'm comparing it with his later productions and I don't understand why Chiccarelli, for example, is praised so highly (by Moz too), or even the brave and late Fynn. The classic era of Morriseey ends for me at the end of 1997 with Maladjusted. Even here, I don't see, that Lillywhite did much wrong. This record sounds like a mid 90s bitterswet summer ending: pointing backwards, nostalgic and transfigured. In terms of Morrissey's solo work, still the best approach, to connect it with a certain period in your own life or the mood of the seasons.
Whenever he sounds in this direction today (take for example the 3 donated outtakes) the songs are great, but don't seem to fit in with his current thinking about his external impact.
While there are many fine songs pre-1997, I think that is nostalgia talking as much as anything else. I have a fondness for Maladjusted, but I can still see the clear step down in the quality of the production between 1994 and 1997. Steve Lillywhite going through a divorce may well have played a part.
 
While there are many fine songs pre-1997, I think that is nostalgia talking as much as anything else. I have a fondness for Maladjusted, but I can still see the clear step down in the quality of the production between 1994 and 1997. Steve Lillywhite going through a divorce may well have played a part.
Could you please specify the "decline" during Maladjusted? I mean, it's often said but couldn't it be that the song material just wasn't as brilliant as it was in 1994?
 
Could you please specify the "decline" during Maladjusted? I mean, it's often said but couldn't it be that the song material just wasn't as brilliant as it was in 1994?
Well, as you've mentioned, it's often said so there's not much point in me restating it.

I think it's clear that the production of Vauxhall and I is much more nuanced, and there is no comparison between the sound of something like Lifeguard Sleeping and the cheap sound of Sorrow Will Come in the End. I also don't think any of the productions on Maladjusted remotely compare with the sound of Speedway.

Morrissey has discussed it as well, with his comments about it being a mistake to use Lillywhite again while he was going through a divorce.

As I've said, I can understand people being nostalgic for the pre-1997 era. But I recall that at the time everybody was begging for Morrissey to find a new sound which, to some extent, he did 7 years later. Not radically different, but different enough to dominate the airwaves.
 
Well, as you've mentioned, it's often said so there's not much point in me restating it.

I think it's clear that the production of Vauxhall and I is much more nuanced, and there is no comparison between the sound of something like Lifeguard Sleeping and the cheap sound of Sorrow Will Come in the End. I also don't think any of the productions on Maladjusted remotely compare with the sound of Speedway.

Morrissey has discussed it as well, with his comments about it being a mistake to use Lillywhite again while he was going through a divorce.

As I've said, I can understand people being nostalgic for the pre-1997 era. But I recall that at the time everybody was begging for Morrissey to find a new sound which, to some extent, he did 7 years later. Not radically different, but different enough to dominate the airwaves.
If I say it is mentioned again and again (loss of quality in the production) so I do not know where it was generally discussed without being off-topic. I also do not remember that Morrissey would have been called to change. The whole Maladjusted promo was not particularly extensive, few concerts and hardly any interest in Morrissey. That strongly influences the memory of this phase, I would say. On the "Isle of Dogs" tour, songs from 1997 were celebrated as much as any other. I personally like the production of Maladjusted without reservation. Vauxhall was perfect in every way, perhaps not all the songs on Maladjusted were. I attribute the lack of non-commercial success not to Lillywhite but to a change in the music market (Rise of US alt rock, end of Britpop). That's probably why the man who made Blink-182 big came along.
 
If I say it is mentioned again and again (loss of quality in the production) so I do not know where it was generally discussed without being off-topic. I also do not remember that Morrissey would have been called to change. The whole Maladjusted promo was not particularly extensive, few concerts and hardly any interest in Morrissey. That strongly influences the memory of this phase, I would say. On the "Isle of Dogs" tour, songs from 1997 were celebrated as much as any other. I personally like the production of Maladjusted without reservation. Vauxhall was perfect in every way, perhaps not all the songs on Maladjusted were. I attribute the lack of non-commercial success not to Lillywhite but to a change in the music market (Rise of US alt rock, end of Britpop). That's probably why the man who made Blink-182 big came along.
Morrissey did a very long tour to promote Maladjusted and did quite a bit of TV work. I'm sure he could have done more, but he did far less for Vauxhall and I a few years earlier.

I can understand you liking the production for the album, as that's a personal thing. Each to their own.
 
For my undestanding, the euopean and us-tour was short (9-12/1997) with only one date in Germany and mostly just one show in bigger european countries. Let me hear "I know who I love" and die a happy man.
 
For my undestanding, the euopean and us-tour was short (9-12/1997) with only one date in Germany and mostly just one show in bigger european countries. Let me hear "I know who I love" and die a happy man.
He played more than 50 shows on the Maladjusted tour.

He played 0 shows to promote Vauxhall and I and 15-20 to promote Southpaw Grammar, so more than 50 dates has to be considered a long tour by anyone's standards.
 
He played more than 50 shows on the Maladjusted tour.

He played 0 shows to promote Vauxhall and I and 15-20 to promote Southpaw Grammar, so more than 50 dates has to be considered a long tour by anyone's standards.
Maybe not, compared with later tours. But you are right. Arsenal saw similiar dates, Southpaw even less but I still don't know what happened to the planned Vauxhall tour.
 
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