I don't know if I'd call it "sad"...just unfortunate. They are what they are...a solid bar band being led musically by a bored, fat, out-of-ideas rockabilly pastiche obsessive...granted, Boz wrote some phenomenal songs in his time, but those days are long gone. They came and went with youth rather than, I'm sorry to say, being borne of a genuinely artistic soul.
What's truly unfortunate, though, is that although Morrissey probably will reach a point where he simply can't do it anymore physically or intellectually, I actually do not think he is quite at that point now. Maybe not by a long shot...but there's no way to know, because he has holed himself with such a dearth of talent that although he is doing the best with what he's got, it simply amounts to little more than anemic pantomime.
I think he is at a point where if the context were different, if he changed things up a bit, challenged himself, found a different musical backdrop, he could still pull some astonishing art out of his ass. He is stagnated because, frankly, I think he was significantly damaged by his American exile years, culturally and inspirationally. He took a blow that did not immediately manifest itself (largely because he still had Alain, but also because many of those songs were already kicking around for awhile) but certainly by the time of the Refusal sessions, he was running on empty. He has committed some truly suicidal artistic moves.
There's a lot of bitching about Jesse on here, and most of it I agree with, but the main problem with Jesse is not that he can't play, but that he can't write. When Jesse plays Smiths songs or early Solo songs, they sound anywhere from roided up to pissed on, but they're still great songs. It's that essence, that original muse, that no degree of hamfistedness can ruin.
But the fact is, the guy just can't write a decent tune. Yet Morrissey loves him and looks to him for the furtherment of his career...as Alain rots away, as Street rots away, as Johnny rots away, as God knows who else amazing rots away.
You can take the most brilliant artist on earth, but if he sits in a room where he is looking out a window at the same sky, same field, no houses, no buildings, no people, no life, and he never lets himself leave...then eventually he will just deteriorate artistically. Granted, while he's in that little room he's safe...and for a while, maybe a long while, he can run on reserve but eventually he's going to die. The safety comes at the expense of inspiration.
Morrissey would rather make solid -albeit safe- rock music at this point rather than art. Whether this is because he's lost the plot, or because in his mind he sounds like the Dolls, or because he's proving a point... I don't know.
When you force yourself to subsist on bread and water, you can live for a long time, but you're gonna feel and look like shit. Musically, for God knows what reason, that's what he's doing to himself. He's forcing himself to subsist on the bare minimum of nourishment. The results are the last batch of songs...each bearing a distinct trace of a once truly great artistic mind. But, while Bland Morrissey is still better than a lot of stuff out there, he could still -even at this late date- be so much better.
But not for long.
