Morrissey

Manchester and The Smiths

Steven Patrick Morrissey was born on 22 May 1959 in Old Trafford, Lancashire. He grew up in Hulme and moved to Stretford in 1970. He left school in 1975 without qualifications and took O-Levels later at Stretford Technical College. Around 1977 and 1978 he sang with a group called The Nosebleeds and wrote songs with its guitarist Billy Duffy, though he later said he never formally joined. In 1981 he wrote a booklet on the New York Dolls, then a book on James Dean.

In 1982 he formed The Smiths with the guitarist Johnny Marr. Their debut album reached number two in Britain in 1984, and Meat Is Murder, The Queen Is Dead and Strangeways, Here We Come followed. Marr left in July 1987 and the band ended.

A solo start

In August 1987 Morrissey wrote that The Smiths should be laid to rest and that he wanted to record under his own name. The producer Stephen Street had sent him demos meant as possible Smiths B-sides, and they became the first solo songs. The sessions ran from October to December 1987 at the Wool Hall, where The Smiths had made their last record months earlier. Street played bass and guitar, Vini Reilly played guitars and keyboards, and Andrew Paresi played drums.

Suedehead came out in February 1988 and reached number five, higher than any Smiths single. Viva Hate followed on 14 March 1988 and went to number one in Britain. Everyday Is Like Sunday was the second single. Reilly later said he and Morrissey wrote most of the songs together, which Street denied, and Morrissey himself later called the record rushed. A dispute with Street over production fees followed.

The new band

Bona Drag (1990) gathered his early singles and B-sides. Among them were stand-alone hits such as The Last of the Famous International Playboys and Interesting Drug, which brought back his former Smiths colleagues Andy Rourke, Mike Joyce and Craig Gannon. Kill Uncle followed in 1991 and drew mixed reviews. The turn came with Your Arsenal in July 1992, the first album with a new band built around Alain Whyte and Boz Boorer, who became his main co-writers. Mick Ronson produced it. The sound moved from indie pop toward rock with rockabilly and glam in it. It reached number four in Britain and 21 in the United States, and earned a Grammy nomination. A live album, Beethoven Was Deaf, came out in 1993, the year Ronson died of liver cancer.

Vauxhall and I arrived in March 1994, produced by Steve Lillywhite, and went to number one in Britain. Its first single, The More You Ignore Me, the Closer I Get, gave him his first British top ten hit since 1989. NME later named it his best solo album. Southpaw Grammar followed in 1995, with Dagenham Dave as its first single, and Maladjusted in 1997. In 1996 the drummer Mike Joyce won a High Court royalties case against Morrissey and Marr, and Morrissey's appeals failed in 1998.

Los Angeles and the return

From 1998 to 2003 he made no records and moved to Los Angeles. He came back with You Are the Quarry in May 2004, produced by Jerry Finn. It reached number two in Britain and number 11 in the United States, his highest American placing, and sold about a million copies worldwide. Four singles, among them Irish Blood, English Heart and First of the Gang to Die, all reached the British top ten. That year he also curated the Meltdown festival.

Ringleader of the Tormentors, produced by Tony Visconti in Rome, went to number one in 2006, led by the single You Have Killed Me. Morrissey credited its heavier sound to the new guitarist Jesse Tobias. Years of Refusal (2009), World Peace Is None of Your Business (2014), Low in High School (2017), California Son (2019) and I Am Not a Dog on a Chain (2020) followed. He also published his Autobiography in 2013 and a novel, List of the Lost, in 2015.

A 2006 BBC Culture Show poll ranked him the second-greatest living British cultural icon, and he is credited as a seminal figure in indie pop and indie rock. His public statements, especially on politics, have drawn criticism for decades. Concerts planned in 2024 to mark the twentieth anniversary of You Are the Quarry were cancelled.