Morrissey – Viva Hate Review

Morrissey wasted no time in branching out as a solo artist after the demise of The Smiths. No time to lose when you have songs like Suedehead under your belt, ready to send off into the world. Viva Hate is still a benchmark moment for Morrissey, an album that defines not just the post-Smiths sound for the frontman but, crucially, gets it out before his bandmates could. He gets the lion’s share of jangle pop and kept it, especially since Johnny Marr plodded along with some vague guitar notions and a collaboration with Talking Heads on their last studio album. Arguably the better work there, but Viva Hate has merits and bells and whistles of its own. It gives listeners, even now, a chance to connect with what Morrissey had learnt from his time in The Smiths. The sound he features across these first solo tracks is one he would keep as the core to those following records, even when it seemed like a new producer or style had taken him elsewhere. He would return to this. 

A solid base to return when needed it is. Viva Hate stands tall as a strong example, a round-up of sorts for material that is suitably Smiths-y in tone, but fundamentally Morrissey in delivery. Crucial to that fundamental, though, is that the opening song, Alsatian Cousin, is quite unlike anything Morrissey had done and has ever done since. David Bowie deserves his flowers there, the whining guitar and heavy percussion, a little bit of cowbell thrown in there. Morrissey finds some comfort in his influences and riffs on them brilliantly. Make no mistake, Morrissey here is a force to be reckoned with. Instrumentally inspired and lyrically, his very best solo work. Peak early and then pad the rest of your career out with oddities and interesting expressions, it’s a fair crack at the usual artistic trajectory. Much of Viva Hate buys into the Morrissey hype, that larger-than-life feeling the veteran songwriter has kindled over the years. He may have lost his magic touch now, but Viva Hate is a reminder of just how strong he once was.  

Songs like Little Man, What Now? and Late Night, Maudlin Street, are exceptional examples of Morrissey as a songwriter and vocalist. What it’s easy to lose sight of is just how influential a sound Morrissey has on his hands here. Closing track Margaret on a Guillotine is a career-best work, and paired with the preceding track, Dial-a-Cliché, the contemporary spills Morrissey has at hand are staggering. They’re poison-tipped adaptations of the world around him, but are broad enough to still hold some magic within them. But then there are signs here of what Morrissey would soon lean into. Bengali in Platforms is hardly the most literal title, but then in the superfluous, always-changing meaning, there is a loss of quality that comes from broad writing and instrumental adaptation. We can forgive it here because it is early into his solo career and at least an interesting sound, but it would be repetition and similar-sounding influences that pull at Morrissey from here. A note of derision for the future that he has yet to bounce back from.  

That string section reliance on Down We Go Together, especially given the heavy subject matter, feels like a cop out, plain and simple. Tugging at your heartstrings with listicle-like writing that notes the horrors that can happen, and the person there to sweep up the pieces like a white knight, is hardly convincing. But it works as a repetitive structure; it’d be much better without those strings and the soppiness of love found at the core of this one. Viva Hate is a very strong effort all the same, a quality piece of Morrissey’s material that would hardly be bettered by the albums that followed. There are worse highs than this one to have at your disposal, that is for sure. Viva Hate is arguably the strongest work Morrissey put out as a solo artist, and even now, it rivals some of The Smiths’ work. The point of breaking from a band is to prove you can do more when not constrained by bandmates. Morrissey proves it here, whether you like it or not.