"Viva Hate" released 20 years ago today

Not Right in the Head

Not Right in the Head

ಠ_ಠ
In the UK (03/14/1988). Here's what Passions says about it, or would say, if it weren't down right now. You'll just have to take my word for it.

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Still my favorite solo album.
 
It's a gem (except the end).
Late Night Maudlin Street is just astonishing.
 
Viva Hate was actually the last Morrissey album I bought (excluding Greatest Hits) :o I worked my way backwards you see...
 
I remember going after school to buy it at the record shop in the basement of Kaufhof department store. Raced to the bus, sat in the very back seat, and greedily peeled the cellophane off the box. Remember the way cassettes rattled in their cases? I slid it into my walkman, pressed play... Alsatian Cousin is the first track, and it was borderline scandalous, so grown-up (I was thirteen...) Adultery! It was probably the first time I ever saw Morrissey's face, on the liner notes, because I don't think there were any band pictures in the liner of my Strangeways cassette. And I had no way of seeing videos at that time.

Back then he seemed mysterious and completely inaccessible, I knew nothing about him but the words he sang. I think I had one single magazine article, the Smash Hits one from about then in which he had reddish hair (?) and was photographed with the TV.
 
I played my first copy so many times I wore out the tape and had to buy a new one. It's the greatest album of all time in my opinion.
 
It was one of my first Moz-cds. I remember how I shivered when I listened to Late Night Maudlin Street...:o
 
PregnantForTheLastTime said:
I remember going after school to buy it at the record shop in the basement of Kaufhof department store. Raced to the bus, sat in the very back seat, and greedily peeled the cellophane off the box. Remember the way cassettes rattled in their cases? I slid it into my walkman, pressed play... Alsatian Cousin is the first track, and it was borderline scandalous, so grown-up (I was thirteen...) Adultery! It was probably the first time I ever saw Morrissey's face, on the liner notes, because I don't think there were any band pictures in the liner of my Strangeways cassette. And I had no way of seeing videos at that time.

Back then he seemed mysterious and completely inaccessible, I knew nothing about him but the words he sang. I think I had one single magazine article, the Smash Hits one from about then in which he had reddish hair (?) and was photographed with the TV.
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Wow, we had similar experiences. I never saw a picture of Morrissey until I'd been playing The Queen Is Dead for two or three months. Then I saw that same issue of "Smash Hits". I remember opening the tape cover of TQID and noticing for the first time that the singer, oddly, had only one name.

Viva Hate is an exceptionally strong album. Took many years for me to really love it, but I do. Awhile after it came out, when I was down in L.A. for a D***** M*** concert, I stopped in at Tower Records on Sunset and bought my first-ever Morrissey singles, seven-inch copies of "Everyday Is Like Sunday" (just released) and "Suedehead". Heady days.

Vanished days, too, symbolized by Tower's shuttered shops. Now I'm depressed.
 
laughing_anne said:
Great debut! I love it only slightly less than Vauxhall :)
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Me too! Or do I? ;) It's so hard to pick between the two. They're equal in different ways :) I just loved his solo effort, bursting out of the gates.

CrystalGeezer said:
It's the greatest album of all time in my opinion.
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*high five*

EPbabe said:
It was one of my first Moz-cds. I remember how I shivered when I listened to Late Night Maudlin Street...:o
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I get shivers just thinking about it now. It's so unique and haunting. No skipper in this bunch either, except maybe Suedehead. Tho it's my fave song, but you know...:rolleyes:

Worm said:
Wow, we had similar experiences.

Vanished days, too, symbolized by Tower's shuttered shops. Now I'm depressed.
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Similar experience for me as well- I had only seen his face handful of times and this was one of the first tangible pieces of evidence that I had. To look at that face. :horny: Again and again! Such a classic CD.

I miss my local Tower too. That place was the shiznit in its day. I think I bought my Viva Hate CD from a used record store on Clark Street in Lincoln Park (1st hood I moved to). I bought a lot of good music there. I think it's closed now :( There are a handful of good record places still left, thankfully that aren't megachains.


On Viva Hate from It May All End Tomorrow:

Released surprisingly quickly after the break-up, in March 1988, Viva Hate answered the pundits who declared that Morrissey would be lost on his own. Although flawed in many ways, Viva Hate has many absolutely classic tracks, notably singles "Everyday Is Like Sunday" and "Suedehead", and the epic monologue album track "Late Night, Maudlin Street".

The guitarist Vini Reilly was enlisted by writer/producer Stephen Street, playing keyboards and guitar on several tracks. Vini Reilly was reportedly unhappy with the contribution he made towards the album, saying "[Stephen Street] may as well have got a very good session guitar player to do what what I did." Vini's complex style of play did not really fit with Street's simplistic pop.

There is a noticable change in Morrissey's lyrical style as compared to his days as a Smith. With one exception (the evil "Margaret On The Guillotine"), gone are the detached diatribes of the past or the character-based poetry of early Smiths stuff. Even a song such as "Little Man, What Now ?" is laced with a feeling that the song is more to do with the lyricist than the subject matter (a fading star of a defunct television network).

This album was originally called "Education In Reverse", but changed name to reflect Morrissey's feelings after the break-up. Some Australian LPs were misprinted with this title, and are now worth about 25 pounds in good nick.

This album was recently reissued by EMI in a limited edition case at a limited edition price, in order to celebrate EMI's centenary. It comes with a 100-page EMI history which is completely devoid of any interest; the album has eight extra tracks (all B-sides, some excellent, some poor) :
 
OMG I remember buying it.I was eighteen.I had a lovely new record player too.Makes me feel so old.:tears:
 
It's my favourite solo album as well. Viva Hate's songs are like true anthems to me.
 
Not Right in the Head said:
I thought the VH pics were rather off-putting when I first saw them. I thought he looked like cretinous and menacing.
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Not being able to see his eyes was rather menacing, but it's such an iconic photo! I dunno about cretinous.

Urggh, I feel so old now after being reminded that this album is 20 years old. I didn't get this album into I went away to college later in hate-y-eight. because I didn't know it had been released. Yup, cassettes and vinyls.
 
Not Right in the Head said:
I thought the VH pics were rather off-putting when I first saw them. I thought he looked like cretinous and menacing.
Click to expand...

vicarinatutugal said:
really was it the shadows?
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Yeah, it was the shadows. I didn't like the Viva Hate sleeve either b/c you couldn't see his eyes at all. I felt like I still didn't really know what he looked like. (Given that none of the Smiths tapes I owned had any pictures of them in the artwork, and at that point I had never seen him in a magazine.....)

Total love for the album though, obviously. I remember being fascinated by Maudlin Street b/c it seemed like a vivid short story to music.
 
Just the coolest (and handsome-est) guy ever...

Great kick-in, Alsatian Cousin his best ever solo first album track (Great idea for a poll !!), then Little Man dips, EILS and Bengali are superb, Angel gets in the way, Maudlin Street isn;t everyone's cup of tea, Suedehead could have been the Smiths, then it just tails off - so not a classic album by any means, but for those of us of a certain vintage it was pretty good.

The first (and only) truly great solo album was Your Arsenal of course..
 
Well THIS one.

I was in the midst of being dumped by my first real high school sweetheart. Viva Hate made it all better...

or worse perhaps.
 
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