Meetings With Morrissey (Omnibus Press) [Hardcover]

Len Brown (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2008

Morrissey is amongst the most provocative and controversial performers in popular music. From the formation of his Manchester band The Smiths in 1982 through to the release of his acclaimed 2006 solo album Ringleader of The Tormenters, his career has spanned 50 UK top 40 singles and 20 UK Top 10 albums.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

As well as having been involved in the making of numerous documentary programmes for television, mostly on music, Len Brown was a staff journalist on the New Musical Express in the Eighties and early Nineties. He has also written for Spin USA, Vox, The Guardian, The Observer, The Independent, South Shields Gazette and The East End News.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 350 pages
• Publisher: Omnibus Press; 1st edition (October 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1847723764
• ISBN-13: 978-1847723765
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,646,197 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Len Brown was born in the Scottish Borders and brought up in Newcastle upon Tyne. He trained as a journalist on the East End News and The South Shields Gazette, before joining the staff of the New Musical Express in 1984. Since 1994, as a television producer, director or executive producer in Manchester, he has worked on over 40 documentaries for the BBC, Granada/ITV and Channel Four, including My Generation (R&B bands of the 1960s: Small Faces, The Animals, The Kinks...), T. Rex: Dandy In The Underworld, It's Slade, Three Lions (A History Of The England Football Team 1960-2000), The Brit Girls (Girl singers of the 1960s: Cilla, Sandie, Lulu, Marianne Faithfull...), Football Stories: When Bobby Moore Met Jimmy Greaves, The Carpenters: Close To You and Rod Stewart: Wine Women & Song.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written...thoroughly researched, December 8, 2008

By 

Tom MacIntyre "Tommyboy" (Glasgow Scotland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Meetings With Morrissey (Omnibus Press) (Hardcover)

Meetings with Morrissey is an account of a series of interviews with Morrissey over a 25 year period conducted by former NME man Len Brown. Not alone, Brown spent the early eighties frustrated and depressed by the state of the country and the music it was producing. That was until September 1983 when he first saw The Smiths and his despair at the re-election of Mrs Thatcher and the accompanying celebration of all things crass had a soundtrack, and a voice. Consequently, this book is more social history than biography. There are other books which focus in on the split between Morrissey and Marr and the endless (and pointless) speculation on Morrisey's sexuality and it is to this books credit that it does neither. Instead, it offers an analysis of not just why The Smiths were a great band but from whence came that searing critique which lifts The Smiths work out of the annals of pop music and places it alongside other great works of art. That critique was Morrissey's. While everybody else seemed to be saying `this is brilliant', Morrissey expressed an emotional language that I didn't have to say what I really thought and felt, `this is awful'. By revisiting the interviews he conducted with Morrissey, Brown is able to shed light on the key influences upon Morrissey. The chapter on Oscar Wilde is brilliant and gets closer than anything else to explaining the sense of sexual alienation and tragedy which underpin Morrissey's best work. However, this is just one aspect of the many and interconnected cultural stimulus that is explored to great effect. From soap opera characters to French cinema Brown creates a work that is insightful on a much deeper level than simply 'what happened where'.

Whilst an illuminating insight of itself, it is the personal and socio-political context of the period through which Brown weaves his insights into Morrissey's life and art which make this book such a tender and worthwhile exposition. Brown gives as much of himself as he does of Morrissey and in doing so brings the reader into intimate contact with something of themselves. Beautifully written and thoroughly researched, somehow, it really did say something about my life.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential Reading, December 20, 2008

By 

Julie R. (Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Meetings With Morrissey (Omnibus Press) (Hardcover)

Very highly recommended, especially for those interested in the musical and literary references in Morrissey's songs. Great interviews, many photos - and very well written!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Morrissey fans rejoice!, April 16, 2009

By 

Christine "Brooklyn Corvid" (Brooklyn, NY, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Meetings With Morrissey (Omnibus Press) (Hardcover)

Much as I enjoyed Johnny Rogan's well-researched "Morrissey and Marr: The Severed Alliance," there was one very important voice missing from the pages of that book: Steven Patrick Morrissey's. Len Brown's excellent work gives us Morrissey in all his wondrously complicated splendor, and it's impossible to put down.

If you love Morrissey as much as I do, I don't have to say anything else to you. Read this book! Now!