Product Description

Having spent nearly fifteen years at war with all that is dull and insensitive, Morrissey has become a unique figure inpop music-- looming, eccentric, and, to his religiously loyal fans, infallible. On MALADJUSTED, he chooses to focus hisvenom on the usual brutes and perverts, as well as presenting vignettes of lives you probably wouldn't find in other people's pop songs ("We've never see a keener/window cleaner"). There's a particularly vitriolic take on his unsuccessful litigation with Smiths rhythm section Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce in "Sorrow Will Come In The End", which is simply spoken over a tense, dramatic string section-- and you thought hesounded miffed when he sang! As for the requisite self-loathing, in "Trouble Loves Me", he implores, "Please fulfil me/Otherwise kill me".
Production is handled imaginatively but unobtrusively by Steve Lillywhite (U2, The Pogues, Psychedelic Furs) with a tasteful smattering of effects and samples. Arrangements, ranging from simple, modern rock to lush string orchestrations, always leave plenty of room for the ever-fascinating, clever, intense craftsmanship of pop's most entertaining depressive.

Track Listing

1. Maladjusted
2. Alma Matters
3. Ambitious Outsiders
4. Trouble Loves Me
5. Papa Jack
6. Ammunition
7. Wide To Receive
8. Roy's Keen
9. He Cried
10. Satan Rejected My Soul

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19583 in Music
• Released on: 1997-08-11
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 40 minutes

Customer Reviews

Maladjusted Misunderstood
I can't believe that this album is vilified so much. This is a wonderful album that in some ways captures the spirit of The Smiths so much more than other albums. The title track is the most bombastic thrilling album opener since The Queen Is Dead. This is truly one of Morrissey's finest songs. The arrangement is chilling and lyrically it doesn't get any better than this. A tale of rent boys, this serves as a sequel to Piccadilly Palare and finds Morrissey delivering some classic lines - "You stalk the house in a low cut bloues - Oh Christ another stifled Friday Night" for one. For this track alone "Maladjusted" is worth the entry fee.
"Alma Matters" is Morrissey's great lost single, and one of his best choruses. Clever wordplay once more wins the day and this is a track well worth revisiting. The album's trouble spot comes in the next three songs, "Ambitious Outsiders" perhaps being a little too creepy, and possibly questionable in its content, even for the Moz, "Trouble Loves Me", despite being great as a live track on his Tormentors tour is just too melodramatic and veers toward cloying, whilst "Papa Jack" is one of Morrissey's worst songs by a mile, shamelessly ripping off The Kinks' Australia and presenting the most cringeworthy self pitying lyrics of his career.
If you can get beyond this disappointing trio then the rest is bliss.
"Ammunition", an unlikely title for a Morrissey song finds him once again kicking back at his dissenters, but in a much less vitriolic mood than on say "Speedway", admitting that he is expected to now veer cliffwards, surely a pun on Mr Richard. "Wide to recieve" is a great Morrissey love song. He may be a little out of key with the bizarre references to downloading, plugging in and unlocking, terms which don't sit easy with Morrissey the luddite, but do go someway to describing the rather clinical approach to lovemaking that Morrissey may feel he is damned with. Memories of suffering dry lips under an iron bridge may come with this song. By the end, he still feels very alone, however shrouded this really is the Morrissey of "You've got everything now".
"Roy's Keen" is the "Vicar in a Tutu" of the album, and while this was criticised on it's single release for its frivolity, let's not forget that it was this dry humour that endeared us to Morrissey in the first place. "Roy's Keen" obviously plays on Roy Keen, for no other reason than it sounds funny, and Morrissey sings a song about a window cleaner much like George Formby, a typical character from Moz's back catalogue of inspirations.
"He Cried" is a heart wrenching Morrissey love song with some very powerful imagery. Perhaps another love song is a little excessive at this point but this is still a great song which sends a shiver up the spine every time.
"Sorrow Will Come In The End" is unavailable on the UK release and this is absolutely criminal as it is just classic Morrissey. Following on from "The More You Ignore Me", Moz carries on his diatribe against Joyce, Rourke and the justice system on the whole with a vicious piece of songwriting. Musically this is the sort of music-hall fare that would have sat very comfortably on "The Queen Is Dead", spoiled only by a very out of place sax break. A creepy, unusual addition to the album which should be considered when buying the album, go for the US import.
"Satan Rejected My Soul" closes the album with a humorous flourish unheard of on a Morrissey closer since "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others". Just a great song in the Morrissey stomper tradition, funny, brash and brilliant.
Apart from the hiccup in the first half, this really is worth re-visiting or discovering for the first time, despite the general view that this is Morrissey's worst. It's better than "Kill Uncle" and in my opinion easily as good as his last two albums.
Its here right under your nose and you just can't see it can you?

A fine little pop album from before he was back in-vogue...
On it's initial release in 1997, Maladjusted was seen as further proof of Morrissey's overall lack of contemporary relevance following the controversy surrounding Your Arsenal and the critical and commercial failure of his 1996 album, Southpaw Grammar.

The general consensus of the time saw Morrissey depicted as a lumbering dinosaur, out-of-touch with current trends and the insipid mock-movement that was Britpop, by producing albums that either reflected elements of progressive-rock (a big no-no in the days of the three-chord wonders) or instead, harking back to the former glories of the Smiths. Neither one of those opinions is necessarily true though, with both Southpaw Grammar and Maladjusted showing Morrissey's desire to push his trademark sound further - as he'd begun to do on career peak Vauxhall & I - by establishing a strong song-writing partnership with guitarists Alain Whyte and Bozz Boorer, as well as drafting in one of the greatest producers of 80's and 90's pop with Steve Lilywhite. The sound of these two albums (and it is really hard to separate the two, given their reputation as the most problematic of Morrissey's career) was much darker and rhythmically dense, with the critics imploring the singer's shift into dreamy atmospheric dirges and calling both endeavours difficult and far-from-immediate (two reasons why they unanimously adored Vauxhall & I).

However, the passage of time has, once again, proven these critical viewpoints wrong... to an extent! Well, it's true that Southpaw did see the inclusion of almost-classical arrangements, epic song-lengths and a bleaker, more-cohesive sound, but to dub it 'progressive' is to ignore the addition of great pop tracks like Boy Racer and Dagenham Dave. It is also true that this particular album sees a more eclectic musical style mixed in with that trademark Morrissey sound, and whilst the most difficult moment, Sorrow Will Come in the End was removed from most versions due to it's lyrical content, the overall sound and production quality acts more as a precursor to 2004's return You Are the Quarry, rather than a re-hash of his previous Smiths-related (or post-Smiths) musical endeavours. It seems almost churlish to defend the album in this manner, but the fact remains... this is simply a GOOD pop record. Like other commentators have mentioned, it seems that all you here about Maladjusted is how mediocre it is and how it fails to live up to The Queen is Dead or Viva Hate, though isn't the entire point of an artist to risk failure in the search of progression (lest they become 'too jaded to question stagnation')...?

I'll admit that not every song on here in on a par with tracks like Now My Heart is Full, Lifeguard Sleeping Girl Downing or Everyday is like Sunday, but at least four of the ten (or eleven if you get the U.S. import) are. The rest are just sublime, mid-tempo pop songs ranging from the good to the almost great. Morrissey, as both performer and lyricist, sounds invigorated, layering intoxicating melodies with the help of his backing band, whilst delivering his vocals with a lot of style and a great deal of emotion. The best songs for me are the ones that seem to lead off from Vauxhall... those dreamy, dreary ballads in which Morrissey takes heartache head on. Something like Trouble Loves Me - which often ranks amongst Morrissey fan's top-ten Morrissey related songs - giving us just enough of a hint towards the typical style of the Smiths, but with lyrics that seem more concise and universal ("in the half-light, so English - frowning, than at midnight I... can't get you out of my head"), whilst the later track Wide to Receive has a great doomed atmosphere about it, with Morrissey hopelessly pining "and I don't get along with myself... and I'm not too keen on anyone else".

I'd also go so far as to list Alma Matters (the album's big single, replete with a Mathew Rolston directed video that seemed designed to break Morrissey in America... though it never did!), which some have described as Morrissey-by-numbers, though for me, I find the melody absolutely ecstatic, whilst the lyrics weave heartfelt despair between subtle humour ("Alma matters in mind, body and soul, in part and in hole") as well as Ambitious Outsiders (looking towards that archetypical Morrissey subject matter; wayward youth), Roy's Keen (which seems to be almost universally derided amongst the internet-reviewing community) and Ammunition (which advances on tracks like Speedway and Boy Racer). Each of these songs is on a par with certain tracks from You Are the Quarry (specifically Come Back to Camden, All the Lazy Dykes, First of the Gang, etc), whilst the other tracks, though not quite as spell-binding as the ones I've noted above, all have certain charms that become more apparent with repeated exposure (the title track reminds me of Elvis Costello's Uncomplicated for some reason, whilst final track Satan Rejected My Soul is a great way to bring things to a close).

Maladjusted remains, perhaps, Morrissey's most underrated album, neglected more because of reactionary criticism (still reeling from the silly National Front controversy) and poor publicity on the part of Island/Mercury records (who wouldn't even let the man finalise his art-work; resulting in one of the blandest album covers I've ever seen), rather than anything approaching poor song writing or musicianship! This is an album that all Morrissey fans should own (if only for Trouble Loves Me, Wide to Receive and Satan Rejected My Soul); especially if you already love albums like Viva Hate, Your Arsenal, Vauxhall & I and the classic-compilation Bona Drag; all of which are integral really before progressing onto this.

MALADJUSTED
Tragically over-looked 1997 album by the UK's greatest living singer-songwriter. Dark, introspective, heartfelt and shot-through with both longing and wit, 'Maladjusted' was woefully under-promoted by the record company and casually dismissed by lazy critics with deadlines to meet and little patience to explore its rich, brooding quality. Highlights include the title track, 'Alma Matters' and the gorgeous ballad 'Trouble Loves Me' which must rank among his finest work. The US release includes the merciless 'Sorrow Will Come In The End' - a revenge attack akin to Queen's 'Death On Two Legs'. It would be seven years before his next release, the hugely enjoyable 'You Are The Quarry' from 2004.