A Gruesome Dissection of Morrissey & Make-up Is a Lie

New Stuff, Not Metal, Open Swim, Opinion, Reviews

March 16, 2026

You’re NOT the one for me, Steven

The term “problematic fave” has been overused and misused for a variety of reasons; I won’t bemoan people who like the work of a dead artist, assuming they also understand the importance of being critical of the dead artist and the art in question. Then there are the living artists who continue to haunt us in life and deserve to get raked through the metaphorical coals with no advocates to make progressively weak excuses that don’t hold water. Enter Morrissey, aka Moz, and Steven. This perennially miserable and insufferable Bri’ish geezer is an artist that, whether you love or hate him, will elicit a strong reaction.

Originally the front-man, co-founder and lyricist of The Smiths, after that group imploded—because of him, by the way—he embarked on a surprisingly prolific solo career that has since careened into a comedy of errors between diminishing interest and enthusiasm for his albums, along with deserved disgust over his beyond moronic and retrograde political views, such as supporting raging bigots like Tommy Robinson, Nigel Farage and Anne Marie Waters, or his unbearably sanctimonious and holier-than-thou public persona. I think Robert Smith from The Cure said it best when he called Steven “arrogant” and “a professional intellectual, which is like the worst type of person;” loathed Steven is the poster boy for making vegans look bad on top of also victimizing himself on a daily basis in a pathetic display for an old fart in his late 60s.

Needless to say, the reasons to dislike and criticize Steven are excessive; despite all of that, this perpetually self-pitying, self-loathing and xenophobic narcissist still commands devotion from fans that hang on his every word, and what’s more maddening is how a large number of his fans are nowhere near as racist as he is, at least not from my recollection. Make no mistake, there are definitely bigots who claim him and to Steven’s approval, no less, such as Nazi scumbag, Nigel Farage, but on that former point, it amazes me to no end how he still has zealous fans. Prominent and acclaimed musicians still line up to work with him, though the results of these various collaborations have been of a decreasing quality, mainly because either the music doesn’t match Morrissey’s very particular voice and style, or the once celebrated crooner’s lyrics went from witty and sardonic but highly emotive, to sophomoric, overly verbose and obnoxious rantings and/or whining. His live shows get canceled more often than not, or “lucky” people get a show where this flabby 66-year old wanders around the stage grunting, mumbling and moaning while making incomprehensible non-sequiturs, and of course complaining and whining in between his verses and songs, and that’s before you’re subjected to seeing this grotesque elder take his shirt off as he did in his twink days.

I will say upfront that I do get why Morrissey still has fans, not just because of The Smiths and their legendary run in the ’80s, but his solo work, especially early on, set him up to be a versatile singer-songwriter who melded jangly indie rock with the sonic aesthetics of ’50s and ’60s pop, and the flamboyance of glam rock. When you have such a generational run across two acts and a consistent output for a decade, your fandom will last long indeed.

However, to say that the quality of his albums has been inconsistent is an understatement; from 1988 until 1994, Morrissey had a streak of classics, but his late-’90s albums landed so coldly that the man went on a near-decade hiatus, followed by a successful comeback that also fizzled out with albums that felt like rehashes or weird detours that not even the Pope of Mope’s most faithfully devout would defend.

With all that, any sane person would ask why does this guy still have an audience, in spite of a terrible reputation and more subpar albums than great ones, and you’d be right to wonder that. The truth is far more complicated than just another washed up, bitter, old twat still retaining an audience. As for myself, and unlike Steven, I am willing to admit in good faith that I am biased; for me, it stings that the same dude who wrote lyrics like “To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die” and “I am human and I need to be loved” is such an unpleasant egomaniac that acts like a persecuted martyr when people call out his bullshit, and that same contradiction and cognitive dissonance is precisely why he still has fans.

Morrissey’s appeal for the longest time—and the main drive behind the devotion his fans have for him—was how he was the polar opposite of the artists of his time. He wasn’t an exotically-dressed New Romantic or an uber-macho rockstar; he was a bookish, campy and celibate teetotaler twink who sang of heartache, boredom and longing with both humor and sincerity in an impassioned way, which was at odds with the sex, drugs and rock and roll of the time. Even in his solo career where he switched his bookworm aesthetic look for a more gangster, roughneck one, he was still tackling these themes and emotions, etc. from a completely different angle than other artists. Furthermore, despite his sexuality still being widely speculated, the dude was a genuine source of comfort to many closeted queer youths in the ’80s and ’90s who felt seen through him. These are the reasons why people still love him, in spite of himself: a para-social relationship through the connection fans had with his music and the image of him dancing and twirling gladioli on Top of the Tops, enhanced by Steven’s off-stage and off-camera reclusiveness, which added several degrees of separation that said fans then use to defend the indefensible whenever Big Mouth strikes again, again, and yet again.

However, it really bears stressing how, regardless of how this man’s music and lyrics have saved lives and offered solace to people in dark times, there’s no excuse for how Morrissey has conducted himself, and not just because of his garbage politics and insufferable arrogance. His draconian veganism single-handedly created the “white veganism” stereotype, since he cares so much about the plight of lamb chops and chicken nuggets that it compels him to call Chinese people “subhuman” and diminish the 2011 Norway terror attacks by saying what happens in McDonald’s and KFC is worse—his words, not mine. As if the point wasn’t already hammered, I don’t like Steven as a person or public figure, and there’s an overabundance of precedent on why he should be criticized and condemned. But, I won’t deny that he does have some of the most iconic and influential music of all time, and while I may share some sympathy for his fans for having to say “I love ‘Suedehead’ BUT…” an unhealthy amount of times, I do have to throw another bucket of cold water. Not only is Steven a horrible waste of space, his music hasn’t been good in YEARS.

With all that out of the way, we can talk about the music for real. I mentioned before that Moz had two golden periods where his solo music was good, and these are his original run of albums starting with 1988’s Viva Hate until 1994’s Vauxhall and I, and his comeback in 2004 with You Are the Quarry, which continues to be one of his most-lauded records. However, this is the record where all good things came to an end.

While I do agree that album is very good, that’s where the shift happened, when Steven officially abandoned his sense of humor and wit for his deservedly mocked “woe-is-me, everyone is mean to me oh oh oh” lyricism. It also started a trend of Steven experimenting with his music, switching his indie jangle pop style for various types of adult contemporary, torch songs, baroque pop and electronica. It started promisingly with the aforementioned You Are the Quarry and served him well with 2006’s Ringleader of the Tormentors and the fairly back-to-basics approach of 2009’s Years of Refusal, but again, that’s when all good things came to an end.

For the last 15 years, Morrissey’s output has been a generational cavalcade of boring, uninspired or flat out confusing music, and like I said earlier, the attempts at experimenting with other genres don’t really work because Morrissey’s songwriting collaborators have to adapt styles that don’t mesh well with his voice, or worse, they don’t offer a counter or reining of the crooner’s worst musical impulses. His 2019 covers album California Son is one of the most egregious cases of artist and sound mismatch; the album that followed, 2020’s I Am Not a Dog in a Chain, followed this pattern with electronica and R&B.

I do have to say the actual music that the various collaborators and producers that Steven would recruit more often than not were good, from an instrumental standpoint they do work. Even bizarre records like I Am Not a Dog in a Chain and 1995’s Southpaw Grammar boast interesting production and wild experimentation, but because they hinge on Morrissey’s voice and his unquestioned prerogative, these weird experiments don’t get to shine as they probably should.

And with all that we can finally talk about the long-threatened new album by Steven Patrick Morrissey, Make-up Is a Lie. Horrible, awful title, and an even worse cover, though not as bad as his 2011 best-of compilation.

Right off the bat, everything I just said about Morrissey’s more off-kilter records applies here: technically proficient and even unique instrumentation and performances, a decently polished production and interesting ideas, all bogged down by Morrissey’s voice and lyrics, plus no real, critical second opinion on the songwriting and arrangements. The end result in this particular album is so cheesy and overwrought. The title track best exemplifies this; it has electronic beats and a sampled mandolin? and then paired with Morrissey’s yodeling moans going “Aaaaah make-up is a lieeeee Ooooh aaaah,” it just doesn’t work. The album switches back and forth between these laughable, electronic pseudo-torch songs and miserablet yet saccharine ’60s pop throwbacks with Morrissey sounding like a parody of himself, and the whole thing just feels longer than it is. The album closer, “The Monsters of Pig Alley,” is a good song; while still in Steven’s miserabilist mode, the lyrics actually work here: a simple track about professional disappointment— nothing groundbreaking, but amidst a sludge of complaining, nonsensical metaphors and weird referential jokes—that I’m sure producer Joe Chiccarelli and the various musicians had to force a laugh at just to coddle Steven’s fragile, constantly in need of validation ego—it is a welcomed change of pace.

Steven really is the constant that bogs down the whole project. From his voice not matching the music, to his lyrics being so astoundingly cringe-inducing, to the various experiments and sonic aesthetics demanded by Steven encumbering otherwise decent foundations, the whole thing at times feels like Morrissey came into the studio and completely took over an already finished collection of songs and morphed them to his liking, and his liking alone. I know that’s not true because by Steven’s own admission this album was worked on and reworked throughout 2023, had multiple songs removed or re-added to the track list, while also needing to be sequenced multiple times to accommodate said omissions and additions, and had three different titles. In this regard, Make-up Is a Lie, formerly known as Without Music the World Dies and You’re Right, It’s Time, is in fact overproduced and overwrought, with the music feeling stretched thin and without dynamics because Steven’s worst impulses had to be sated by otherwise talented musicians who couldn’t offer a critical stopgap to this ’60s pop-obsessed, washed-up crooner.

The only other highlight (and that’s by process of elimination) is a cover, “Amazona” by Roxy Music, and it’s literally just Steven doing karaoke. The original is a glam rock classic, of course, and back in the good ol’ days, Moz could’ve pulled this cover off well, but this isn’t prime Morrissey, this is bitter, old, curmudgeonly and whiny Steven, singing karaoke at the local elder’s matinee, or the bingo night after bash. I know I’m not delving into the other tracks, but the whole record just gives me nothing else to talk about. At the end of the day and in my opinion, only the aforementioned closer, “The Monsters of Pig Alley” is a salvageable track, because this cover, while inoffensive, is a perfect distillation of the album as a whole. Steven being overly precious about the music of his youth, recording it with modern equipment and only offering the novelty of it being a new product by him, be amazed!

Suffice to say, I did not like this record, and I do not recommend it, or Steven’s records after 2009, and that’s being generous because there’s a reason the only 21st century Morrissey album people care about is You Are the Quarry. I’m sure Steven’s fans will find a way to prop up this album in some way before completely forgetting about it and then playing the hits from the ’80s and ’90s again, because that’s basically the life cycle of Mozheads nowadays. Defend him like their life depends on it when they really shouldn’t, reassure themselves that The Queen Is Dead and Your Arsenal are worth the pain of playing bigot’s advocate, then buy tickets for a Morrissey show and hope against hope it doesn’t get canceled at the last minute because Steven got a whiff of fried meat or saw a brown person walking down the street. He will then excuse himself by saying he felt cold, sleep-deprived, exhausted or got randomly ill. Lather, rinse, repeat, ad nauseam, ad infinitum. All the while Steven takes to his website to complain about “cancel vultures” and The Guardian for the millionth time.