2018 Contenders #1: Return of the Folk-Moz

Suddenly it's April and I haven't written about any music from 2018 yet. What will be on my year end countdown come December? Here's the first of the contenders, and appropriately enough it's...

Erm... Morrissey?

"What?" you say. "I didn't know Morrissey had a new album out."

Well, he must have... I mean, where else would you find song titles such as Everything Is Awful, We All Die Young, Severed...? Even Rusalka, Rusalka / Wild Rushes has a Morrissey sound to it.

Look a little further at the tracks that don't immediately leap off the page as Mozzer-esque and you'll find Sucker's Prayer, with the chorus...

I wanna love somebody but I don't know how

I've been so long lonely and it's getting me down

I wanna throw my body in the river and drown

I wanna love somebody but I don't know how

Or what about the opener, Once In My Life? No Stevie Wonder here, folks - just a "joyful" rewrite of Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want, one of M&M's finest. (That's Morrissey & Marr, not Marshall Mathers.) Don't believe me?




Oh look, it turns out this isn't the sudden return of the original Pope of Mope after all... it's just long time Moz-afficiando and beardy folk hipster Colin Meloy and his band...

1. The Decemberists - I'll Be Your Girl

Apparently, Donald Trump's 2016 election victory sent Colin (or do they pronounce it Col-an in America - like Colin Powell?) over the edge, inspiring his most miserable record yet. And with typically perverse Mozzer-esque glee, he backed some of his most "Woe is me and woe is the world!" lyrics ever with jaunty upbeat folk pop tunes... even branching out to experiment with electronica (on Severed) and glam (We All Die Young). Could this be The Decemberists' best album yet... or has Meloy become the Moz it's still cool to admit to liking? You decide. I'll report back at the end of the year.