P rotest S inger
By Tom Lanham
J
ohnny Marr just made the best record
of his life. And he knows it.
Dubbed Call the Comet, it’s the ex-Smith
guitarist’s third, following 2013’s The
Messenger and 2014’s Playland. And it finds
him: Lyrically delving into grim socio-
political issues that he’d often avoided;
Letting his axe provide the chiming hooks
in places instead of a rousing chorus,
although those are in great abundance, as
well; And most importantly, taking center
stage as a full-throttle frontman, his voice
perfectly miked on every track. It’s a star-
tling step forward that many who have fol-
lowed his post-Smiths career – working
mainly as a sideman for Electronic, The
Cribs, Modest Mouse, even film scorer
Hans Zimmer – simply won’t be expecting.
He’s finally shaken the long shadow of
charismatic Smiths vocalist Morrissey for
good.
The disc kicks off with the menacing
stop/start static of “Rise,” then segues into
a tumbling “The Tracers,” and an eclectic
mix of huge chimers (“Spirit Cities” and
“A Different Gun,” which sounds like
Bowie’s “Heroes” slightly retooled side-
ways), gentle acoustic janglers (“Day In
Day Out”), and bludgeoning punk
pounders (“My Eternal,” one of the most
feral rockers Marr as ever forged). But the
material’s brutal honesty originated in
22 illinoisentertainer.com july 2018
another confessional place – Set the Boy
Free, Marr’s 2016 tell-all autobiography via
which he re-examined his entire existence
and tried to make concise sense of it all.
Naturally, that frankness seeped into
Comet, too.
Eventually, Marr, 54, began to think of
his album as a lifeline, a guiding force.
Nobody made great Bohemian concept
records anymore, his wife had commented.
So why shouldn’t he set those standards
untouchably high again? After all, wasn’t
that why he started forming bands in the
first place as a Manchester teenager? For 45
minutes, he leisurely chatted about all of
this and reaffirmed his devout belief. “I
think I made a pretty good record, all
told,” he reckons, downplaying the drama
just a tad.
ILLINOIS ENTERTAINER: What’s it like
for a musician out there in the world right
now?
JOHNNY MARR: What’s it like?
Everything’s changing, the world has
changed, as we all know – we all feel it.
And the way people are relating to music
has changed. Gone are the days when
everybody will listen to, as a matter of
course, listen to several remixes of an
artist, plus their new album. Some people
still do that, and I will always test myself
that I have the attention span to listen to
ten new songs, back to back. But that
seems to be the exception rather than the
rule these days. However, what I meant
when I said that people relate to music dif-
ferently is that I find that I’m not resisting
this new world - I’m not wired that way.
But potentially, people still liked to get
moved by a song to either think or feel or
act, whatever. But they can’t necessarily
feel it the same way. So things have
changed, and it’s now a lofty idea just to
listen to an album side without skipping
around like we used to do in the past. But
people seem to have lost touch with what
makes a song work – honest words and
some good guitar.
IE: Stiff Records legend Wreckless Eric is
back with a new album. But that guy
could write an epic anthem on almost any
topic even not having the guts to say hello
to a cute girl he sees every day on the com-
muter train. What happened to that kind
of songwriting?
JM: Yeah. One thing that happened was
that the popularity of the cheap, sensation-
alist reality TV show of the last 10 or 15
years has wrongly conned the culture into
thinking that a song is only as valid, and a
singer is only as good, as when they’re
singing from the deepest recesses of their
hearts. And authenticity is just the sugary
coating on top. That then formed a whole
future generation of singers and entrepre-
neurs whose whole stock in trade is com-
bining that surfacey sentimentality with
lyrics to match. And that is so widespread
in our culture that hundreds of thousands
of people will tune in to watch it every
week, without seeing the diversity of all
these other outside-the-box artists with
something to actually say. When you look
back, take a record like “Summertime
Blues.” Or “Come on Everybody.” Both
great records in pop culture, but Eddie
Cochran’s not just singing for everybody
to come on – the song is so much more
than that, although it sounds deceptively
simple. And a great song doesn’t have to
be about shouting, either – take Lou Reed,
who was calm, cool and collected on every
song but still managed to get its emotion
across. And I was always listening to Brian
Eno, who could do the same, and even
more subtly.
IE: But this all boomerangs back to you.
You’ve finally found yourself as a vocalist
with this record, and put yourself up front
in the mix where you used to bury yourself
before.
JM: Yeah, I think so. And really, I wouldn’t
have put my name and my voice to a
record if I wasn’t confident in it. But now I
perceive that people do like my voice, so
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