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May 30, 2019If a great cover version should reveal new dimensions in both song and singer, then this album is filled with them.
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May 23, 2019Without the baggage of his political views--which is where the letter grade on this review comes from--California Son would be a worthy addition to a mostly stellar catalog, offering insight into a great singer and lyricist’s taste and breathing new life into mostly forgotten songs.
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May 24, 2019Committing to kitschy ’60s bliss as much as that era’s real or imagined war zones allows Morrissey and California Son a chance to find a (literal) voice in a way he hasn’t in ages. It would just be an even greater feat if Morrissey could make more of its finer musical moments jibe with his personal vibes.
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May 24, 2019For California Son, the Pope of Mope has picked 12 lilting tales of injustice and unrequited love by some of his favorite artists and re-orchestrated them for his voice, improving some and turning others into head scratchers.
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May 23, 2019He's sounding a bit like a curmudgeon, but he embraces his eccentricities, which means this contrarianism wears well on record, even if it doesn't in real life.
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UncutMay 21, 2019California Son may not entirely succeed in repositioning Morrissey as a righteous protest singer, boldly crooning truth to power, but in fleeting moments like this [like on "Some Say I Got Devil"], it confirms him as a peerless modern practitioner of deep song, the pop artist who can divine, even in the work of the singer of "Brand New Key," lorca's dark, abysmal spirit of duende. [Jun 2019, p.28]
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MojoMay 21, 2019Versions of Jon i Mitchell's Don't Interrupt The Sorrow and Bob Dylan's Only A Pawn In Their Game are surprisingly persuasive. Elsewhere, it's like being imprisoned in the teenage Moz bedroom/brain. [Jun 2019, p.89]
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May 28, 2019When they play it safer, like on their workmanlike strum through Joni Mitchell’s “Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow” or the easy-listening wistfulness of their take on Roy Orbison’s “It’s Over,” the results are less remarkable. And while it’s a relief to be spared Morrissey’s bitterness, sometimes California Son feels too frothy, and he sounds like he doesn’t have any skin in the game at all.
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Classic Rock MagazineMay 30, 2019A competently executed, if indulgent. [Jul 2019, p.85]
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Q MagazineJun 14, 2019There's nothing transformative enough to make this more than a placeholder and plenty that is kitsch. [Summer 2019, p.112]
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May 28, 2019California Son is uneven at its best, and borderline sacrilegious at its lowest points. This level of steady, maintained mediocrity will only make it harder and harder for all but his staunchest fans to continue caring.
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May 24, 2019The arrangements are suitably bombastic: there’s a theremin camping up the pub piano on his cover of Laura Nyro’s ”Wedding Bell Blues”. His version of Bruce Wayne Campbell’s (aka Jobriath) 1973 glam stomp “Morning Starship” really sells the wry/cosmic lyrics about a girl picking a rocket’s lock with her hairpin. ... Morrissey’s take on Joni Mitchell’s “Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow” is leaden jazz karaoke, stripping the original of all its haze and drift. The electro-stomp/harp, fading to reflective piano fade-out of his reworking of Melanie Safka’s ”Some Say I Got Devil”, makes a joke of his lifelong self-pity.
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May 21, 2019Some tracks are merely forgettable--‘Days Of Decision’, ‘Lenny’s Tune’ and ‘When You Close Your Eyes’--while others charge headfirst into oddball territory.
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May 24, 2019He wheezes through Gary Puckett and the Union Gap’s Lady Willpower like an exhumed Tom Jones, and hearing him preening on Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow--given an arduously heavy makeover by his band--feels like a violation of Joni Mitchell’s mythically light original.
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May 21, 2019For the most part, Morrissey sounds like a cheap facsimile of himself; an aged crooner without any latter-day grace. Moreover, the features list on this album, including Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, occasionally comes into play with no impact. Coupled with Morrissey's complete lack of finesse in his vocals are the instrumentals, which are, for the most part, the dictionary definition of clinical.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 16 out of 24
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Mixed: 4 out of 24
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Negative: 4 out of 24
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May 26, 2019
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May 27, 2019excellent!! N e lo pierdan. merece la pena la revisión de estos clásicos por Morrissey
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May 26, 2019