Morrissey’s 14th album Make-Up Is a Lie finds him wearing all his favorite guises: eternal romantic, tireless crank, fragile old soul, free speech martyr, rock-nostalgia torchbearer, heavenly miserablist. He claims his years of controversial political utterances have made it hard for him to find a label to release the record, his first in five years. He ended up on Sire, which put out the Smiths and his early solo work. “I want to move away from those who stare at screens all day/I want to speak up and to not be trapped by censorship,” he sings against the Eighties-alt-rock guitar sparkle of “You’re Right, It’s Time,” more than one example here where clunky self-absorption gets in the way of a pretty good song.
The nadir is the sallow disco shitpost “Notre Dame,” in which he floats the xenophobic conspiracy theory that the 2019 fire that destroyed Notre Dame cathedral was the result of an uninvestigated terrorist attack. (He made the lyrics here a little more vague compared to the version he performed live but the intent still seems pretty obvious.) Mostly, though, he avoids dicey subject matter for solid autobiographical songwriting. “Zoom Zoom the Little Boy” sets two classic Moz themes – passionate animal rights advocacy and deep misanthropy — to a fun Swinging Sixties tune. A number of songs return to his deepest childhood musical loves. “Lester Bangs” is a tribute to the 1970s rock critic whose reviews of the New York Dolls and Roxy Music changed his life when he was a sad teenager — “this nerd hangs on your word.” “The Night Pop Dropped” returns to the shock of David Bowie’s death to honor his greatness, and Morriseey lovingly knocks out a zesty cover of the Roxy Music deep cut “Amazona.”
Those reflections on youthful passion contrast sharply with the Mozzer’s current state of self-pity. On “Boulevard” the only thing he can empathize with is a lonely street trod upon and senselessly abused. “Birds shit/Schoolboy’s spit/Right at you,” he moans. He recently had to cancel some tour dates due to health issues, and on “Headache” he offers an assessment of mortality that’s pretty morose even for him: “Man born of woman has a short time to live/And it’s still too long,” the 66 year-old artist intones. For many people, even longtime fans, dealing with Morrissey has become a headache. This album isn’t going to do much to change his strange place in the world, but his pain is real too.
Jay-Z performing at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis in Paris.
Jay-Z Deserves the Super Bowl Halftime Gig
Where’s the love? Jay-Z asked that question 25 years ago, in the chorus of one of many songs in his catalog that still move audiences today. If he performs “Heart of the City” as part of his Super Bowl halftime show next February, those indignant bars are sure to be a highlight: “First the Fat Boys break up, now every day I wake up, somebody got a problem with Hov…” It would be an appropriate choice, too — because then as now, any time Jay-Z notches a new achievement, people find a way to complain.
The jokes and nonsense started almost as soon as the first rumors trickled out that Jay, whose company Roc Nation has executive-produced the Super Bowl halftime show since 2019, might be choosing himself to headline next year’s show. “Jay-Z just Dick Cheney’d himself for the Super Bowl,” Puck‘s Matthew Belloni quipped on X last week, alluding to the time that the late prince of darkness, who’d been asked to run the vice-presidential search committee for George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign, put himself on the ticket. (Super hip and current reference, and not at all apples-and-oranges.) Others pointed to TMZ reports that pop stars like Harry Styles and Justin Bieber had been asked first. “How are they the frontrunners, and he end up in the front?” Cam’Ron, who’s delighted in trolling Jay for many years, wondered aloud on his podcast. “Out of all the people on the roster, they couldn’t pick nobody else?” asked Cam’Ron‘s co-host, Ma$e.
These critiques miss the point, which is that Jay-Z is one of the best choices for a high-profile gig like this. He’s a superstar with a comparable level of name recognition to any other A-lister in music. He has a deep stack of classic songs going back decades. And he’s a highly skillful live performer who knows his way around a stadium stage, as he’s spent this year reminding people on his Jay-Z 30 tour. He tore down Yankee Stadium three nights in a row this summer; just last week, he rocked SoFi Stadium, which happens to be the same place where the 2027 Super Bowl is being held. He held the crowd’s attention with ease at all of those shows, and though there were plenty of glittery guests — that’s a given at a Jay show, and it will surely be true at the Super Bowl, too — he did it mostly through the force of his own magnetic energy. Let’s state the obvious here: Jay-Z is really, really good at rapping. We’re talking about one of the slickest, sharpest talkers in the history of words, someone who made it to the top through a sustained act of myth-making, then kept going. Are we seriously asking whether he can handle a 15-minute televised performance?
And yeah, there’s a touch of self-congratulation in the way he appointed himself. So what? Praising his own gifts is arguably Jay-Z’s greatest talent of all. He made a fine art out of self-applause. He told his story again and again, retracing the steps from Marcy Projects to the corner suite, and he made us believe. It would almost be insulting to the audience if he didn’t give himself the gig at some point.
Pop culture observers in recent years surely remember the backlash to Super Bowl headliners like Kendrick Lamar and Bad Bunny — all of it at least culturally conservative, and much of it frankly just racist. The blowback to Jay’s announcement is mostly coming from other quarters, at least for now (let’s just wait to see what the right-wing swamps make of this one). But it’s disappointing in a different way. Jay-Z has spent his career expounding hip-hop as a mainstream commercial force. He’s not a businessman, he’s a business, man. But he’s also an artist. He’s made huge amounts of money, and gotten himself into the rarefied rooms where he even has the ability to give himself a gig like this, by spinning his experiences into compelling narrative art, one verse at a time. Let’s not lose sight of how impressive his life’s work really is. Jay-Z is not some random C-suite bro, and he’s definitely not Dick Cheney. He’s one of the greatest rappers of all time, by any measure. He’s earned that Super Bowl spot.