Morrissey – Bona Drag (1990)

Whenever someone mentions Bona Drag nowadays, my first thought is the beginning of Ryan Adams' Heartbreaker where Ryan Adams is arguing with David Rawlings about whether Suedehead is on Viva Hate or Bona Drag. Of course, Ryan Adams is right in saying that it's on both, because Bona Drag is a collection of Morrissey's early singles and B-sides. Bona Drag has lots of songs that do not appear on any other album. After Viva Hate, Morrissey wanted to release lots of singles before another LP and that's why there is so much material on this compilation. Bona Drag is one of the best albums Morrissey has ever released. The sounds are still quite similar to the sound of The Smiths. The album turned out to be a great success in the US where Morrissey hadn't been very successful before, while at the same time, Morrissey's popularity faded in the UK.



Personally, I "found" Morrissey after he had released his hit comeback album You Are the Quarry. I hadn't even listened to The Smiths before then. In the beginning, I liked Morrissey's more recent music a lot more than The Smiths, because I couldn't take any music with 80's sounds seriously around that time having spent my early teenage years in the 90's when 80's music was really not cool. Quite soon after, I started also listening to The Smiths and that opened up the whole 80's music for me. It took me even more time to really get into Morrissey's early music. The sounds were still quite 80's, but the music wasn't quite as dark as my favourite songs on The Smiths albums. Now, looking back, Bona Drag is filled with fantastic songs that compare both to The Smiths and to later Morrissey albums. Many reviewers today also see that Bona Drag is probably the highlight of Morrissey's solo career.

There are numerous great songs on this album so I won't go through all of them individually. I want to just point out my favourites, which include Piccadilly Palare, November Spawned a Monster, The Last of the Famous International Playboys, Hairdresser on Fire, Everyday is Like Sunday and Suedehead. Many of these are considered to be among the best songs Morrissey's ever recorded. For the special edition, six additional songs were added, but they're not on my version and I haven't really listened to them that much so I can't say if there are some of my favourites among those.

The album cover is a screen shot from the music video for November Spawned a Monster. Only, Morrissey's shirt colour has been changed from black to red for some reason. This music video is quite something. Morrissey is dancing around a desert wearing a see-through shirt acting seductively. In the most perplexing scene Morrissey is sucking a large bar of chocolate as if he's playing it like a harmonica.

In the last half of the 00's I really loved Morrissey's music. He was among some of my most listened to artists. More recently, I've kind of lost respect for this man. He has always been kind of full of himself and for example when he was asked in 2008 who he thought should be elected the President of the united States, he said they should elect him. Also, he has been really aggressive in promoting animal rights which some people have found annoying. I'm a vegetarian myself and I thought that despite of the aggressive tactics, he was doing the right thing. Anyway, I always knew Morrissey was a complex person. More recently though, Morrissey has made some comments where he's sympathising UKIP. He comes off as someone who's supporting Brexit politics and xenophobia and this is really something that makes it more and more difficult to appreciate Morrissey or his music. Setting Morrissey as a person aside, his music is important to me. It's difficult to completely discredit him because of him being a twat.

Listen to the album on Spotify.