Vauxhall And I

Entertainment Weekly - "...A fantasy date with Britain's most ironic and monkish pop star..." - Rating: A- Option - "...a collection of competent, appealing pop tunes..." Rolling Stone - 3.5 Stars out of 5 - "...for all the disturbing images, VAUXHALL is incredibly accessible pop...straightforward music fit to convey the complex dynamics of depression...." Q - Included in Q Magazine's "90 Best Albums Of The 1990s." Musician - "...Don't laugh, but Morrissey is still in a funk...Morrissey comes across most effectively when he quits trying to be clever and speaks plainly...Here you get the singular Morrissey experience, those weirdly disarming ruminations by someone who seems to be both guileless and yet in a permanent snit..." NME - Ranked #26 in NME's list of the `Top 50 Albums Of 1994.' Spin - "...Delicate acoustic textures weave through haunting drones and synthesized strings...Although the draggy tempos and lush settings make VAUXHALL sound unbecomingly mellow on the surface, Morrissey does his best to get on your nerves..." Mojo - Ranked #63 in Mojo's "100 Modern Classics" -- "It remains his most complete work to date." Q (12/99, p.82) - Included in Q Magazine's "90 Best Albums Of The 1990s." NME (12/24/94, p.23) - Ranked #26 in NME's list of the `Top 50 Albums Of 1994.' Rolling Stone (4/7/94, p.73) - 3.5 Stars out of 5 - "...for all the disturbing images, VAUXHALL is incredibly accessible pop...straightforward music fit to convey the complex dynamics of depression...." Musician (4/94, p.87) - "...Don't laugh, but Morrissey is still in a funk...Morrissey comes across most effectively when he quits trying to be clever and speaks plainly...Here you get the singular Morrissey experience, those weirdly disarming ruminations by someone who seems to be both guileless and yet in a permanent snit..." Spin (3/94, p.87) - "...Delicate acoustic textures weave through haunting drones and synthesized strings...Although the draggy tempos and lush settings make VAUXHALL sound unbecomingly mellow on the surface, Morrissey does his best to get on your nerves..." Entertainment Weekly (3/25/94, p.54) - "...A fantasy date with Britain's most ironic and monkish pop star..." - Rating: A- Option (8/94, p.114) - "...a collection of competent, appealing pop tunes..."

VAUXHALL & I opens on the track "Now My Heart is Full", which could seem a stunning revelation from England's most notorious melancholy since Hamlet. It's not an ironic title, but, of course, with Stephen Morrissey, it's never that simple; the elegant song is full of self-deprecatory asides and dark longing, yet is also a warm and loving, lush pop track. Which is to say, it's classic Morrissey. And 1994's VAUXHALL may be the most consistently enjoyable album he put out as a solo artist, with his usual balance of literary neuroses and rapturous hooks, from the driving guitar of "Spring-Heeled Jim" to the studied brooding of "Hold On To Your Friends" to the extra-creepily genial stalking of "The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get" (which turned out to be his first American chart hit ever, inside or outside the Smiths).|