Morrissey
Steven Patrick Morrissey ( MORR-iss-ee; born 22 May 1959), known mononymously as Morrissey, is an English singer and songwriter. He came to prominence as the frontman and lyricist of rock band the Smiths, who were active from 1982 to 1987. Since then, he has pursued a successful solo career. Morrissey's music is characterised by his baritone voice and distinctive lyrics with recurring themes of emotional isolation, sexual longing, self-deprecating and dark humour, and anti-establishment stances.
Morrissey was born to working-class Irish immigrants in Davyhulme, Lancashire, England; the family lived in Queen's Court near the Loreto convent in Hulme and his mother worked nearby at the Hulme Hippodrome bingo hall. They moved because of the 1960s demolitions of almost all the Victorian-era houses in Hulme, known as 'slum clearance', and he grew up in nearby Stretford. As a child, he developed a love of literature, kitchen sink realism, and 1960s pop music. In the late 1970s, he fronted the punk rock band the Nosebleeds with little success before beginning a career in music journalism and writing several books on music and film in the early 1980s. He formed the Smiths with Johnny Marr in 1982 and the band soon attracted national recognition for their eponymous debut album. As the band's frontman, Morrissey attracted attention for his trademark quiff and witty and sardonic lyrics. Deliberately avoiding rock machismo, he cultivated the image of a sexually ambiguous social outsider who embraced celibacy. The Smiths released three further studio albums—Meat Is Murder, The Queen Is Dead, and Strangeways, Here We Come—and had a string of hit singles. The band were critically acclaimed and attracted a cult following. Personal differences between Morrissey and Marr resulted in the separation of the Smiths in 1987.
In 1988, Morrissey launched his solo career with Viva Hate. This album and its follow-ups—Kill Uncle (1991), Your Arsenal (1992), and Vauxhall and I (1994)—all did well on the UK Albums Chart and spawned multiple hit singles. He took on Alain Whyte and Boz Boorer as his main co-writers to replace Marr. During this time his image began to shift into that of a burlier figure who toyed with patriotic imagery and working-class masculinity. In the mid-to-late 1990s, his albums Southpaw Grammar