Fill Your Heart with a Newly-Remastered Copy of Morrissey’s Vauxhall and I
On March 14, Morrissey’s fourth proper studio album, Vauxhall and I, celebrated its 20th anniversary... and on June 3, 2014, the celebration continues, with Rhino releasing the definitive master of the album.
When Vauxhall and I was originally released, the reviews were, for all practical purposes, just as rapturous as those doled out to its predecessor, 1992’s Your Arsenal. Q described the lyrical tone of the album as “predictably melodramatic and self-pitying” but “more resigned and even peaceful,” and handed out a five-star rating,” while the All Music Guide suggested that album contained “some of Morrissey’s best material since the Smiths,” adding that, “out of all his solo albums, Vauxhall and I sounds the most like his former band, yet the textured, ringing guitar on this record is an extension of his past, not a replication of it.” The record-buying public proved to be equally charmed, sending the album to the top of the charts in the UK and providing him with the highest-charting US album of his career up to that point (#18).
Arguably more impressive, however, is the fact that Vauxhall and I’s first single, “The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get,” took Morrissey into the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time in his career. Mind you, this is another one of those cases where it sounds much more impressive to note that the song topped the Modern Rock chart than it does to giddily announce, “Morrissey made it all the way to #46 on the Hot 100!” Nonetheless, it’s an impressive accomplishment in the grand scheme of things, and at the very least, it’s certainly worth a golf clap.
Lest you think that the re-mastering is the only reason to re-purchase the album, you should also be aware that, as what we like to think of as a 20th anniversary present, we’ve added a second disc to Vauxhall and I which features the majority of Morrissey’s performance at the Theater Royal Drury Lane on February 26, 1995…and, yes, we know the last two songs of the evening, “Speedway” and “Shoplifters of the World Unite,” aren’t included. Why are they M.I.A.? Well, as tempting as it is to quote one of the album’s song titles – we’re thinking of the sixth track, if you’re wondering – we can at least offer a partial answer: the recording comes courtesy of the BBC – they aired it on Radio 1 back in the day – and it never contained those songs in the first place. While the omission of “Shoplifters” no doubt comes as a result of the performance being aborted on account of a stage invasion, which is positively de rigueur at a Morrissey concert, we don’t know why “Speedway” wasn’t included on the BBC’s recording…but, hey, at least we know why it’s not on our release!
