Word: arsenal
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...advent of penicillin drugs in the early 1940s ushered in a triumphant era of medicine. With stunning speed, pharmaceutical chemists armed doctors with one antibiotic after another, giving them an arsenal of magic bullets to knock out the germs that cause everything from pneumonia to gonorrhea. It was only a matter of time, it seemed, before all infectious diseases would be conquered...
...readers some delicious tidbits: Ann in India, ready to stalk tigers in 120 degrees weather, appearing in a wool hunting outfit lined with chinchilla. At a dinner honoring the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, a footman passes potato chips and onion dip with the cocktails. Unfortunately, Braudy's arsenal of adjectives is limited. Families tend to be "wealthy," living in "opulent homes." And there are some unfiltered howlers -- the Duke of "Marlboro," for one. After a while, without the leavening of irony, one begins, intensely, not to care...
Which is why the omission of a lyric sheet from his latest album,Your Arsenal, is a little unsettling. It's the first suggestion that something's amiss on Gloomland. The opening track, "You're Gonna Need Someone on Your Side," offers little consolation for the skeptical listener. Over the loud but unremarkable guitar crash, Morrissey offers lyrics that sound as if they're lifted from a Debbie Gibson single: "Give yourself a break before you break down ," he snivels. This from the man who created the "Hairdresser on Fire" and put a Walkman on Joan...
...music on "Your Arsenal" suffer from the same flatness. "Certain People I know" makes a limp attempt at a country western sound, proving that this child of England's industrial wasteland is simply not cut out to headline at the Grand Ol' Opry. Most of the other tracks are just folkish filler. The only entertaining thing about the aimless, boring "We Hate it When Our Friends Succeed" is the title. It's mystery how he's managed to eke a hit out of the meager, colorless tune...
...these tracks are hardly enough to sustain this slight album (it only contains about thirty minutes worth of music). Could it be that Morrissey's morbid imagination is floundering because he's secretly found happiness? There's got to be some explanation for his lack of gusto on Your Arsenal. Too often, he doesn't even sound interested in his own dejection...