Morrissey's 13 Favorite Albums

On the flipside of happy, the Nico net caught me early. Her voice equalled the sound of a body being thrown out of a window - entirely with out hope, of this world, or the next, or the previous. Onstage, she moved like a big bleak creaking house, never once altering the direction of her eyes. I am in love. Her harmonium heaves and swells like crashing waves answering each other. If Nico could've laughed, she would've. But she couldn't, so she didn't.
- Morrissey (from the linear notes of a compilation album of his favorite artists, Morrissey: Under the Influence.

Did you know that at the average, modern funeral [Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell is] a very popular tune.
- Morrissey (Desert Island Discs Interview)

In a glorious surge of deserved success in 1974, the very comprehensive lyric sheets accompanying Sparks albums prove that Ron Mael is clearly driven to tell, yet he answers the media by skillfil Quietism and by impersonating various walls. Ron Mael is an undoubted genius, and where else would a true genius live but in the catacombs of hell? Ron asks his younger brother Russell to sing the words - in chilling falsetto. Russell sings in what appear to be French italics, and has less facial hair that Josephine Baker. It is a scream, because the songs are screams. (...) Who on earth would write a pop song in such a way? A song about an arts and crafts competition where 'lovely Claudine Jones/has to come to push her quilt', but where Tracy Wise gets a prize. There is no category for this madness - except the category of madness, and Sparks are only let down by their name. At 14, I want to live with these people, to be - at last! - in the company of creatures of my own species.
- Morrissey (from the linear notes of a compilation album of his favorite artists, Morrissey: Under the Influence.)

Talking of the modern poet in modern music and listening to Lou Reed as a part of The Velvet Underground, we are really listening to the WH Auden of the modern world. Once again, not existing in print poetry but in recorded noise.
- Morrissey (from his Desert Island Disc's interview)

I'm the world's biggest Damien Dempsey fan, but every night he kept saying exactly the same things onstage, so one night I met him walking offstage and jumped on his back. He enjoyed that... and... so did I ... - Morrissey (from the True To You site)

Did you ever hear Born To Quit? It’s by the Smoking Popes. I thought that album was extraordinary, the most lovable thing I'd heard in years. - Morrissey