Bona Drag was an insult to his fans, including songs from Viva Hate. Moz doesn't mind milking them obviously. Fair point. I assumed vinyl reissues were part of his reimagination of the catalog (new art, track lists, etc) on 90s albums.
He’s not immune to criticism on this point. Quoting the song and pointing out the Low in High School deluxe less than a year after the LP release, that would be a fair point. Bona Drag was a collection of a sides and b sides from 88-90. Including suede head and Sunday makes sense in that context. You’re the first Morrissey fan I’ve heard have an issue with those songs being on Bona Drag, it’s a stellar comp and it logically pulled together a lot of strong material from that era. just because a 25 year old sang ‘reissue repackage revaluate the dead star’ in regards to a record company greedy tasteless cash grab, it shouldn’t mean that 30 years later he can’t ever reissue his work that’s been out of print for a while.
I don't feel insulted. So, I suppose that means I'm not a fan, despite owning the entire Smiths and most of Moz's solo discography. Either that or I'm too stupid to realize what a slap in the face those three songs really were.
Eh...everybody does that these days. I don't know that Morrissey should be singled out for something that is SOP for modern record companies. YMMV. He's not the first I've heard. Far from it. Bona Drag was when a certain contingency of Moz fans first began to balk at repackaging, even though The Smiths had already done it on a number of occasions. But for some reason, Morrissey doing it with his solo material was somehow worse. At any rate, that's when I started to hear "Paint a Vulgar Picture" lyrics thrown back in his face. Since then it's been de rigeur with every collection from Viva Morrissey to Swords. Agreed.
Here's some Morrissey news, from the song by song thread. Bona Drag is rated as being his best release from the participants in the thread:
Each to their own, but I don't recall ever hearing from any fan who has expressed that opinion before. Bona Drag was loved at the time and it is loved today.
Bona Drag is universally praised as one of Morrissey’s best ‘albums’ amongst his fans; I guess they appreciate his insults.
Bona Drag was great but I always skipped Everyday & Suedehead, I preferred listening to them within Viva Hate.
That was a US only bonus track on VH. In the UK it was only a b side to Suedehead. Sire had been adding an extra song to US releases dating back to This Charming Man on the debut and How Soon is Now on Meat is Murder
Were the singles that became Bona Drag readily available in the US prior to the release of that collection? I'm guessing many of them were import-only. I have found that most US fans don't even realize it's a compilation rather than a standard studio album.
Sire released 12”s but the cd singles were not as regular. I don’t recall seeing a US cd single til Sing Your Life? I remember at the time buying the Suedehead 12” but the vinyl era was dying. US Cassette singles were easier to find, I had interesting drug, ouija board and November, but others were harder to track down for an average Texas high school kid like me. I was able to track down import cd singles a few years later when I became obsessive. Bona Drag was a very useful mop up, it was recent stuff, and it was compiled perfectly into a well sequenced stand-alone record, certainly didn’t feel like a hits or odds/sods comp, plus it was on cd. Edit checking discogs In the US, no US Piccadilly palare release of any kind the other 6 singles were released on 12” and 7”, not sure how widely available they were Playboys, drug, ouija, November all had us cassette singles Ouija and November had us cd singles.
Thanks for doing that research, which basically supports my point: many US-based Moz fans weren't able to buy the singles, so Bona Drag felt like that of a standard studio release. It definitely wasn't a case of repackaging old product to sell it again to fans, at least not in the US.
I don't know if they were available before the album or not. But they were shortly afterwards. I liked Bona Drag so much that I tracked down each one of the singles for the album, all of which were available in local record stores. Although some of them may have been imports. Update: Just read two posts up. So, everything besides Ouija Board and November Spawned a Monster must have been imports.
I have the US Ouija Board CD single. Found it used a couple years after it came out. I’ve seen November but don’t have it. Interesting that those were the two that got the green light.
Well chronologically it makes sense. vinyl for singles 1-6. cassettes for singles 3-6. cd singles for 5&6. Skip Picadilly across the board. Back to all formats for Our Frank and Sing Your Life.....
For my money, two glaring omissions from Bona Drag were Sister, I’m A Poet, & Girl Least Likely To; which I’m sure many would agree with. But I’d also have selected At Amber & Get Off The Stage to replace a couple of tracks, which I assume a lot less people would agree with. Overall, though, Bona Drag is a great compilation of (mostly) non-album singles & b-sides: what a prolific, high quality period this was for Moz; he clearly had something to prove after the demise of The Smiths.
It certainly is. I absolutely love this Collection & have returned to it frequently over the years. There’s a bit of a dip in quality b-sides around the Arsenal/Vauxhall period, but the Boxers e.p & Sunny single help get things back on track.
To near enough most of the world "Bona Drag" was a new album. The inclusion of Suedehead and EILS were baffling to me, as they were already on an album.
I think he was trying to do another a Hatful of Hollow, another album which could have been more unique than it was.
