Yea-Sayers:

"'Viva Hate' find Narcissus poking a stick into the murky waters of his private pond, disturbing and distorting his reflection and seeming not to care if it detracts from his appearance. It's a brave record and sometimes beautiful - honest, angry and vulnerable, mercifully free of commercial constraints."
NME, naming 'Viva Hate' the 4th best LP of 1988

"'Viva Hate' confirmed that Stephen [sic] Patrick was still the bee's knees. Purists said it was flawed and they were half-right ('Ordinary Boys' is Mozzer at his most mealy-mouthed and spiteful) but from 'Maudlin St' to 'Bengali In Platforms' it's still a dream of a record."
- Stuart Maconie, NME, December 24, 1988

"Steven P's opening solo salvo and not a weak song within earshot. Musical guidance from Durutti Columnist Vini Reilly and producer Stephen Street, included the superb brace of 45s, Everyday Is Like Sunday and Suedehead, but the nakedly autobiographical 'Morrithon,' Late Night, Maudlin Street, steals the show." (*****)
- Q, September 1992

THE LAST OF ENGLAND
"For too long, a faction around here feels, the fey, blithe Morrissey has been allowed to saunter through pop history unchecked, fawned upon even - and it was about time some of the chaps got together to administer a tarring, a feathering, and deposit him in the nearest ditch.
"Faced with the prospect of putting "Viva Hate" into critical perspective, the Windsor Davies in us all, bulging with choleric indignation at the antics of Mr La-De-Da Gunner Graham, welled to the surface of many a soul around here, as they sharpened their pencils and scraped their hooves in readiness to proffer a sound critical kicking to our erstwhile hero. But I've always been renowned for my sense of fair play and it was to me, lingering modestly at the back of the pack, that the task of reviewing the record was eventually assigned.
"And I say that through musically thick and musically thin, swoops and (appalling) lapses, this is Morrissey, Morrissey, Morrissey, essentially and necessarily, even to the point of self-parody. But then with Morrissey, who is about an exaggerated, blunt-edged sense of self, it's probable that self-parody is, and always has been, the point.
Musically, "Viva Hate" is mixed. What Simon Reynolds referred to recently as Stephen Street's "producer's sensibility" makes for some gorgeously appropriate settings, but also one or two deferential lapses into mere accompaniment. Best are the likes of "Alsatian Cousin", in which Morrissey finds himself wheeling in and out of gullish guitars and frantic, airborne effects all pitched at a high level of anxiety, and the brief "Little Man, What Now?" in which Vini Reilly's wavering, crystalline, almost unbearably poignant guitars open up vistas, and not only this once, for Morrissey's aghast reminiscences.
"But then, "Angel, Angel, Down We Go Together" is... um, a bit "Eleanor Rigby". I assume that the infamous strings are a signifier for a damp, abiding "Englishness". They may be an ennobling gesture - as Eldritch self-effacingly put it, "No guitars - that means it's an important song." The effect can be, as on "Every Day Is Like Sunday", perilously close to those fatal nods at MOR sensibility that Pat Kane is so fond of. But of course, it is rescued.
"For "Everyday Is Like Sunday" is Morrissey, Morrissey, mordant, blunt, impetuous and incorrigibly nostalgic. We shall address presently this matter of Morrissey's fixation upon a period in his life which he appears to despise. "Trudging slowly over wet sand/Back to the bench/Where your clothes were stolen/This is the coastal town/That they forgot to close down/Armageddon! -- Come, Armagedddon!" This is Alan Bennett in Southport.
"Not all the songs, however, are so clearly about the recent past - both "Alsatian Cousin" and "Suedehead" snoop about the topics of infatuation shame, possibly squalor. But clearly, if there is an autobiographical, narrative line to Morrissey's lyrical career then we have reached the late Sixties (the forgotten star on "What's My Line?", staring up from a teenage annual. Who can it be? Bobby Crush? Freddy "Parrot Face" Davies?) and then, the early Seventies, with "Late Night, Maudlin Street" and "Bengali In Platforms".
"Yes, the appalling "Bengali In Platforms", quintessentially Morrissey, Morrissey, the Diana Ross-despising Morrissey, the unreconstructed maker of statements Morrissey, the champion of honest content over the vile and synthetic Morrissey, the bad critic Morrissey. This is just the kind of dumb song Morrissey would write, and the opening warble of "Bengali.../Bengali.../Bengali.../Bengali" is quite the most embarrassing... well, it's like your neo-Mannerist Dandy chum from university comes to visit you in the hols, you go down your local pub-sturdy, working class pub - and in a loud voice in the middle of the tap room complains about the fusty odour before ordering Martini and sausage rolls. The song is a caring call to the sartorially inept Asian to "shelve your Western plans" and eschew that ghastly tank-top. It's not malicious, but it's appallingly patronising and deals with an outmoded stereotype. Much more appropriate, in 1988, to write from the snappily-dressed Punjabi's point of view about the inept media attempts to get to grips with Banghra culture, and how they get it wrong. But that wouldn't be Morrissey. It would be too clever. For the essence of Morrissey is a certain clumsy audacity, an ill-advised boldness, impetuousity and indiscretion, to say nothing of a fine disregard for the new complexities of this particular generation.
"If Simon Reynolds attempted pop lyrics, they would be impossibly qualified and opaque. Morrissey isn't quite that smart, so Morrissey is Morrissey. Hence the risible "The Ordinary Boys": "Ordinary boys, happy knowing nothing/Happy being no-one, but themselves/Ordinary girls, supermarket clothes/Who think it's very clever to be cruel to you/For you were so different/You stood all alone/And you knew/That it had to be so." Aaargh! Of course, your first instinct is to stamp your feet and sing rubgy songs to drown out this bilge but... somebody had to say it!
"These lapses are marks of adolescence - like the nuclear bomb on the seaside resort in "Sunday", like "Hang The DJ" in the past, like the heavy-handed sarcasm of "Dial A Cliche" and the soon to be infamous "Margaret On The Guillotine" they work as "heavy" gestures, honest, self-pitying, self-seeking. They are Morrissey's essence-in-excess, the necessary flaws of stardom. As the lines go in "Break Up The Family" -- "The strange logic of your clumsiest line/Stayed emblazoned on my mind." But such rude moments are only occasional. Far and away the best, the key track on "Viva Hate" is "Late Night, Maudlin Street", profoundly retrospective, spoken through an abiding shuffle of monotonous rhythms, like endless doors or staircases, it refers back, in bitter-sweet, open vein, to 1972, the power-cuts, the oblivious contemparies, the Byronically exaggerated pain of the pariah
"It's all here, in measured terms, rising to a valedictory note of double-edged nostalgia. For the silent assertion here, and in all of Morrissey's work is that, grey and repressive as this lost world was, the inchoate, colourific entropy of the Eighties is worse. At least then you stood out, if only to be beaten up. For the Eighties, Morrissey reserves not the perception but the radical impatience of "Margaret On The Guillotine". Detached from the general drift of the album and delivered in a scabrous tone, it's the kind of foolish, epic gesture that Morrissey is there to make.
"It's tempting to say that we don't need Morrissey any more, that his ghostly, grey presence in the relentlessly gaudy pop terrain has faded as it has persisted. But Morrissey is needed, not as an ombudsman, or a figure of the Eighties but as a horrified figure against the Eighties, who has turned his back on the march of pop time as the last keeper of the sanctuary of self-pity, apartness, exile (today, the "extraordinary boys" are grey and listless, the "ordinary" boys are colourful, dynamic, chromium-plated).
"And "Viva Hate!", a further act of simple faithlessness, is, its lapses, withal, another great album by our last star, our last idiot."
- David Stubbs, Melody Maker, March 19, 1988

"With a major label solo deal and new collaborators Vini Reilly and Stephen Street, Morrissey rebounded from the Smiths split with remarkable stealth and confidence. Overflowing with tender farewells to adolescence like the breathtaking "Late Night, Maudlin Street", plus the shimmering singles, "Suedehead" and "Everyday Is Like Sunday", this critical and commerical smash seemed to herald a bright new era for the Manc messiah. Reissued last year with eight bonus tracks." (****)
- Stephen Dalton, Uncut, 1998

Nay-Sayers:

"Morrissey's solo career did get off to a rocky start with Viva Hate. Except for the campy-cool "Hair Dresser On Fire" [sic], ("Can you squeeze me into a page of your diary [sic]/And supernaturally change me") the album was a disappointment. But Morrissey had not lost his droll sense of humor. When asked by a writer if the song was based on Joe Orton's disturbing play The Boy Hairdresser, Morrissey replied, "No, it's just a very simple song about trying to get hold of a hairdresser.""
- Dan O'Kane, CD Review, April 1994

"I wish I had better news for all the long-suffering (and I mean that in the kindest way possible) Smiths fans who were bummed out by the group's recent breakup and were looking forward to Morrissey's solo album, but the plain fact is that without guitarist/composer Johnny Marr at his side, the mahatma of mope rock seems to have gone out for a nice depressing stroll without noticing that he didn't have a stitch to wear. During the five years that the Smiths made records, Marr and bass player Andy Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce were usually able to take Morrissey's frightfully unsonglike words and dress them properly for exposure to the outside world. That Morrissey himself always sounded both aloof and uncomfortable (I honestly cannot think of a single rock-era lead singer with less rhythm) was, I think, one of the primary reasons for the group's effectiveness; the great gulf between his one-dimensional vocals and the band's multi-textured musical backing gave the Smiths a unique, often mesmerizing tension. Unfortunately, that tension is almost completely absent from Viva Hate.
"The insurmountable problem here is that the music and arrangements by bass player (and former Smiths engineer) Stephen Street simply aren't very imaginative. On cut after cut, Morrissey croons on and on about, er, the usual things on his mind (trying to comment on Morrissey's choice of subject matter is like trying to criticize Jesse Jackson's candidacy, so I'll just stay out of it, if you don't mind), but the backing tracks are too sluggish and plodding to stir up any sparks. To his partial credit, Street does try to be different; almost half the songs feature a string section, and there's a hint of hi-tech machinery at work on songs like "Alsatian Cousin" and "I Don't Mind If You Forget Me" - but the music never gets focused, and Morrissey does nothing to help except be his usual morose self. Not so oddly enough, the sole memorable tune here, "Suedehead," succeeds only because it sounds very much like something we've heard before - namely, the Smiths' "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before." "Me, without clothes?" asks Morrissey near the end of side one. "A nation turns its back and gags."
You said it, chum, not me."
- Billy Altman, Rolling Stone

Moz-Speak:

"Lyrically, it wasn't the best, I'm well aware of that. It was a very peculiar time for me, making that record so suddenly, so unexpectedly, and I wanted to try something different. Because of the particular status I have, where many people concentrate quite scientifically over every comma, I reached a stage where I wanted to be entirely spontaneous without physically writing the words down and memorising them. Rather, just step into the vocal booth and sing it as it comes. But I don't think I'll try that again... back to the typewriter."
- Morrissey, Sounds, June18, 1988

"Like many other titles, it simply suggested itself and had to be. It was absolutely how I felt post-Smiths and the way I continue to feel. That's just the way the world is. I find hate omnipresent, and love very difficult to find. Hate makes the world go round."
- Morrissey explaining the title 'Viva Hate', Melody Maker, 3/12/88

The "Bengali In Platforms" Controversy:

Regarding the line in "Bengali In Platforms": "Shelve your Western plans/And understand/That life is hard enough when you belong here". Don't you think the song could be taken as condescending?
"Yeeeees... I do think it could be taken that way, and another journalist has said that it probably will. But it's not being deliberately provocative. It's just about people who, in order to be embraced or feel at home, buy the most absurd English clothes."
- Morrissey, Melody Maker, 3/12/88

While accusations of racism were spurious for "Panic," revolving around Morrissey's reasons for wanting to "Hang the DJ", tactless lyricism on the album's "Bengali In Platforms" leaves it open to a racist interpretation.
"Bob Geldof In Platforms you nearly said," quips Morrissey, treating the issue with far more contempt than it deserves.
Was it intended to have a double edge?
"No, it still doesn't, not at all. There are many people who are so obsessed wtih racism that one can't mention the word Bengali; it instantly becomes a racist song, even if you're saying, Bengali, marry me. But I still can't see any silent racism there."
Not even with the line, "Life is hard enough when you belong here"?
"Well, it is, isn't it?"
True, but that implies that Bengalis don't belong here, which isn't a very global view of the world.
"In a sense it's true. And I think that's almost true for anybody. If you went to Yugoslavia tomorrow, you'd probably feel that you didn't belong there."
- Morrissey, Sounds, June 18, 1988

"Margaret On The Guillotine"
"Margaret On The Guillotine" [was] originally the working title of The Queen Is Dead album, the lyrics in this shortened form were put in cold storage because they "didn't fit any music that was presented at the time". But there is little doubt about the singer's impressions of The Iron Lady. "I follow her career," Morrissey explains. "Obviously, I find the entire Thatcher syndrome very stressful and evil and all those other words. But I think there's very little that people can do about it. The most perfect example, I suppose, is Clause 28. I think that absolutely embodies Thatcher's very nature and her quite natural hatred."
- Morrissey, Sounds, June 18, 1988

Ever been in trouble with the police?
"Never. Well, that's a lie. I was visited a long time ago about a song I once did."
So the "Margaret On The Guillotine" story is true?
"Of course. Yes, ridiculous grounds. But they don't need grounds, they've got a funny little hat and a truncheon. They recorded a conversation for an hour and searched the house for a guillotine. Curiously, they actually found one. They thought I was public enemy number 72. And at the end of the grilling they actually asked me to sign various things for ailing nieces, which I thought was a bit perverted."
- Morrissey on the police questioning resulting from "Margaret On The Guillotine", Q, September 1995

"The song 'Break Up The Family' is strongly linked with 'Suedehead' and 'Maudlin Street', that whole period in 1972, when I was 12, 13. 'Break Up' is about a string of friends I had who were very intense people and at that age, when your friends talk about the slim separation between life and death - and you set that against the fact that this period of your youth is supposed to be the most playful and reckless - well, if you utilised that period in a very intense way, well, that feeling never really leaves you."
- Morrissey, Melody Maker, 3/12/88

"I feel it was more of an event than an achievement. I think the audience was simply relieved that I was still going on with living. That in itself was the celebration of 'Viva Hate'! I've always been fiercely self-critical and... it wasn't perfect. And it wasn't better than 'Strangeways Here We Come'! There's at least six tracks on it that I'd now willingly bury in the nearest patch of soil. And place a large stone on top." (laughs)
- Morrissey, The Face, March, 1990

"It's quite different for me now - and this might sound absurd - but there really isn't anything to judge it against. Times are very different and my life has moved on, since The Smiths, in very specific ways, and Viva Hate is in no way the follow-up to Strangeways. So in a sense I do feel that it is the first record."
- Morrissey, Melody Maker, March 12, 1988

"I think Viva Hate is a lofty piece, but I'm still not inclined to beat the drum too much just yet. I've still yet to touch perfection..."
-Morrissey, Blitz, April 1988

"There is no controversy on Viva Hate, as far as I can see apart, perhaps, from the title."
- Morrissey, Sounds, June 18, 1988

"I liked half of it, I think the other half was unfortunately rushed, so some of it, no, I didn't particularly like. I'm not one of those people who's fooled into thinking everything they do is perfect or near perfection. I'm quite the reverse. I know I've made a couple of pretty average records but things are much better now."
- Morrissey, Alternative Press, February 1993

"Going into the night, Mozzer was putting down his vocal, and the whole studio was affected by the atmosphere. It was absolutely for real, everyone felt it and just went very quiet and went to bed very subdued. We didn't play charades that night, I can tell you."
- Vini Reilly on "Late Night, Maudlin Street", Uncut, 1998