Morrissey

Steven Patrick Morrissey (; born 22 May 1959) is an English singer and songwriter. He came to prominence as the frontman and lyricist of the rock band the Smiths, who were active from 1982 to 1987. Since then he has pursued a successful solo career. Morrissey's music is characterised by his baritone voice and distinctive lyrics with anti-establishment stances and recurring themes of emotional isolation, sexual longing, self-deprecation, and dark humour.

Morrissey was born to working-class Irish immigrants in Old Trafford, Lancashire, England; the family lived in Queen's Court near the Loreto convent in Hulme and his mother worked nearby at the Hulme Hippodrome bingo hall. They moved due to the 1960s demolitions of almost all the Victorian-era houses in Hulme, known as 'slum clearance', and he grew up in nearby Stretford. As a child he developed a love of literature, kitchen sink realism and 1960s pop music. In the late 1970s he fronted the punk rock band the Nosebleeds with little success before beginning a career in music journalism and writing several books on music and film in the early 1980s. (Morrissey later said, in 2024, that he "did not ever join" the Nosebleeds.) He formed the Smiths with Johnny Marr in 1982 and the band soon attracted national recognition for their eponymous debut album. As the band's frontman, Morrissey attracted attention for his trademark quiff and witty and sardonic lyrics. Deliberately avoiding rock machismo; he cultivated the image of a sexually ambiguous social outsider who embraced celibacy. The Smiths released three further studio albums—Meat Is Murder (1985), The Queen Is Dead (1986) and Strangeways, Here We Come (1987)—and had a string of top twenty singles on the UK chart. The band were critically acclaimed and attracted a cult following. Personal differences between Morrissey and Marr resulted in the separation of the Smiths in 1987.