ALL THE LAZY DYKES: How is it that Morrissey’s 2004 album with the self-parodic song titles is relatively awful (yes, there are lovely bits of “Irish Blood, English Heart,” “The First of the Gang to Die,” and “I Like You,” but really, the guy’s incapable of making an entirely horrible album even when he decides to treat each song like a theopolitical Speak-‘n’-Spell)… and yet his 2006 album with the self-parodic song titles is amazing?

Seriously, I would love an algorithm for predicting which Moz albums are worth buying. Ringleader of the Tormentors has the only solo Moz song I think might beat anything the Smiths ever did (“You Have Killed Me”) and the rest of it is very, very good, swinging and funny and poignant, full of self-overhearing and dance tunes.

Meanwhile Southpaw Grammar is… okay? and You Are the Quarry is just not good. LOL SELF-PITYING. Not even Morrissey–not even Shakespeare!–can get away with a song reprising the… unique Shakespearean passage about “Richard is Richard; that is, I am I.”

The two best-ofs I’ve got, Suedehead and World of Morrissey, are both terrific, though–and Suedehead is the only place I’ve found “Interlude” (possibly my favorite pop song in the history of ever, a Siouxsie/Morrissey duet) on CD, while World of Morrissey has a cover of “Moon River” and thus wins at life.

But yeah–eschew You Are the Quarry, pursue Ringleader of the Tormentors. You can thank me later.