Factual Writing Copy

Task 3 – celebrity researchPatrick Gouldsbrough

Secondary research

Summary – This article is about a possible Smiths reunion. While the Q journalist focuses on the reunion, asking Marr many questions on the matter, the guitarist focuses on his solo work, in particular, his new album Playland. He frequently denies there will ever be a Smiths reunion, backing a career in ABBA before reforming the Manchester band. The article also mentions his best work in The Smiths, amongst other band including: The The, Modest Mouse and The Cribs. Marr talks about his youth, mentioning the Manchester central library where the interview is conducted. You start to get the feeling that Marr wants to concentrate on his solo career and side project, instead of an old band reforming after all these years. Like Damon Albarn of Blur, he has business outside the band to attend to, such as establishing himself in a solo career. However, even though he doesn’t want to reform The Smiths, he talk in length about them but you get the idea that he’s doing it to please A) the reader and B) the interviewer. As you expect, he cares about his appearance, like he has throughout his career, this may have something to do with the bullying at school which he opens up about in this interview. He may not have done this if he wasn’t in one of the buildings he spent many hours in as a teenager during the interview.

Tags – Johnny Marr, November 2014, The Smiths, The The, Modest Mouse, Morrissey, The Cribs, Manchester, Sylvia Patterson, Playland, The Messenger

Q magazine November 2014 (scanned from print product) screenshot from: http://www.johnny-marr.com/press/check-out-johnny%E2%80%99s-feature-in-november%E2%80%99s-edition-of-q

Quotes“I wouldn’t want to be re-form The Smiths. What would I get from it? A ton of money? F**k it, I’ll join ABBA. Problem solved!” – Johnny Marr (November 2014 issue of Q magazine, pg.46)

“I believe in bands, I believe in music. I still believe there’s nothing quite so powerful as an 18-year-old with nothing to lose” - Johnny Marr (November 2014 issue of Q magazine, pg.48)

“I don’t care if people think I’m in denial or not, because I’m not” – Johnny Marr clarifies the chances of a Smiths reunion (November 2014 issue of Q magazine, pg.46)

“I came from a loving family but I wanted out, of my social situation. Music was escape. Nearly all my life has been about escape” Johnny Marr discussing the reason he got into music (November 2014 issue of Q magazine, pg.47)

“we were punk rock in lots of ways. The video is utterly crap. We were young and willful and unique and single-minded. Even when we were wrong” – Johnny Marr speaking about the first music video he featured in along with the rest of the the Smiths, The Boy With The Thorn In His side (November 2014 issue of Q magazine, pg.47/48)

“I’m so 1978 council estate, you can’t ever shake it off” – A part of an anecdote Marr is telling which features him piercing his crib’s band mate Ryan Jarman. He also tried to dye Andy Rourke’s hair, The smiths drummer was almost blinded by Marr when some bleach went into his eyes. (November 2014 issue of Q magazine, pg.48)

“We didn’t now each other before the band and we don’t….y’know, we’re not family. It’s worse for the Gallaghers, the Davies [Kinks] brothers. It could be worse. Even for The Smiths” – Johnny Marr furthers talk about the unlikelihood of a Smiths reunion (November 2014 issue of Q magazine, pg.48)

Further researchI might need to find a more balanced argument about The Smiths getting back together. While Marr’s responses are biased towards them not getting back together, the Q interviewer want them to, therefore, writing in a style that’s biased onwards the Manchester band getting back together. An interview or a feature piece by an unbiased source might be the sort of thing I will have to look at also. In the article that I just analysed, there was a list of Marr’s best works, finding another source which also displays his best work could be used for annotation, so I can compare and contrast the two lists and articles. Been a Smiths fan myself, I know about the band and their rise to fame and break-up. However, a historical article may further my understanding of people’s reactions to the news at the time and might also give me extra insight into the breaking up and history of the band. As well as his work in bands, Johnny Marr has released two solo albums, The Messenger and Playland. An article about the latter album, which was released recently, could be found and used as one of my secondary research pieces. A review or an interview would suffice for the article, as long as I can analyse and pick out key information, it doesn’t matter too much.

Summary – This interview that is conducted in 2012 between The Independent newspaper and Johnny Marr covers elements of The Smiths re-mastering their records, which Marr is doing without the help of his former band mates. As well at the re-mastered material, Marr touches on the subject of The Smiths as a band, the breaking up of the Manchester band and the truth about how and why it fell apart for the late 80’s group. In addition, the guitarist talks about the probability of a reunion, while bluntly answering questions on former band mate, Morrissey. By re-mastering the records, you get the feeling that Marr wants to move forward with his solo career and leave his past life with The smiths behind. Even though we know he released his debut solo album, the messenger, in 2013, when this interview was conducted, the guitarist was, at this time, working on the album off the back of finishing work with Wakefield band, the Cribs. Like the other article I analysed, Marr is reticent to reform the Smiths because he doesn’t want to fall into old habits that split the band up in the first place. The Smiths guitarist sights “bad management” as the reason the band broke up, while admitting he “split the band up”. His hesitance on the reformation has been greeted by his former band mate, Morrissey, who was up for a reunion but turned down a 50 tour deal worth $75million back in 2008.

Tags – Johnny Marr, April 2012, The Smiths, The World Won’t Listen, The Independent, Benjy Eisen, Meat Is Murder, Morrissey

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/johnny-marr-on-breaking-up-the-smiths-remastering-their-catalog-20120411#ixzz1rxnyhVWF

Quotes“I knew there was a lot of music hiding in there” – Johnny Marr refers to the remastering of smiths albums that he is currently working on. The guitarist is referring to the large quantity, eight to be exact, albums that he has now re-mastered for the Manchester band (Rolling Stone, April 2012)

“I never actually sit down and play a record myself. That goes for everything. Once a record is released, I kind of just feel like it belongs to everybody else who wants it, and it takes on a life of its own and a different kind of story” – Marr claims that he doesn’t listen to the track after it’s been released because it’s for the consumption of the audience, his work, he says, is effectively finished after the production stage (Rolling Stone, April 2012)

“Wow! how cool is that bass line?!?” – Johnny Marr quotes himself saying that when he hears his records on the PA at shows or in stores and clubs. While Marr stays modest throughout, he recognises his achievements in The Smiths and the realisation that the music the band produced was a turning point that changed modern music (Rolling Stone, April 2012)

“The strongest thing that caught me off guard was the realisation of just how young we all were. That came as something of a surprise, perhaps – the memory of what it felt like to be that young and on such a mission” – Marr reflects back on how young all the members of The Smiths were when they started the band. He later goes onto say that he had to make some grown up decision for a then 23 year old, such as splitting up the group (Rolling Stone, April 2012)

“I understand how great it would be to make so many people happy. And the other thing I know is that Morrissey and I are so very different. Those are the only things I know” – The guitarist expresses his thoughts on a reunion, casting optimism on it, before making it uncertain whether it will happen by making it clear how different him and lead singer Morrissey are. As expected, the reunion never happened and both musicians remain focused on their solo careers (Rolling Stone, April 2012)

“Yes, but...I was the lookout saying, "Rocks ahead! Rocks ahead!" I had the foresight to see disaster looming – both for the individuals, personally, and the band, professionally” – Marr admits to breaking up the band back in 1987 but says he did it to save them from worse things on the horizon had the group remained together after that period (Rolling Stone, April 2012)

Further researchThis article from the archives is one I wanted to get an insight into The Smiths, both what occurred in the band and the details of the disbanding of the popular Manchester group. While this fits the specification I set myself, it’s only from 2012. However, this article doesn’t discuss current projects by Marr, instead, focusing on The Smiths in particular. Even though I have collected and analysed this particular article, I may still need to find an article from 1983-87 to try and find out the attitudes about and within the bad at that time. This could be an article from a fan discussing the band or an interview by the band. As well as this, a very current project by Johnny Marr, such as his new album Playland, could be the focus of another one of the articles I choose to analyse.

Summary – Like all the other articles so far, and rightly so, The Smiths are the topic of conversation for much of the article. However, you get the feeling that the interviewer either wants to report on facts or she isn’t too fascinated about finding out about the reunion of the band. However, there are plenty of other topics in this article on Marr; The Cribs, electronic, Bernard Sumner and of course the main focus of this while interview, his new album Playland. He talks of the possibility of a Smiths, glosses over a section of the interview about Morrissey and let’s the interviewer, Elisa Bray, know his plans for the future and the touring of Playland. You get the feeling that Marr is holding something back in this interview, unlike the one with Q magazine on the first few slides. You get this feeling because with the interview with Q, he opened up about his childhood and his feeling towards The Smiths, however he doesn’t go into detail about such things in this interview. He’s doing this because either 1) Marr is been careful about what he’s saying because it’s in the newspaper and he doesn’t want to be misquoted or something he says is taken out of context or 2) He has formulated this trust and bond with Q magazine over the years. On Marr’s website, on the press section, it shows that he has spoken to Q magazine more than any other publication.

Tags – Johnny Marr, October 2014, Playland, The Smiths, Electronic, The Cribs, Bernard Sumner, Elisa Bray, Maida Vale

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/ex-smiths-guitarist-johnny-marr-interview-todays-pop-music-is-supertrite-supersurface-and-supercorporate-9801411.html

Quotes“I wouldn’t even form electronic” – Johnny Marr talks about the chances of reforming The Smiths by comparing it to the chances of having a reunion for another of Marr’s bands, who didn’t break up, they came to a natural end (Marr and Bernard Sumner, formerly of new order, went onto other projects) (The Independent, April 2012)

“I just do not get nostalgia like the rest of the human race seem to get it. There’s something kind of mawkish about it. I don’t spend more than one and a half minutes enjoying the memory of an Electronic concert or a Smiths record or a The The tour. I’m not even like that with my kids” – Marr doesn’t get nostalgic about visiting venues on his solo tour that he hasn’t visited since the days of The Smiths. In this interview, unlike the first article I analysed, which was in April 2014, he doesn’t look back and reminisce the good times of The Smiths, he doesn’t seem to get drawn in at all.

“Homo Ludens also has a lot in it about whether the things we are chasing are actually the things that cause us the symptoms that we’re trying to escape from in the first place” – Marr talks about the theme of his album been about escapism, a theory he discovered after reading Dutch cultural theorist Johan Huizinga’s 1938 book. Although, he hasn’t read this book recently, he must have read it a long time ago, due to the guitarist also mentioning escapism in other archive interview pieces.

“I think it would be a little weird if people came to see me and I didn’t do “How Soon Is Now” or “There Is a Light [That Never Goes Out]” – Marr talks about playing some of The Smiths best its in his solo gigs. As well as this, Marr wades into the gig debate about ‘should bands play their best material or should they be allowed to play the entirety of their new album and only a handful of well known songs. While Marr himself includes three quarters of the new album on his new look set-list, he says that he’s be disappointed if he went to see a band (in this case he use the band television) and they didn’t play the hits.

Anyone who has known me for a long time will tell you that the uber-cocky role that I had in The Smiths was not who I was 100 per cent. You can just hear in the music that there was a massive introspection in there. I’m still really introspective now. I’m a combination of outgoing and introspective.” – The Smiths guitarist talks about his role in the 80’s band and tells of how his cocky role was an act he used to put on. He says that he used to really self-analyse himself and be a subversive character to the one he used to portray in the public eye when in The Smiths.

Further ResearchThis current interview gives extra perspective to the ones that have already been collected and analysed. Even though all three so far have been fairly recent, Marr still talks about the past and history of himself so a historical archive piece hasn’t been necessary thus far. On the other hand, in this interview, Marr talks about how he used to be different in interviews. This could be something that I look at and analyse to give myself further perspective of a young Johnny Marr.

Summary – this was one of the only Johnny Marr interviews I could find from when he was in the Smiths. This is mainly due to the fact that The smiths weren’t together for that long, while Marr made it apparent that Morrissey was the one that did the talking and he focused on the music. Non the less, this interview is about been in the Smiths, each of The Smiths meeting and their individual Manchester backgrounds (all of them came from the same council flat background, while Marr and Morrissey shared an Irish family similarity. While Marr discusses The Smiths in depth, he doesn’t mention the tow other members of the band, Mike Joyce and Andy Rourke. As we would come to discover many years later, he didn’t think much of them in the band; when the Smiths went to court years later, Marr said “I didn’t want any more money than the other members of The Smiths (Morrissey and Marr earnt more than Joyce and Rourke) I just didn’t want Andy and Mike to have the same”. Marr shows that he’s not the same character that we’ve seen in the later interviews from the guitarist. He comes across as self-absorbed, selfish and cruel in this interview with Smash Hits in 1985. Where as he is now modest, proud and more charismatic than he used to be.

Johnny Marr Smash Hits interview, 1985 - http://www.johnny-marr.com/press/smash-hits-1985

Tags – Johnny Marr, The Smiths, Morrissey, Mike Joyce, Andy Rourke, William it was really nothing, Nick Adams

Quotes“We’re united by our sense of humour. Yet we’re all very different; we should hate each other. To keep four egos on the boil and yet balance them isn’t easy” – Johnny Marr talks about the difficulty and the potential difficulties there could have been at the forming of The Smiths. Despite them coming from the same area, the four are very different people and have different lifestyles, yet they made a band that we now know can change British music.

“My childhood probably wasn’t as difficult as Morrissey’s, but I was always disagreeing with my parents. They constantly hounded me for wasting my talents and not doing the schoolwork. They thought I was wasting my chances of getting a good job. “ – Marr compares his background to Morrissey, as well as showing how disapproving his parents were after telling them he wanted to be a pop star at the age of 13. While he said in later interviews (2012, 2014) that he had a good upbringing from his parents, in this interview you get the feeling that he’s had it worse than he claims in those recent interviews.

“Some older friends of mine had talked to Morrissey about forming a group – they showed me some of his lyrics. I’ve always liked the idea of a collaboration so I went round to see him” – The guitarist talks about how the band were formed and the making of The Smiths. He mentions how he only knew Morrissey through mutual friends and hadn’t spoken to him before he went round and knocked on the lead singers window one afternoon.

“His game is words, mine is music. He feels about his literary influences like I feel about Rolling Stone Brian Jones’ guitar playing” – Although Morrissey and Marr have grown into the band and are one of the most successful partnerships in pop music, The Smiths guitarists talks about how they are different in the band. He says Morrissey is the wordsmith, while he concentrates on the music side of it.

“The good thing about music is that it’s classless. It’s one of the few areas where someone like John Lennon could emerge and become a millionaire” – Marr talks about where music is now and how this classlessness of it can make anyone from any background famous and rich, where as in the past, music has been seen as a career for the privileged and wealthy. He also cites this as an influence to why The Smiths can be a big band and Morrissey can do the same as Lennon did.

Further researchGetting this historical interview piece means that I now have the modern, historic and current news artifacts covered. This gives me a perspective of Marr in the past and it allowed me to see how he has changed over that time, he has become more retrained, humble and modest over time, which shows in his interview pieces. However, I still have some news artifacts to read through for the smiths guitarist. These articles may further my understanding and show a different perspective of Marr. On the other hand, the interview that I have is at exactly the same time as my Q interview and has similar themes to the Q magazine article also.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_P5iSG_APE Summary – This video interview piece is about Marr’s new album, Playland. However, unlike the news artifacts, the interview didn’t cover The Smiths or a reunion tour whatsoever. Even though interviewer Lauren Laverne mentions The smiths playing at Maida Vale, where this interview takes place, the topic doesn’t come up after that point. Johnny Marr speaks about how fast the turnaround is between his debut solo album, the Messenger, and his second, Playland. Due to this been a video interview, you can see Marr pause and think about what he’s saying and his hesitance towards some of the questions. This shows how things are different between the video interview and the print based interview. Magazines won’t feature the pauses or the fillers of the guitarist in the interview, but it’s unavoidable in the vide format. Sometimes they are edited to make it sound smoother but this radio 6 interview went live to broadcast and was raw and unedited, a good thing if you want to get honest answers out of the guests that are been interviewed. Tags – Johnny Marr, Playland, Lauren Laverne, BBC Radio 6 music, The Smiths,

The Cribs

Quotes“Yeah, well it feels like a long time coming but you know, it hasn’t really. It’s just that It’s a lot of work, which is great. It’s exciting, playing the record on the day it comes out, it feels like a sort of celebration in a way” – Johnny speaks about the short gap between the release of the first album and the release of the second one. He’s always been a workaholic so it came as no surprise but he admits to it been a lot of work. However, the former Smiths man goes onto say he loves the work that goes into it, which may suggest there is more to come in Marr’s solo career. He also says how much he’s enjoying playing on the radio on the same day that the record comes out, something he claims he’s never done before. So even if Marr is an older recording artist, there’s still things hat re new to him, things that haven’t been tried on past collaborations.

“well I went down the corridor a few minutes ago to where we did all our Peel sessions for The Smiths. You still get the same feeling when you pull up here, you know, because it’s historic for me, if not more so, given the fact that I have so much history here” – Marr tells interviewer Lauren Laverne that he still gets the same vibe he did when he pulled up at Maida Vale studios with The Smiths all those years ago. Given that he’s had a lot of history with this place, it’s understandable that he also feels sentimental about this place, talking about it in a positive way throughout the interview.

“I wanna’ get some energy in here and make it sound like a club, you know?” – Marr talks about what his plans are going to be when he played for the BBC Radio 6 music listeners after the interview. Even though he is 51 years of age, he is full of energy and wants to try and communicate that through his music, like he says in the interview with Laverne.

“After The cribs, I didn’t really want to be in another band. Shortly after though, I was ready for the intensity of a band and got a few songs together you know, but I got accustomed to the solo life – it took some time though” – The Smiths man expresses how difficult it was to make the transition from collaborating with a band to solo life. He said it took some time but it was made easer by the fact that he already had some material for songs before he’d made up his mind about his future.

“The thing about Playland is that I wrote most of it on The Messenger you” – The Mancunian talks Laverne and the listeners through how Playland was made and came about in the first place. Like many other artists, it was made while on the road while he was touring his previous album. However, Marr been the workaholic that he is, had finished recording the album by the time the tour reached it’s final show.

*From a video interview, you get the fillers between words to fill space while Marr is trying to formulate a response to the interviewers answer. This is usually “you know” which shows both Marr’s dialect and Idiolect, due to the “you know” phrase been synonymous with the north of

England (Liverpool and Manchester in particular). From this interview alone, you can tell where Marr was raised as a child (Manchester)

Further research From this interview alone, I think I have enough video evidence in this particular secondary research stage. This interview tells me a lot about Marr and they way he talks, rather than what he says. The thing about writing the interview that I’ll have to do later I the project is that it’s not just about the content, it also has to sound like them too. Along with the news artifacts, my secondary research is now extensive and I almost have enough research to be able to move to the next stage of research.

Summary• He was born in Ardwick, Manchester on 31st October 1963 (which makes him 51 now)• Marr was a member of 80’s rock group The Smiths, as well as been in The The, Electronic, The Cribs and Modest mouse to name a few• In 2013, NME awarded Marr with the “Godlike Genius” award for “Not just been satisfied rewriting the history books, but constantly pushing the boundaries of music throughout his career”• His two solo albums are The Messenger and Playland• As well as Marr’s presence in bands, he has also done many more collaborations; working on a few Oasis tracks as guitarist, as well as Noel Gallagher’s new album due out in March of next year. Marr also boasts a CV that includes playing on the soundtrack of 2010 hit film Inception. • His guitars have included, but not limited to: Fender Jaguar, Rickenbacker 330, Gibson Les Paul, Gibson ES-355, Fender Telecaster, Gibson SG• As a member of The smiths, Marr has been subject to ‘the most influential band of the decade’ and was even named NME’S most influential artists ever with The Smiths. The Manchester band even topped the likes of The Beatles.

Tags• Johnny Marr• The Smiths• The Cribs• The The• Electronic• Modest Mouse• Inception• NME• Manchester• Oasis• Noel Gallagher

QuotesWhile Wikipedia features quotes from Marr, they are taken out of context, due to anyone been able to alter the ages on this particular website. However, because I had got quotes from my previous examples, it wasn’t key that I got quotes from this particular section of secondary research. Therefore, I decided not to get any quotes from this part of secondary research, de to me wanting my writing copy pieces in this project been factual and the quotes accurate, not taken out of context.

Further research I think the facts I have collected about Johnny Marr are enough because you will find the same on his website or another fan site similar to this. However, I could find an extract from his book and that would allow me to find some interesting information and quotes from the guitarist also.

*There were no quotes to be found because I had found my quotes that I could potentially use earlier in this research task. Instead, this end part of the secondary research was all about facts and information about The Smiths member.

Quotes (could be used as facts also)

“Throughout The Smiths’ five year lifespan between the summers of 1982 and 1987, Marr continually challenged not only pop conventions but his skills as a player and a composer” – Johnny Marr’s bio on JohnnyMarr.com/about – This has also been said on his Wikipedia page but by other people. However, this could still be used if I was glorifying Marr, rather than asking for opinions. On the other hand, I might not include it because I want the opinions and balanced arguments in this factual writing task; it’s still worth collecting things like this in research though.

“By the time The Smiths disbanded in 1987, they’d made four classic albums, none entering the charts lower than number two: 1984 s The ′Smiths, 1985 s Meat Is Murder (UK number one), 1986 s The Queen Is ′ ′Dead (a longstanding perennial of classic album polls, voted the greatest album of the millennium by Melody Maker) and 1987 s Strangeways, ′Here We Come (Marr’s personal favourite Smiths album)” – This information could easily be found on the internet, but I’d rather collate it here for future reference. In one or all of my articles I may need to refer to The Smiths achievements, therefore, I’m saving myself time later in this project. Within this quote, it also has a fact about Marr’s favourite Smiths album, which, if it’s relevant, will be added to one of the factual writing pieces.

“Utilising his own influences from the past – a diverse gallery of heroes ranging from James Williamson (Iggy & The Stooges’ Raw Power) to Pentangle’s Bert Jansch (who he’d later play with on 2000 s Crimson ′Moon), Bolan, George Harrison and Keith Richards – Marr’s innovations lit the touch paper for a full scale renaissance in British guitar groups which has yet to wane” – His influences could be key information in one of my articles. Even though I won’t add them all in, adding names such as George Harrison and Keith Richards will potentially generate more interest on my factual piece.

http://www.johnny-marr.com/about

Quotes (could be used as facts also)“Since Marr’s friendship with The The’s Matt Johnson predated The Smiths (Marr would even kip on Johnson’s sofa during early Smiths’ sojourns to London in 1983) it seemed inevitable that the two should finally work together. To promote 1989 s Mind Bomb (including the top 20 hit The ′Beat(en) Generation), the group embarked on their The The Vs. The World tour resulting, in Marr’s own opinion, in “some of the best shows I’ve ever played” – Even though I am wanting to do a bit on The smiths, I knew that I had to find some more Johnny Marr information. I found it in the form of a piece about Johnny Marr and The The’s Matt Johnson, who Marr helped to make 2 albums for The The and playing on the tours and albums.

“Years later, Marr would return to shake some action on Oasis’ 2002 number one album Heathen Chemistry.” – This part of the bio talks about how Marr had helped Noel Gallagher and Oasis out and this particular passage tells the consumer of how Marr played on a later Oasis album. Some information that was before this quote could be used because it was interesting but hasn’t been included because it’s long and needs cutting down, while I would need to makes sure it was meant tin the same context as it was originally.

*All these quotes were taken from johnnymarr.com and help explain Marr’s career, whether it’s in The smiths, The The, Modest Mouse or someone else. All the quotes that I’ve featured on the last two ages are the ones that I think will makes interesting facts for my factual writing pieces. However, it’s not constrained to this amount, a lot of information about Modest Mouse, The Cribs and The Healers, as well as his film soundtrack project. Later in the project, I can go back to this web address and get the quotes I missed and cut them down to make them more condensed and interesting for the consumer.

Tags – Johnny Marr, The Smiths, Morrissey, The The, The Healers, The Cribs, Modest Mouse, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Oasis, Noel Gallagher

Further ResearchI think with the Wikipedia entry and the bio of Johnny Marr, I have enough factual information and quotes on my factual part of the secondary research task. I think I’ve found information that will be used but I need to find the correct balance between quotes and facts because no one wants to hear exclusively facts that they could have found on the Wikipedia entry, they want to find opinions of the actual person and opinions of the people around him; the ones that are in the know. All the secondary research will be useful later in the project when I come to writing my factual writing pieces.

Summary On Johnny Marr’s bio there is exactly what you expect from a bio of a famous person; plenty of information on the person. The thing that I notice about how different the Wikipedia entry is from the bio is the fact that the bio is personal and sounds like it’s been communicated by Marr himself, where as Wikipedia is information collated by anyone who wants to amend the relevant information. For this reason, I may use more of the bio information, compared with the Wikipedia entry. As for where he’s born and information like this; it may not be added anyway, no one wants to look at facts that they potentially already know about Marr, people want something new and fresh.

Primary Research

For a future task in this project, we were told that we would have to do an interview piece on our celebrity. This could of curse include the quotes that I’d collated in the secondary research, however, it also occurred to me that I would have to generate some of the quotes myself. Due to me and most other people picking well known celebrities on this project, an interview with our chosen celebrity wouldn’t be feasible and easily accessible. However, this didn’t stop me trying to get an interview with my celebrity; choosing to send Johnny Marr a message on Twitter and hopefully getting a reply (pictured on the bottom left). As expected, after many days of checking social media, I hadn’t had any sign of interest from celebrity, so decided to try alternative methods of generating the quotes. I then looked towards the possibility of asking fans and fan sites of the guitarist to give me an interview because they are the ones that know the most about Johnny Marr after all. To do this, I would have to try and e-mail, tweet and message various people to try and get a response from anyone. The key to doing this is to not give up easily and to keep trying different people without pestering them too much. Due to the small amount of time I had to conduct this primary research, I couldn’t wait around too long and had to act on it if I wasn’t receiving any interest of an interview from any of these fan sites. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get an interview with the official and various unofficial Johnny Marr websites, despite sending out a large number of e-mails. The last form I could rely on to get some form of response from the fans was a method that I have used in previous projects and is one that is quite reliable and effective. Survey Monkey is a site that allows you to create a survey and send it via your own means (Blogger, Youtube, see the images below)) to the mass market. This is a good way of getting opinions across but only if the questions are worded perfectly and most of them are open questions (I’m trying to get quotes for an interview, I don’t want yes and no answers). Due to the ten question limit that is set by the website, it was important that I thought about my questions before sending them out to people. After amending and cutting a few questions, I was able to have a final survey and send it to fans (while still having plenty of time to get responses). The few days that followed then allowed me to collect further secondary research, while fans would hopefully be answering my survey. After a few days of the survey been out on the internet, I checked back to see the potential responses I had received back. In previous projects, I had got between 10 and 15 people and when I looked and saw I only had 6 for this particular survey, I thought I wouldn’t have enough information to fill my factual interview piece for this project. However, after viewing the responses, I saw that the were detailed and full of information from genuine fans, whether they were just Marr fans or fans of The Smiths too, I had managed to collect some in depth answers.

Question 1 – What is your age?

Question one is a simple and closed question, which helps establish which age group the Johnny Marr fans are in. As well as this, it can help me make assumptions and correlation later on between the age of someone and things like: their favourite albums and songs, etc. As you can see from the table, it’s quite a mixed response I got in terms of age, one that I was happy with. This is because I can see opinions from all demographics, which includes people who might be relatively new to Johnny Marr and The Smiths (18-24), along with the people who grew up as The Smiths were first starting out (55-64). The data collected on this question was never going to be included in one of my quotes that I use in an article, however, the age of someone maybe added to the end of the quote to give it context and an added trust to the quote.

Question 2 – In what country do you currently reside?

Due to my first question been demographical and a typical closed question, I thought I would stick with the same theme and move onto the open questions (where I will get more quotes from the fans) on question 3. This particular question would establish geodemographical data and help to determine different cultural ideas about music and the certain impact that it had on people in that particular country. Even though I only got one respondant that was from outside the UK, I was still able to get an idea about what it was like and is like to be in another country while this big musical revolution was happening over in the UK. As well as this, the answers to the future questions from all the people that put England for this question will be interesting. Even if they were around at the time of The Smiths, they may not have been able to go to the shows or listen to the music because of restraints. As for the people that were born a bit later; they may have different experiences of the band because music is much more accessible these days. A gender demographic question may have been better suited in this survey, however, this question serves it’s purpose and I will still be able to draw generalisations from the survey answers.

Question 3 – What, in your opinion, are the chances of a Smiths reunion and why?

The first of the open questions, question 3, helped to establish whether the fans of Johnny Marr believed The Smiths would get back together or not and why. I was hoping this question would provoke mass controversy and divide most fans into expressing their opinions at length and getting some good ideas and quotes generated. Even if I would have managed to interview Johnny Marr, I would have still used this question, due to the fact that it’s a key talking point and it will make consumers want to read the article that I will generate in future tasks of this project. Unsurprisingly, 5 out of the 6 people who answered my survey believed that The Smiths would get back together, citing the same reason but different opinions. The one person who thought that the Manchester band would get back together was a person from the 25-34 age bracket. While I could make a generalisation about the response and the age demographic, there is also another person in the same age bracket that stated that the band would not get back together. Therefore, it can be said that, like many survey, this survey has divided opinions in many ways o this question. The most interesting response was that of the respondant from the 55-64 demographic (the one who would have been around when The Smiths were around). He said that he thought they wouldn’t because of the rift between Morrissey and Marr, which is a common reason for many opinions on this survey. However, it was the middle part that generated most intrigue from me, he went onto say that: “I don't really want there to be either. They've had their day in the sun, it's time for new bands to have a chance”. This response alone is enough to add a bit of enigma to my article, without even taking into consideration the quotes I have from other people.

Question 4 - What is the best Smiths song (in terms of Johnny Marr's guitar playing) and why?

Question 4, the only question so far that allows the respondent to answer in an open way that isn’t a tick box or a yes and no answer. Even though question 3 was an open question in the sense that it asked why and prompted a bit more of an answer from the people taking the surveys, it still didn’t leave the consumer with a wide range of answers. This question was a more band orientated question, due to Marr only having two albums worth of songs to choose from, this is why I chose to include all his previous collaborations too. S expected, I already knew that I would get responses solely from fans of Marr, so they wouldn’t just list any Smiths song that was good, they would actually think about the song in which the guitarist performed best in for The Smiths. Like the previous question, opinions were divided, apart from the fact that the range of answers on this question was so vast, compared with the two answers only nature of question 3. While many went for the hit songs by The Smiths band, there was no disagreement with why the songs were played well by Marr; most people on the survey said it was because Marr picked simple riffs and guitar patters, yet played them effective and perfectly. On this question, another interesting response was received from the person in the 55-64 age demographic; he said that he had been to a Smiths show, due to him been around at this time and had said that: “I saw them at Brixton Academy, London in 86' in what would be one of their last shows and he was phenomenal that night, one of the best performances I have ever seen”. As well as key facts and quotes from Marr to be put in the articles I write, I also want to put some quotes from the fans, especially ones who are passionate and have had first hand accounts of The Smiths. Every media organisation have to have some form of hook to entice the consumer, and due to e getting this key quote, I can use ‘expert opinion amongst other techniques. The most common answer on this question was ‘How Soon is Now?’ though. The reasons for this choice were also very similar too. One respondant stated that: “Marr shows how much of a perfectionist he is, playing each one perfectly, without Marr, The Smiths would be nothing” while the other respondent said that: “Even though its a repetitive riff pattern in the song, it's done to perfection”.

Question 5 – How and when did you discover their music?

This question directly links to question one, due to me asking the respondants to tell me about how and when they discovered them which may differ depending on the time that each person grew up in. For example, people in the 55-64 demographic may not have been able to access The Smiths music until the hype died down because music was less accessible in terms of listening to music back in the 80’s. As for people in the younger demographics; they will be split into the ‘accessed it at an early age’ or ‘didn’t really listen to that sort of music but have grown into it later in life’ categories, due to music been a more widely accessible format in the 00’s. These categories were certainly true in my survey, yet they were for completely different reasons entirely. Answers ranged from “My parents played me The Smiths when I was younger and are really big fans so I discovered them when I was young” to “I have only recently discovered The Smiths in the past year. I always avoided them because I presumed that I would hate them. However, I listened to them one day and instantly fell in love with them”. These various viewpoints on the discovery of the music will help me to write a balanced and factual piece on Johnny Marr and The Smiths later in the project, therefore, this question has probably generated the most amount of difference in responses so far in this survey.

Question 6 – What did you think of Marr’s new album Playland?

Before I even sent out this survey, I was cautious not to put too many questions relating to Marr’s solo career, due to most people been familiar with the Manchester guitarist through The Smiths. For this reason, I kept the solo questions to a minimum and made sure that most questions had at least something to do with The Smiths. I realised that because this this question was different to the rest, it would generate a lot of different views; some good, some bad. At first, I thought this was a good thing, but then I realised that this whole project was about writing a factual piece and as long as I get quotes that people have made and balance the argument with points from both sides, this question could potentially be a key one. However, as soon as some responses came back, it was evident that the respondant who like Johnny Marr also like his solo stuff, as well as his collaborations. As soon as half of my survey had come back to me, it appeared that everyone who answer he survey would like Playland. For example, one person answered the question with: “It's really good, one of the best albums of the year and I expected it to be. After I heard Easy Money, I preordered the album, it was that good”. However, after a few good responses, I finally got a negative responses to the question and the idea to make this part of a balanced factual piece was back on. One negative response read: “I don't like it very much, easy money was good, dynamo was average and then it goes downhill from there. I like The Messenger a lot more and I believe that's Marr's best solo album to date”. These key and strong opinions add too the ones that haven’t heard the album and have both a positive and a negative view on the album, with one respondant saying that: “ When i first listened to it, I didn't particularity like it because I thought it was too dissimilar to his previous stuff. After a few more listens though, I realised that it didn't have to sound like his previous material, he can go for something new”. With all these viewpoints in consideration, I will have to amend and cut them down, while ensuring that they stay in the same context as they were intended.

Question 7 – What was Marr's Quintessential album and why? (this can be both as solo albums or albums with The Smiths, The The, The Cribs, etc.)

Established from my previous question, the fact that all the people who answered my survey weren’t exclusively Smiths fans, but instead liked Johnny Marr. From this primus, I was hoping that the respondants may list other albums other than Smiths albums, which is why I have included other collaborations in the question. After getting one kind of answer in the previous question, I wasn’t feeling too hopeful of getting varied answers o question number seven. However, after I revived my first answer, I was a bit more confident. Despite starting the answer with “I think 'The Queen Is Dead' was The Smiths quintessential album. Carrying on from 'Meat is murder' this, in my opinion, is where they were at the pinnacle of their career” the respondant went on to add: “I also think 'Mind Bomb' by The The was a key album for Marr. After having the mass low of The smiths breaking up in 1987, to come back within two years with another band and get to number 4 in the UK was massive for Johnny Marr”. This example showed me that my article would be about more than jut Marr in The Smiths, it would instead reflect a career. However, due to me selecting Johnny Marr, I started thinking that maybe someone who was in a successful band and has had successful collaborations, before embarking on a solo career very late in life would be a bad choice. However, this run of questions has shown me that Marr was a great choice and I can get the responses if I look in the right places.

Question 8 - Can you criticise Johnny Marr in any way? (please be specific)

Due to the nature of the question and given that Johnny Marr fans are responding to this survey, you would expect this question to generate the most vague answers from people. Even though it did generate vague and blunt responses from some, others actually tried to think of things that Johnny Marr doesn’t do well. Out of the six responses, I think two of them will have to be scrapped completely, due to lack of depth within the answers, but the other four are extensive and go into detail about why, even though I didn’t specify for this. Many of the responses are similar to this one that says: “Yeah! He should make up with Morrissey! I like Johnny Marr but he needs to put all the differences aside and reunite The Smiths as soon as possible!” while another one takes a different approach and states: “He should have gone into solo stuff before now. However, I really like the work he did with The Cribs, so you can look at it both ways”. Even though the respondents don’t exactly pick apart Marr and deconstruct him, I have gained some quotes here tat will help me give a balanced account of Johnny Marr, should I be required to in this project. So instead of been another generalised question, I want to prepare myself for any eventuality in this project (After all, it’s better to be over prepared for an article, rather than under prepared. This is a key rue in journalism).

Question 9 - What is your favourite Johnny Marr lyric?

As the survey draws to a close, the search for relevant questions seemed to dissipate and questions that would help me potentially get quotes, but not necessarily key ones were formulated instead. This one in particular is one that I now regret putting in this survey. Like on previous answers, most of the Marr fans had tried their hardest to try and provide a useful answer, however, when I had collected the responses back and looked at some that featured things like: “Morrissey was more of the lyricist, Marr isn't renowned for his lyrics, they're just okay, where as Morrissey is an effective wordsmith” I realised I was right to question myself on the inclusion of number nine on my survey. However, despite feeling this regret, I managed to turn the situation round and now I can try and spin my article into something about both Marr and Morrissey and how and why their lyrics are so different and why they are different musicians in general (using quotes from fans). As for the people who did answer the question correctly, they managed to generate useful responses that can be used. As well as this, many of my respondants put reasons why they liked the lyrics, which is another question that I haven’t asked the consumer to answer why. This is an error on my part and one that I must ensure that I don’t make again because if respondants for future surveys aren’t fans of the particular subjects, they might not be as forthcoming with extensive answers o my questions.

Question 10 – What is the most interesting thing about him?

While this last question looks like one that has been selected, sue to all other options been exhausted, I wanted to try and get some positive opinions towards Johnny Marr. This is due to the fact that I asked ‘Can you criticise Marr in any way?’ and wanted to counter-balance the argument, should I choose this to be a topic in my articles. I also thought that fans of Marr wouldn’t really struggle to come up with responses and it would be a simple, yet effective question to use on the survey. As it was to turn out, maybe the question was too simple for the survey, as some respondants chose to generate a short response that may not be good enough to use later in the project as a quote. On the other hand, others gave me good responses and extensive answers, with one particular response of: “His ability to adapt into any band - for anyone who thinks that this is easy to do, it's not...look what happened to poor Liam and Beady eye, it just wasn't the same. However, Marr has proved he can slot into an situation and multiple musical genres” enabling me to bring other bands into it, after he mentioned Liam Gallagher and Beady Eye. This addition could lead me onto other topics and not make it solely about Johnny Marr. However, I need to be careful not to get off the main focus of the article and research, Johnny Marr.

From here, I will have to cut down and amend some of my quotes to make them more article friendly, in terms of length. Spelling and grammar of the answers could also be an issue, but I have already edited it on survey monkey, so it may only need checking and finalising again before the article stage of the project.