Music blogMorrissey

Morrissey's naked pictures: the latest sign of artistic decline?

The man who found inspiration in Derek Jarman and Issey Miyake now seems to be taking visual cues from ... Red Hot Chili Peppers

Because he is the type of man, like Ross Kemp, say, or Bob Hoskins, who gets physically hotter with age, the flurry of Facebook updates informing me of a naked Morrissey photoshoot was too irresistible not to waste five minutes Google-imaging. The picture is of Morrissey and band with just a seven-inch record covering their modesty, shot for the inner-sleeve – who knew they still existed? – of his muscular new single, I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris.

Frankly, it is ghastly. It looks like the sort of wilfully zany idea that an art director at Heat might throw at the boys from Gavin and Stacey to spice up the features section. It is shot against a white backdrop by a photographer who appears to have no concept of lighting or posture (the fat one, shoved ingloriously to the back, is actually pursing his lips in beleaguered amusement in the selected frame), less so of the magnificent physical potential of the male form. As Morrissey adjusts his quiff, you can only exhale a long, deep and regretful sigh. The day that the man who once defined iconographic sleeve art takes visual cues from the Red Hot Chili Peppers is the day the music died. Or at least took a long snooze with some prescription tranquilisers.

The decline of Morrissey's sleeve imagery has only been equalled by his similarly appalling taste in denim over the past decade. Where once he wore synch-stitched Levi's, he seems to have been working his way through a dizzying wardrobe of boot-cut monstrosities when promoting his past four albums. For a chap who understood only too perfectly that the devil of the perfect pop star lies in the detail, this is distressing stuff. Lest we forget, Morrissey once invited Derek Jarman to interpret his music as art; he wore the same Issey Miyake print cardigan for all press obligations for the Queen Is Dead; he sported NHS accessories, hearing aids and spectacles, temporarily acceptable attire for Mancunian terrace casuals in the 80s.

The cheap publicity stunt of his latest single artwork is even more unthinkably awful when seen as the opposite end of a career that began with a naked male image, on the cover of the Hand In Glove single, over 25 years ago. In choosing this image Morrissey forced young heterosexual males to buy a record with a sleeve featuring the silvery slip of a man's buttocks, which now sounds like an act of art terrorism compared to the cheap chuckles prompted by this new monstrosity.

The Smiths record sleeves were a treasure trove from a world that none of us comprehensive-school Mancs knew existed. They presented a lineage of literary figures and tainted starlets that Morrissey cannily and beautifully slotted himself into. I am absolutely positive I would never have known who Joe Dallesandro (masturbating on the cover of the first Smiths album), Viv Nicholson (sporting a bouffant on Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now) or Truman Capote (leaping for joy on The Boy With the Thorn In His Side) were if not for those audacious acts of pop presentation.

Has Morrissey lost his artfulness? Or does he just need a gentle push in the right direction? If so, can I point him towards Ryan McGinley's brilliant photography, used to rivetingly spare effect on the sleeve of the latest Sigur Ros album. If that is your favoured avenue, it's exactly how to do naked men for the modern record jacket.

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