The Age Of Everything Johnny Marr

• 1 Spin 03:50
• 2 Beyond the Rain 04:00
• 3 It's Time 04:07
• 4 How Come 03:59
• 5 Ophelia 03:58
• 6 That Feeling 04:25
• 7 In and Out of Love 04:45
• 8 Just Once More 05:03
• 9 Fire with Fire 04:22
• 10 All in a Life 05:30
• Total Runtime 43:59

Info for The Age Of Everything

The Age Of Everything is Johnny Marr's fifth full length studio record. Written in London, developed live on the road across the East Coast of North America and recorded in Manchester,The Age Of Everything captures the energy and tensions of the city. Sharp, fast and dynamic, filled with ideas and possibilities.

“This is the record that’s been the most cathartic. The title came to me early in the process and became an inescapable idea. It seemed to sum up the way I think a lot of people are feeling. It’s all encompassing, but it's not necessarily a negative statement. There’s a sense of overwhelm in the culture brought about by technology, but looking at it with a different light, there could also be a sense of possibility.” Johnny Marr

"When Johnny Marr announced he was to make a solo album in 2012, it felt like the latest step in a career where instinct has invariably triumphed over perceived wisdom. Since quitting The Smiths at just 23, Marr’s mantra has been to plug in wherever it felt right: The The, Electronic, Modest Mouse, The Cribs and scores of high-profile collaborators have been the beneficiaries of a restless creative curiosity.

Yet 14 years later, we can now say Marr has the sort of solo career few expected, perhaps not even himself. The Age Of Everything is the fifth album under his own name: that’s more studio albums than he made with The Smiths, his period as a solo artist nearly three times as long. That it has been a success has no doubt helped. From the indie post-punk of punchy, direct quickfire one-two of 2013 debut The Messenger and 2014’s Playland to the semi-conceptual and atmospheric Call The Comet (2018) through to the layered electronics of 2022’s double album Fever Dreams Pts 1-4, Marr has managed to add several truly great songs to join his exalted repertoire.

But it was interesting that Marr trailed The Age Of Everything with a press release that suggested that it is now, five albums in, he is finally comfortable with certain aspects of the solo job. The music comes naturally – and The Age Of Everything is another excellent outing – but he’s now found the virtue in not hiding his inner feelings. It’s not like that was totally absent: majestic 2013 track New Town Velocity was a reflection on his youthful hopes and dreams. But The Age Of Everything, titled early on in the process to capture the very modern sense of overwhelm and endless possibility, sees Marr reckon with the outside noise (immoral politicians, bad faith actors, social media) in a way that feels more personal. No names are mentioned, but among the defiance in tracks like Fire With Fire and Just Once More there are relationships gone wrong (In And Out Of Love) and support for a struggling friend (That Feeling); on standout track Ophelia he pays tribute to the strength of a woman in his life. In this sense, it reflects the Marr you read in interviews, offering an antidote to cynicism.

The 10 tracks were written across nine months – he says for him that’s quick – while staying in London; the closing All In A Life, a dramatic, twilight take on the drudgery of the rat race, was actually finished very early one morning while Marr sat on the Bakerloo line for hours watching people go to work. Most songs were road-tested on tour in America, and the live trial and error has given the songs vim, translating into what now feels like a trademark Marr solo album: vibrant and melodic indie-rock, all sharp riffs, memorable choruses and forward momentum. The exception is actually the album’s weakest moment, the mid-paced so-so How Come.

Infectious lead track Spin sets the tone, a deft revolving riff underpinned by a propulsive bassline, one of the album’s defining features: Just Once More, about the impeding danger from the political landscape, is built on twitching bass, rising about the claustrophobic sound for a chorus that shimmers skywards.

A bass groove also underlines Beyond The Rain, which, with its flamenco-inspired chord sequence, is vaguely White Rabbit-ish with a chorus at once uplifting and melancholic, a Marr speciality. And there’s plenty of that on show: the piercing solo on Just Once More; the whizzing runaway jangle guitar lines of Fire With Fire and It’s Time (think in the vein of Girl Afraid); the latter, with its drum break and “whoa-whoa” chant, sounds tour-precision tooled for a big crowd. Ophelia marries a classically swaggering guitar riff with a dancey backbeat, Marr imagining a track to play before you hit the club; In And Out Of Love instantly bursts into view like an older cousin of Never Had No-one Ever before swaying grandly into one of the album’s best moments. Five solo albums in, there’s no let-up in intent or quality, Marr’s restless creative curiosity well and truly benefitting himself." (Shaun Curran)

Johnny Marr

Johnny Marr
Among the most influential and respected guitarists of his generation Marr has been integral to a string of renowned bands dating back to the Smiths, for who he was co-songwriter – with Morrissey between 1983–87. Marr has also been a member of Electronic, The The and Modest Mouse. In 2008, he joined The Cribs after touring with them on 2008's NME Awards Tour, a group in which he would remain until 2011. In 2012 Marr announced he would be releasing a solo album titled The Messenger. Marr's jangly Rickenbacker guitar-playing in The Smiths proved to be popular among other musicians and has influenced many guitarists that followed, particularly in the Britpop era. In 2013, the NME awarded Marr its Godlike Genius award, hailing Marr as "not content with rewriting the history of music with one of the world's greatest ever bands, The Smiths, he's continued to push boundaries and evolve throughout his career, working with some of the best and most exciting artists on the planet." In 2013 Marr released his first full debut album The Messenger which once again placed him at the forefront of UK guitar music.

This album contains no booklet.