Morrissey

Just when you're at your lowest — when all is bleak, when no one calls and when even your cat slinks under the bed at the sight of your disgraceful, shambling approach — along comes Morrissey to remind you that, hey, it could be worse: You could be Morrissey. I was driving my car/I crashed and broke my spine/So, yes, there are things worse in life/Than never being someone's sweetie, he croons sardonically on "That's How People Grow Up." That single and the equally self-skewering, catchy and darkly funny "All You Need Is Me" (I was a small, fat child in a welfare house/There was only one thing I ever dreamed about/Fate has handed it to me, whoopee) were both originally released on Moz's 2008 greatest-hits album and were again released this past February on Years of Refusal, his ninth solo album. Much like the man's own indestructible pompadour, Years stands strongly alongside his material of the past five years — if anything, it rocks even harder. No quiet desperation for this 50-year-old. When he sings about throwing his arms around Paris (because only stone and steel accept my love), he sounds like he could crush the whole damn city into his silvery-haired barrel chest. Expect him to do nothing less to the crowd at the Midland this Tuesday.