An artistic renaissance can't rescue Morrissey from the things he's done In the eyes of once- fervent fans, he's a traitor In the eyes of critics, he's an enemy. To understand why, at a commercial nadir, one pop star can still generate so much fury, you need to think back six years. "I think we've got the point by now," one said. If they'd listened to the record, the laughter might have died It stands with Morrissey's best But that's no longer the point. They examined the cover of his latest album, a plain, pensive picture of the star They perused the title, Maladjusted And they laughed. Two thirtyish strangers, overheard in a record shop last week, summed up how things stand. It's got another witty title, "Satan Rejected My Soul", and it's been another near-flop, a limp 39 in Sunday's chart.

More than any pop star since punk, Morrissey once meant everything Now he means nothing. Trouble is, who's going to listen? Morrissey's at it again He's got another single out, from another album. Morrissey's new album, `Maladjusted', is good enough to put him back on the musical map, writes Nick Hasted. At the last count the station was attracting 500,000 listeners from the 15-35 age group, an audience which previously hadn't been catered for on the commercial radio airwaves. With plans afoot to expand the Xfmfranchise into Scotland (with the help of Alan McGee, Creation Records boss) and the North-east of England in the spring of this year, radio listeners everywhere are in for a treat.. It simply hasn't worked.Xfm, on the other hand, seems to be getting it right.

There, in an attempt to capture the imagination of the "yoof" market, they have dragged in the nauseating, "teen-friendly" Zoe Ball, Kevin "interesting personality" Greening and Steve "ultra-hip" Lamacq. If Oasis produce a shit record, it will not be played on Xfm."While Virgin or Capital serve up an uninteresting diet of the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams, Queen or Robert Palmer, or what they think is cutting-edge, the so-called "new look" Radio 1 doesn't get much better. We are also breaking bands all the time, like Catherine Wheel, Rialto, Smashmouth, Libido, Montrose Avenue, Idlewild, Curve And then there is Gary Crowley's `demo clash'. We don't have a problem playing the bigger bands, as long as the music is great ... This tactic produces a real variety of music: you can hear anything from Sixties pyschedelic funk, Cobain's version of "The Man Who Sold The World" to something by The Damned, Joy Division or the Dave Pike Set in the same show.Sammy Jacob is well aware of the so-called similarities between the infamous Peel Sessions and the musical output of Xfm: "I never said that this station is John Peel 24 hours a day We play classic alternative tunes from the last 30 years. They hardly ever play your favourite songs and when they do, they talk all over them.