#21

Ignoring the Morrissey issue (for now, I certainly don’t ignore it generally) a straightforward 5 for me. The most important band of my teens and a genuinely brilliant, revelatory band on any terms. They probably sound less exciting to people who have only heard them retrospectively precisely because almost every indie guitar band that has followed has been massively influenced by them - their sound has become the default sound of ‘indie guitar music’ but that very much wasn’t the case at the time they emerged. There obviously were precursor bands (a lot of the Postcard bands, for instance) but ‘indie’ didn’t really exist as a genre (as opposed to a simple description of a means of distribution) when The Smiths started.

For me they were, for a short glorious period, almost a perfect band - clever, funny, moving lyrics, thrilling, catchy but deceptively complex music. They looked like a gang and had a swaggering, outsider chic to them. Everyone at my school hated them with a passion that it is hard to convey. Every time they appeared on Top of the Pops it sparked off a wave of mockery and derision that made me love them even more.

The quality of their songwriting in their first 18 months - 2 years of making records is just unsurpassed. Just remember that during that period they were putting songs like How Soon is Now? and Please, Please, Please on the B-Sides of singles because amazing songs were just pouring out of them.

In some ways their imperfections make them even greater - they never quite made a perfect studio album (the first record is appallingly produced and by the time of the later ones the songwriting has slipped slightly into formula at times). If you doubt them though just listen to Hatful of Hollow - basically the first 16 songs they wrote, recorded fast and dirty and 100% perfect from start to finish.

21 Likes
#22

Have you heard the Troy Tate version?

#23

No album has a bigger disparity between the good stuff and the filler than The Queen Is Dead.

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#24

Not Smiths related, but Funky can you please add a .00 after the Weezer score, it is disturbing me every time I scroll through the league table.

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#25

Morrissey was like a different person back then so, for me, I can disassociate the group from the enormobell he’s become. As such, fucking great band. The songs, the lyrics, the image… super influential and a big part of British pop/rock history. Also, re. the music, I absolutely love Marr’s guitar sound ang think it’s integral to the band’s greatness. 5

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#26

Of course. It’s much better of course but I do have some sympathy with the Geoff Travis opinion that it ‘sounds like a demo’. One version of the story is that John Porter was just told to tidy it up a bit rather than completely re-recording it as he did. Whatever he did completely ruined it.

It’s always been a extraordinary cock-up when you consider how great the Peel sessions on Hatful sound - you literally just had to set up the mics and let them record to get a great album out of them but Rough Trade contrived time mess it up.

I think their peak as a studio band is the first two thirds of Meat is Murder - great songs, brilliantly played and produced. Shame about the second half of the second side.

1 Like
#27

As it’s you.

#28

I like this cover of There Is A Light…:

Was never that fussed about The Smiths. A couple of great singles but much of their stuff left me cold. 2/5

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#29

Reel Around The Fountain is the biggest example of this for me. The drums on the studio version - yikes! Sounds like a completely different song on HOH.

I think Strangeways… is as close as they got for me album-wise but there is still some awful guff on there (Unhappy Birthday!)

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#30

Thank you Funky :slight_smile:

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#31

Test should be twat, obv.

#32

Just thought it was some Scotch thing tbh.

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#33

Although ‘I’ve come to wish you an unhappy birthday, because you’re evil and you lie, and if you should die, I might be slightly sad but I won’t cry’ is a great opening line.

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#34

Speaking of Morrissey’s autobiography I can’t help thinking of this:

I got a fair way into it but, then it just becomes a bitter takedown of the court case and is actually quite nasty.

A band I didn’t get into until I was 15ish will always appreciate will never really understand the massive fawning over.

4/5

Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me what a tune though

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#35

All of the band seem to think that Strangeways is their best work but I don’t think the songs stand up. You see some of the later nastiness of Morrissey’s personality show up on songs like Unhappy Birthday and Paint a Vulgar Picture (and all songs ever where artists moan about the record industry are awful). In other places he is writing to a formula. There are two absolutely great songs - Last Night and I Won’t Share You - but I’m not mad on the rest of it.

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#36

Always freaks my nut out that Johnny Marr was only 23 when they split up

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#37

These plus A Rush And A Push and Death Of A Disco Dancer make it their best for me tbh.

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#38

Like the fact that George Harrison was 26 when The Beatles split up.

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#39

Feel if I was around at the time I would like them more… as with most Manchester bands of that era, find them painfully dull.

2, because How Soon Is Now is good

#40

I’ve always been utterly baffled by the adoration they’ve received. Tried listening to them a whole bunch of times to see what I missing, but nope, nothing.

How Soon Is Now is pretty much the only song I even come close to enjoying.

At least that’s meant I haven’t had to wrestle with the whole Morrissey being a fucking prick issue.

2 Likes