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at a glance...
Hometown:
Manchester, England
Year Formed: 1983
Personnel:
Morrissey: vox
Johnny Marr: guitars, keyboards
Andy Rourke: the bass guitar
Mike Joyce: drums
In the Family :
Morrissey, Electronic, Johnny Marr and the Healers, The The, Julian Cope
Notes:
Legend has it that young guitar prodigy Johnny Marr had to make several pleading visits to local eccentric and NME letters-page-botherer Steven Patrick Morrissey's home in an effort to convince the retiring aesthete to join his new band. One wonders what might have happened had his entreaties been unsuccessful: would Morrissey have continued a life of solitary bedsit moping, a legend in his own mind? Would Marr have gone on to make pleasant if unremarkable pop music (as he has for most of his post-Moz career) instead of changing the very way guitar bands thought about their craft (as he did with The Smiths)? A few things seem certain: the miserable adolescents of the '80s would have had only The Cure and other Goths to turn to, and the rest of the world would have been deprived of the most unique-sounding rock group of the post-punk era. The Smiths' early singles and eponymous debut album caused quite a stir in Britain, despite the fact that the latter was a slightly overproduced and under-realized affair (a fact borne out by the brilliance of early singles and b-sides comp Hatful of Hollow). Marr's ridiculously unfashionable trebly guitar sound and understated virtuosity made The Smiths an intriguing musical proposition; Morrissey's outlandish personality and Wildean lyricism made them a sensation. Second LP Meat Is Murder solidified their fanbase but The Smiths were rightfully considered a singles band until 1986 tour de force The Queen Is Dead. Another ungodly run of singles (collected on U.S.-only comp Louder Than Bombs) followed, but the pressures of newfound fame drove a wedge between the band's songwriting duo and difficult fourth album Strangeways, Here We Come proved to be their last. The band split in 1987; surprisingly, Morrissey went on to make occasionally brilliant, Smiths-y pop for another eight years before being overcome by irrelevance. Marr worked in near anonymity as sideman to Matt Johnson (in The The) and Bernard Sumner (in the occasionally excellent Electronic). Marr finally emerged with his own band in 2003 - the surprisingly hard-rocking Healers.
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The Smiths
The Smiths
Rough Trade, Released 1984
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In early 1984, the first album from England's newest hitmakers was overdue. Surviving a flurry of controversial comments, songs, and associations, The Smiths had already posted three big singles. Expectations for the album were high. Let's be brutally honest. (Morrissey wouldn't want it any other way.) The album didn't live up. It didn't "capture the magic." Pick your reason. Pick from the tired list of things-that-go-wrong-with-rock 'n' roll-albums -- "used the wrong producer," "picked the wrong songs," "didn't get the ball to Kobe enough," whatever.
Truth is they all apply and somehow none of them are the reason. The album has heaviness, a maudlin weight to it. The Smiths always walked a tight line with the melodrama. This time they stepped over. Slightly. Good, yes, but not the brilliant album everyone expected. The overall feeling amongst critics was, "they'll make a perfect one next time."
But, having said that, it is simply not possible for an album that contains these songs not to be good. Let's list them : "Reel Around the Fountain," "This Charming Man," "Hand in Glove," and "What Difference Does It Make?" For those of you scoring at home, that's four. Four epic singles. All first ballot Alternative Rock Hall of Fame inductees.
The Smiths were also authentic trendsetters, in two different ways, no less. First the music. Think back (if you can). 1984. Eurythimics, OMD, Duran Duran, Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Everything good, bad, and ugly on the charts in 1984 was synthesizers. Johnny Marr brought back the guitar. We all owe him one for that.
Then there's the subject matter - that frank, sexual-but-not-sexual, near-perfect encapsulation of adolescence. Morrissey wrote about adolescence better than anyone before or since. The awkwardness, the self-doubt, the fondnees for extreme opinions, the longing for anything different than this - it's pure Dawson's Creek. But listen, if you say you don't like it then you either somehow skipped right over puberty or you're lying. Songs that describe your life, with a loud guitar and a format you can dance to, I mean, come on, what's not to like?
And a lot of us pimple-faced kids did. I may or may not have holed up in my room for a month listening to this album on a white plastic turntable borrowed from my sister. I may or may not have quoted lyrics from "Still Ill" next to some pretty awful attempts at abstract art in letters written to a certain girl from Poland on the 3rd floor. I'll neither confirm nor deny that. But let's say I did. I certainly wasn't alone.
No, this wasn't 1984's best album. But it contained several of that year's best songs. It was a good start. And that feeling the critics had, the one about being perfect the next time. They didn't just do that. They did it twice.
If you like The Smiths, check out:
Aztec Camera High Land, Hard Rain
The Smiths Meat is Murder
The Smiths The Queen is Dead
The Smiths Strangeways, Here We Come
Suede Suede
The Sundays Reading Writing and Arithmetic
-- Carl Ogden
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