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Album: The Smiths (1984)
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Thoughts: Their debut album. The Smiths are sometimes talked of as the best band of the last 30 years, Morrissey is an opinionated singer who has an unusual and unique vocal style. He has been called overrated and underrated. The band's uniqueness is also due to talented Johnny Marr on guitar. Marr was co-writer of the lyrics with Morrissey, and the writing is another reason to praise the band. I didn’t gravitate towards the music at first, have grown to appreciate it. The name of the band was partly a reaction to the glossy aspirations and glamour of early 80s pop music.
Morrissey in documentary The Importance Of Being Morrissey (2002): "The Smiths was an incredibly personal thing to me, it was like launching your own diary to music"
Favorite tracks: Hand In Glove, What Difference Does it Make, This Charming Man, I Don't Owe You Anything, Suffer Little Child
Album: Meat Is Murder (1985)
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(The album title famously refers to Morrissey's pro-vegetarian opinions)
Morissey archive interview from documentary Not Like Any Other Love (2013): "We feel that popular music should be used to make serious statements, because so many groups sell masses and masses of records, and don't raise people's level of consciousness in any direction, and we find that quite sinful"
Favorite tracks: How Soon Is Now?, That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore, Barbarism Begins at Home, The Headmaster Ritual
Have you listened to The Smiths? Or are you new to the band as I am?
The Smiths are definitely one of the greatest bands ever. Pretty much all of the studio albums and every compilation they released during their hey-day are essential. The Queen is Dead is my favorite album and "How Soon is Now?" is my favorite song of theirs. It's Johnny Marr's guitar work that is one of the reasons why I love them. In fact, I have a review of their first album that I posted back in 2011 that I wrote in 2009.
ReplyDelete@thevoid99: Thanks for the link, I'll take a look at your review.
DeleteYeah, most of the stuff I’ve heard by The Smiths is excellent. The Queen is Dead and How Soon Is Now? are good choices. There Is A Light That Never Goes Out is pretty awesome-so that’s one of my favorites.
I should be done with this in 2 weeks, so a window is open for your Nine Inch Nails guest post in September.
I checked their music after 500 days of summer :) my friend ended up being a fan. I don't like all of their songs as sometimes they are too mellow/sad. But I love 'the more you ignore me..', 'there is a light that never goes out', and some others
ReplyDelete@Andina: The Smiths can be a bit sad with that vocal. Thanks for sharing those tracks. Listening to Morissey's solo records is on my to-do-list!
DeleteThe Smiths are amazing! Asleep is my favourite.
ReplyDelete@Lights Camera Reaction: Glad you like them too. Asleep is a great track, which I discovered in Perks of Being A Wallflower.
DeleteI grew up with The Smiths and they are surely one of the best bands of all time. Strangeways was a bit on the ropey side but Morrissey has gone on to produce some more good stuff. Johnny Marr meanwhile...
ReplyDelete@Keith: Didn't know you grew up with The Smiths. Their music definitely has aged well. I watched a few documentaries, and it appears Morrissey has done quite a lot of solo work post-The Smiths.
DeleteThe Smiths might be one of the most interesting bands to discover and listening them reminds how Indy rock has evolved and has been inspired by their unique sound.Eager to see Part 2 & 3!
ReplyDelete@MichaëlParent: I hadn't thought of The Smiths as how indie rock has evolved, and who was inspired by them, interesting thought.
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