Music The Smiths

Achilles McCool

New Member
Joined
Jan 30, 2017
Messages
1,911
Location
Nowhere fast
Impossible to narrow it down though. There's just so many classics.
Stop right there! I've heard this one...oh, nevermind.

Favorite song:
Cemetery Gates

Favorite album:
Queen is Dead

Favorite line:
In my life, why do I smile at people who I'd much rather kick in the eye?
 

Flying_Heckfish

Full Member
Joined
Mar 21, 2009
Messages
4,875
Location
Hand in Glove
Update

  • Top albums
  • Top tunes

Albums:
  • Smiths
  • tQID
  • MiM
  • SHWC

Tunes:
  • Hand in Glove
  • This Charming Man (Peel version - love that harmonica)
  • The hand that rocks the Cradle
  • Bigmouth
  • so many for filth, maybe Please, Please. But I love all the tunes on the eponymous album.
 

12OunceEpilogue

In perfect harmony
Scout
Joined
Oct 2, 2016
Messages
18,392
Location
Wigan
Update

  • Top albums
  • Top tunes

Albums:
  • Smiths
  • tQID
  • MiM
  • SHWC

Tunes:
  • Hand in Glove
  • This Charming Man (Peel version - love that harmonica)
  • The hand that rocks the Cradle
  • Bigmouth
  • so many for filth, maybe Please, Please. But I love all the tunes on the eponymous album.
A mate of mine calls that Morrissey's 'paed's eye view' song. :lol: Great tune.
 

Nico87

Full Member
Joined
Aug 8, 2018
Messages
871
Location
Manchester
Morrissey is once again showing his support for the far right, does anyone stop listening to artists they once enjoyed when they air views you find repugnant?
 

Stobzilla

Official Team Perv
Joined
Jun 7, 2004
Messages
21,900
Location
Grove Street, home.
Morrissey is once again showing his support for the far right, does anyone stop listening to artists they once enjoyed when they air views you find repugnant?
The Morrissey that wrote those songs would run rings around the philandering edge lord we see today.

He changed, the music won't. That is the beauty of it.
 

SteveJ

all-round nice guy, aka Uncle Joe Kardashian
Scout
Joined
Oct 22, 2010
Messages
62,851
I think perhaps the kindest interpretation of his various attitudes is that he dislikes change. It's probably armchair psychology but everything from his longstanding affection for a monochrome Fifties past - embodied by his personal taste, and even his choice of record sleeve design - to his desperation for England to remain...Little England suggests this. Basically, he lacks the emotional maturity to accept what is obvious: societal change will occur regardless of our hopes. It's a very human failing and one we're all guilty of, to an extent, but it's a failing nonetheless.
 

Rusholme Ruffian

Full Member
Joined
Apr 30, 2017
Messages
3,121
Location
Cooking MCs like a pound of bacon
I think perhaps the kindest interpretation of his various attitudes is that he dislikes change. It's probably armchair psychology but everything from his longstanding affection for a monochrome Fifties past - embodied by his personal taste, and even his choice of record sleeve design - to his desperation for England to remain...Little England suggests this. Basically, he lacks the emotional maturity to accept what is obvious: societal change will occur regardless of our hopes. It's a very human failing and one we're all guilty of, to an extent, but it's a failing nonetheless.
I like this interpretation! As my name suggests I'm a big Smiths fan. It's getting harder and harder to find any justification whatsoever for Morrissey though...I'm struggling...
 

SteveJ

all-round nice guy, aka Uncle Joe Kardashian
Scout
Joined
Oct 22, 2010
Messages
62,851
It's frequently difficult to decide whether he's being sincere or merely controversial for its own sake...and he often enjoys his role as the source of this perceived ambivalence. Or at least, he used to enjoy it.
 

sullydnl

Ross Kemp's caf ID
Joined
Sep 13, 2012
Messages
34,063
Morrissey is once again showing his support for the far right, does anyone stop listening to artists they once enjoyed when they air views you find repugnant?
Usually it would be a problem for me as I find it difficult to seperate a musician's personality from their work when the two are as closely linked as they are in Morrissey's case. As opposed to film, say, where I can happily watch a Polanksi film without once thinking of Polanksi the person as he's less present in the finished work.

In Morrissey's case though his political opinions don't bother me in the slightest because I always thought he came across as a narccistic, precious and vaguely unpleasant anti-hero, even in his lyrics. I've never once listened to a Morrissey song and thought he'd be anything less than a chore to be around, so his political views in no way leave me dissapointed or disillusioned. The great thing about his music to my mind was that he was talented, clever, funny, playful and emotionally open enough to make that very flawed personality interesting and engaging regardless.

To use Harry Potter terminology, he was always very much house slytherin so his political views fit neatly with the image I already had of him.

A bigger problem for me is the actual quality of his recent releases, which have been pretty dire.
 

Rusholme Ruffian

Full Member
Joined
Apr 30, 2017
Messages
3,121
Location
Cooking MCs like a pound of bacon
Usually it would be a problem for me as I find it difficult to seperate a musician's personality from their work when the two are as closely linked as they are in Morrissey's case. As opposed to film, say, where I can happily watch a Polanksi film without once thinking of Polanksi the person as he's less present in the finished work.

In Morrissey's case though his political opinions don't bother me in the slightest because I always thought he came across as narccistic, precious and vaguely unpleasant anti-hero, even in his lyrics. I've never once listened to a Morrissey song and thought he'd be anything less than a chore to be around, so his political views in no way leave me dissapointed or disillusioned. The great thing about his music to my mind was that he was talented, clever, funny, playful and emotionally open enough to make that very flawed personality interesting and engaging regardless.

To use Harry Potter terminology, he was always very much house slytherin so his political views fit neatly with the image I already had of him.

A bigger problem for me is the actual quality of his recent releases, which have been pretty dire.
Yeah, there's being 'vaguely unpleasant' and there's being a fecking racist though - and at the moment I'm not completely sure which it is...
 

sullydnl

Ross Kemp's caf ID
Joined
Sep 13, 2012
Messages
34,063
Yeah, there's being 'vaguely unpleasant' and there's being a fecking racist though - and at the moment I'm not completely sure which it is...
Tbf I also first got into The Smiths in the mid 00's, by which point there had already been red flags raised about his political opinions and rather questionable outlook on race. I guess I went in with eyes open, as opposed to a lot of earlier fans who could have been drawn in by the anti-Thatcher, anti-royalist, vegan, LGBT-friendly side of his character.
 

Wibble

In Gadus Speramus
Staff
Joined
Jun 15, 2000
Messages
88,602
Location
Centreback
I stopped caring about and listening to Morrissey once The Smiths broke up.
 

arthurka

Full Member
Joined
Jan 20, 2010
Messages
18,663
Location
Rectum
He is my one and only true love-hate interest. As much as he is unlikeable there is a strange opposite that keeps pulling me in..
 

balaks

Full Member
Joined
Feb 25, 2014
Messages
15,335
Location
Northern Ireland
Supports
Tottenham Hotspur
The Smiths are my favourite band. Morrissey i have a love hate thing with but I think most of what he says is just for a reaction.
 

kps88

Full Member
Joined
Feb 12, 2008
Messages
22,511
The Smiths are my favourite band. Morrissey i have a love hate thing with but I think most of what he says is just for a reaction.
I think that's even worse. If those are his actual beliefs I might not agree with them but I can at least understand him sharing them. If he's giving attention and credibility to far right nutters just to be a shit stirrer and wind people up then that's worse.
 

Mockney

Not the only poster to be named Poster of the Year
Joined
Jan 27, 2009
Messages
40,954
Location
Editing my own posts.
Morrissey was always the shittest part of The Smiths. You should’ve grown out of him once you left your sulky self-indulgent teen years. He was a sixth form poet, and his subsequently appalling attempts at an actual writing career have basically proved this, as far as I’m concerned.

This has been my contrary opionion for the day.
 
Last edited:

jeff_goldblum

Full Member
Joined
Dec 6, 2011
Messages
3,917
Morrissey is once again showing his support for the far right, does anyone stop listening to artists they once enjoyed when they air views you find repugnant?
Personally I find it difficult to disconnect the artist and the art itself. If I hear a Smiths song I might enjoy it musically but I'll also be thinking about how much of a prick Morrissey is, and the latter tempers the enjoyment of the former. Brand New is the biggest example of that for me, one of my favourite bands ever but find it difficult to listen to them because of the stuff surrounding Jesse Lacey.

With the Smiths specifically, by the time I started hearing their music Morrissey had already started airing racist views (albeit not as openly as he has in the subsequent decade or so) and that put me off making an effort to listen to them.
 

Revaulx

Full Member
Joined
Mar 17, 2014
Messages
6,031
Location
Saddleworth
Morrissey was always the shittest part of The Smiths. You should’ve grown out of him once you left your sulky self-indulgent teen years. He was a sixth form poet, and his subsequently appalling attempts at an actual writing career have basically proved this, as far as I’m concerned.

This has been my contrary opionion for the day.
I was in my mid 20s when The Smiths emerged and could never get into them for this very reason, despite really liking Marr’s guitar sound and both him and Morrissey’s mum living close to my parents.

My 15 year old daughter has recently got into them and I have to say I’m enjoying them now a lot more than I did at the time. Maybe Morrissey turning out to be a complete arse has made me pay less attention to the self absorbed lyrics and just enjoy the music.
 

2 man midfield

Last Man Standing finalist 2021/22
Joined
Sep 4, 2012
Messages
45,669
Location
?
I can separate the art from the artist pretty easily tbh. I don’t listen for their personality.
 

sullydnl

Ross Kemp's caf ID
Joined
Sep 13, 2012
Messages
34,063
I stopped caring about and listening to Morrissey once The Smiths broke up.
A few of his studio albums are very good tbf (and Bona Drag is a classic compilation album too) but at a guess I would say 7 or 8 out of his 11 studio albums are pretty inessential unless you're specifically a Morrissey fan and even then some of them are just shite. Which really isn't much of a hit rate.
 

Wibble

In Gadus Speramus
Staff
Joined
Jun 15, 2000
Messages
88,602
Location
Centreback
A few of his studio albums are very good tbf (and Bona Drag is a classic compilation album too) but at a guess I would say 7 or 8 out of his 11 studio albums are pretty inessential unless you're specifically a Morrissey fan and even then some of them are just shite. Which really isn't much of a hit rate.
I haven't loved anything post The Smiths. One or two tracks is all imo.
 

Tincanalley

Turns player names into a crappy conversation
Joined
Apr 12, 2011
Messages
10,087
Location
Ireland
Really been getting back into them lately; what a band they were.

These threads aren't complete without some sort of list, so here's my top five Smiths tracks:

  1. There is a light that never goes out
  2. Asleep
  3. Heaven knows I'm miserable now
  4. How soon is now?
  5. The headmaster ritual

Best band to come out of Manchester...
Sublime band. Such songwriting. Thanks for reminding me.
 

Kag

Full Member
Joined
Jun 15, 2013
Messages
18,875
Location
United Kingdom
Morrissey is a wanker, but there are worse people I guess. 130,000 people are about to ensure that our next Prime Minister is a man that is worse in all sorts of ways. So I’m comfortable with disassociating the music from the man. I’d just be losing out on something great. What for?
 

Rhyme Animal

Thinks Di Zerbi is better than Pep.
Joined
Sep 3, 2015
Messages
11,193
Location
Nonchalantly scoring the winner...
I think perhaps the kindest interpretation of his various attitudes is that he dislikes change. It's probably armchair psychology but everything from his longstanding affection for a monochrome Fifties past - embodied by his personal taste, and even his choice of record sleeve design - to his desperation for England to remain...Little England suggests this. Basically, he lacks the emotional maturity to accept what is obvious: societal change will occur regardless of our hopes. It's a very human failing and one we're all guilty of, to an extent, but it's a failing nonetheless.
Yet he chose to change his beloved, rainy, kitchen-sink Manchester for LA... that's quite a big change.

And then chose to stay there, as an immigrant, while being increasingly offensive toward immigrants in the country that he chose to leave...

He then changed LA for, I think, Rome - again, quite a big change.

I think he's just a pompous, vain self obsessed pop star who has a really good voice and used to be in a great band.

His recent statements - in the current climate of hatred and division, are both totally needless, and seriously lacking in empathy, and make it fairly obvious he's a racist.
 

Mockney

Not the only poster to be named Poster of the Year
Joined
Jan 27, 2009
Messages
40,954
Location
Editing my own posts.
I was in my mid 20s when The Smiths emerged and could never get into them for this very reason, despite really liking Marr’s guitar sound and both him and Morrissey’s mum living close to my parents.

My 15 year old daughter has recently got into them and I have to say I’m enjoying them now a lot more than I did at the time. Maybe Morrissey turning out to be a complete arse has made me pay less attention to the self absorbed lyrics and just enjoy the music.
Yeah. I came at it from the other end, in that I was too young to experience their heyday, so found them retrospectively as an adult, and similarly just didn’t get it. Another flavour of surface level deep first contact adolescent snuff, up there with goth, grunge and Jarvis Cocker in the pantheon of “fine entry level stuff to listen to before you get into Leonard Cohen or Bowie, or any of the actual grown up stuff”

I cant deny that he undoubtably meant a lot to people who heard his shit at the right time... but in the same way I came to realise that, despite my teenage preference for Oasis, Blur were actually the better band... I feel the previous generation should’ve come round by now to the realisation that Marr was the better Smith than Morrissey. There’s no shame in reassessing your formative nostalgia. We were all emotionally over-attached to something cringeworthy at one time or another...

Also, as sensitive alternative 80s weirdos go, Robert Smith >>> Mozza
 
Last edited:

Irwin99

Full Member
Joined
Aug 6, 2018
Messages
9,124
His perpetual sense of victimhood and a failure to mature ruined him as an artist/lyricist in my opinion. His albums after Vauxhall And I really drop off in lyrical quality (You are the Quarry being an exception). California Son is the first Moz album I didn't buy, chiefly because his last 4 or 5 albums have all been pretty mediocre. I don't think his band are that bad it's just that he's gotten very stale.

I think perhaps the kindest interpretation of his various attitudes is that he dislikes change. It's probably armchair psychology but everything from his longstanding affection for a monochrome Fifties past - embodied by his personal taste, and even his choice of record sleeve design - to his desperation for England to remain...Little England suggests this. Basically, he lacks the emotional maturity to accept what is obvious: societal change will occur regardless of our hopes. It's a very human failing and one we're all guilty of, to an extent, but it's a failing nonetheless.
This 100%. So called millennials and Gen Z's (or whatever you call 18 year olds now) don't care about the Britain he's nostalgic for. It's gone and, in many ways, thank god it's gone.
 

Mockney

Not the only poster to be named Poster of the Year
Joined
Jan 27, 2009
Messages
40,954
Location
Editing my own posts.
This 100%. So called millennials and Gen Z's (or whatever you call 18 year olds now) don't care about the Britain he's nostalgic for. It's gone and, in many ways, thank god it's gone.
Though somewhat ironically, they do care about his actual by-gone Britain of the 80s and 90s, because of the exact same inevitable 30 year nostalgia cycle that encouraged Morrissey to be so enamoured of the 50s in the first place... and the fact he doesn’t see that, and has failed to grow out of it, is as much an intellectual failing as it is a sympathetic “human” one...

He just ain’t as smart as many thought he was. He’s an angsty pretentious Luddite who read the Romantics in college. Cut him loose.
 
Last edited:

Revaulx

Full Member
Joined
Mar 17, 2014
Messages
6,031
Location
Saddleworth
Yeah. I came at it from the other end, in that I was too young to experience their heyday, so found them retrospectively as an adult, and similarly just didn’t get it. Another flavour of surface level deep first contact adolescent snuff, up there with goth, grunge and Jarvis Cocker in the pantheon of “fine entry level stuff to listen to, before you get into Leonard Cohen or Bowie, or any of the actual stuff”

I cant deny that he undoubtably meant a lot to people who heard his shit at the right time... but in the same way I came to realise that, despite my teenage preference for Oasis, Blur were actually the better band... I feel the previous generation should’ve come round by now to the realisation that Marr was the better Smith than Morrissey. There’s no shame in reassessing your formative nostalgia. We were all emotionally over-attached to something terrible at one time or another...

Also, as sensitive alternative 80s weirdos go, Robert Smith >>> Mozza
I was definitely too old for grunge and Jarvis Cocker!

I certainly think Blur are better than Oasis, if only because they are massively less one dimensional. I still remember first hearing the latter’s first album though and feeling it was created with me in mind, unlike pretty much anything from the 80s.

And you’re absolutely right about Robert Smith. I’m not keen on all his stuff, but there’s no doubt he’s a genuine original.
 

SteveJ

all-round nice guy, aka Uncle Joe Kardashian
Scout
Joined
Oct 22, 2010
Messages
62,851
How the f*ck can Morrissey claim he's not a racist and still support Waters? Her disgusting comments about Muslim people sound like she's talking about vermin, ffs.
 

Spoony

The People's President
Joined
Oct 27, 2001
Messages
63,107
Location
eerF Palestine.
He's such a wanker....and pseudo intellectual. I'd like to think no one actually likes the self pitying bastard.
 

Handsome Devil

Full Member
Joined
Dec 1, 2016
Messages
1,480
Location
No, not Lisbon..Lisburn!
Morrissey was always the shittest part of The Smiths. You should’ve grown out of him once you left your sulky self-indulgent teen years. He was a sixth form poet, and his subsequently appalling attempts at an actual writing career have basically proved this, as far as I’m concerned.

This has been my contrary opionion for the day.
Careful now. The more you ignore him, the closer he'll get!
 

Pogue Mahone

The caf's Camus.
Joined
Feb 22, 2006
Messages
133,350
Location
"like a man in silk pyjamas shooting pigeons
Yeah. I came at it from the other end, in that I was too young to experience their heyday, so found them retrospectively as an adult, and similarly just didn’t get it. Another flavour of surface level deep first contact adolescent snuff, up there with goth, grunge and Jarvis Cocker in the pantheon of “fine entry level stuff to listen to before you get into Leonard Cohen or Bowie, or any of the actual grown up stuff”

I cant deny that he undoubtably meant a lot to people who heard his shit at the right time... but in the same way I came to realise that, despite my teenage preference for Oasis, Blur were actually the better band... I feel the previous generation should’ve come round by now to the realisation that Marr was the better Smith than Morrissey. There’s no shame in reassessing your formative nostalgia. We were all emotionally over-attached to something cringeworthy at one time or another...

Also, as sensitive alternative 80s weirdos go, Robert Smith >>> Mozza
That was always the case, though. I'm old enough to remember the Smiths when they were fresh and new and anyone who liked them for their music (and not Mozza's gladiola waving camp pageantry) knew that Marr was the real talent. That talent has stood the test of time too. The opening bars to this tune still sound absolutely fecking amazing.

 

Handsome Devil

Full Member
Joined
Dec 1, 2016
Messages
1,480
Location
No, not Lisbon..Lisburn!
I think it's both of them together that creates the magic.
I would agree with this. The Smiths are more than the sum of their parts, like The Beatles were. Marr was the musical brain but he could never be the frontman in a million years and I think he is comfortable with this when you think of all the bands he has subsequently enhanced with his gunslinging guitar talents.