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Jun 21, 2012

The Smiths - The Smiths (1984)


The thought of The Smiths in their early days jamming then Morrissey coming along and doing his tone-deaf moan over the top and the whole band stopping and going yo that sounds real good, keep singing like that! makes me so happy whenever I listen to them

Flowery creep shit with sweet jangliness, weird moans when there's nothing to sing, overlong falsetto outros, and varying quality from track to track. But man it's charming (ha)

I consider Reel Around the Fountain The Smiths' best song after This Night Has Opened My Eyes, but I get the same vibe from both of them. This Charming Man is delightful. Hand In Glove is surprisingly driving and good. Suffer Little Children I mentioned in a Chills post which got taken down (ò_ó) 'cause it's designed to chill the listener and is in my opinion one of the greatest pop songs ever written. Calling the victims of the moors murders out by name is fairly eerie, but the inclusion of the victims' families' reactions (I know my son is dead, I'll never rest my hands on his sacred head) is tragic, and giving Hindley a voice with her infamous psychotic insistence that whatever he has done, I have done is bold, AND Morrissey has the good sense not to turn everything into a trite amoral goth/post-punk song as the notion of the Romanticism of death fades in the second half- But fresh lilaced moorland fields cannot hide the stolid stench of death- and he gives the children a voice to condemn their murderers- But we will be right by your side until the day you die... You might sleep, but you will never dream

Not their best album, BUT IT'S THEIR BEST ALBUM. Their better albums sometimes bore me. The chaotic amateurism here keeps me excited. What do I know though? I still think the best thing to get by them is a damn compilation! Note to self- also post Hatful of Hollow, the damn compilation

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