The Smiths are a byword for depressed, rainswept, northern English alternative rock music, at least judging by a string of relatively recent movies in which they are the favourite band of neurotic and socially isolated American teenagers (2009’s 500 Days of Summer, 2012’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, even 2018’s Bumblebee, in which a giant transforming intergalactic Volkswagen Beetle communicates by playing “Girlfriend in a Coma” from its stereo).
Personally, though, I associate the Smiths with frivolity and titillation, not just because their finest moments comprise jolly, jangly pop songs, but even more so because flagrantly melodramatic numbers like “Never Had No One Ever” and “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” are abundantly riven with droll Mancunian irony. In my opinion, there are only a handful of unironically sad moments in the Smiths’ discography; most of the time, I strongly suspect that Morrissey was taking the piss, whereas Marr just couldn’t help himself; he wanted to write pop songs and get on the radio, rather than ape Unknown Pleasures.
In fact, this predilection for writing killer singles is significant, because it partly explains why the Smiths’ body of work is maddeningly, almost perplexingly chaotic. In a frenetic four-year period, they released four studio albums, a glut of standalone singles that didn’t feature on any album, and two (arguably three) compilation records that brought together the standalone singles, plus an array of bewilderingly excellent B-sides. Reconstructing the precise chronology of what was released and when is no mean feat.
Overall, though, the most abiding impression left by a systematic review of the Smiths’ oeuvre is its remarkable quality. There’s barely a dull moment, the lyrics and vocals are absolutely seminal, and there are more classic songs than most bands manage to generate in twenty years, let alone four.
The Smiths (1984)
When the Smiths’ self-titled debut album first comes in, with a sparse, minimalistic, reverb-inflected drumbeat, the listener is entitled to expect a foreboding, synth-infused, Joy Division-esque post-punk record. But when the guitars start up and Morrissey sings, it immediately becomes apparent that we’re dealing here with a very different Mancunian animal. The sound consists of sometimes frenetic, frequently maudlin 80s jangle pop rather than glacial post-punk, while Morrissey’s theatrical, almost matronly northern croon is far removed from Ian Curtis’ prince of darkness routine. Overall, it’s remarkable how gay the Smiths’ debut album is; from the languid opener, “Reel Around the Fountain”, with its trauma-laden fantasies of revenge and desire, to the trademark singles “This Charming Man”, “What Difference Does It Make?”, and “Hand in Glove”, with their oblique references to homosexual trysts and confessions. Of course, there are plenty of anthems for lonely incels (“Pretty Girls Make Graves”, “Miserable Lie”), but there are also some unexpected wildcards: “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle”, an eerie lullaby and paeon to the power of parents; and “Suffer Little Children”, an unsettlingly gentle foray into the horrifying history of the Moors Murderers, child killers who haunted Manchester in the 1960s.
Overall rating: * * *
Standout track: “What Difference Does It Make?”
Hatful of Hollow (1984)
Debate continues to rage over whether Hatful of Hollow can be properly considered a canonical Smiths album. It comprises a thrown together-sounding compilation of standalone singles, B-sides, and live recordings, and it was most likely conceived as a cash in, a hastily improvised stopgap between the band’s first two records. This is frequently very evident; the live takes, for example, are generally inferior to their more polished studio counterparts (with the exception of a wistful acoustic rendition of “Back to the Old House”). And yet, Hatful of Hollow’s standout moments are arguably superior to anything on the records that preceded or followed it: the racy “William, It Was Really Nothing” and the bleakly droll “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” could easily have fronted albums, while the murky, morbid “How Soon Is Now?” – one of the band’s most distinctive songs – and the plaintive “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want” were incomprehensibly and unforgivably buried as B-sides. Overall, Hatful of Hollow highlights how astonishingly creative and prolific the Smiths were in their first two years, and lends further succour to the oft-repeated notion that they were more of a singles than an albums band.
Overall Rating: * * *
Standout track: “How Soon Is Now?”
Meat is Murder (1985)
Ah the good old days, when bands routinely dropped three album’s worth of new material each and every year. Barely twelve months separated the release of The Smiths and the recording of Meat is Murder, and as we have seen, it’s not as if the band spent the intervening period on the beach. Fans of the Smiths surely appreciated this saturation of the market but, looking back some forty years later, the artistic result is that their first two studio albums are largely indistinguishable and, in fact, a little colourless. Once again, the listener is confronted by basically two types of song; hectic, jangly, indie disco anthems to drink and dance to; and maudlin, miserable, acoustic guitar-driven marathons to ameliorate the ensuing lonely hangover. Frustrated, unrequited, possibly gay romantic longing and despair remain plentiful (“I Want The One I Can’t Have”, “That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore”, “Well I Wonder”), as do slyly humorous references to growing up in a miserable and forgotten town (“Rusholme Ruffians”, “Nowhere Fast”). What sets Meat is Murder apart from its predecessor is a burgeoning tendency toward “social commentary”, as Morrissey amply denounces the myriad injustices visited on helpless children and animals (“The Headmaster Ritual”, “Barbarism Begins at Home”, “Meat is Murder”).
Overall rating: * * *
Standout track: “Well I Wonder”
Continued in part II.