Customer Reviews

The Smiths Is Dead

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you are a Smiths fan then you will either love or hate this album depending on whether you can stand anyone but Morrisey and Marr on your favourite tracks.

Personally I enjoy listening to new interpretations of their tracks and have a collection of cover albums - this one being my favourite. Billy Bragg's voice can really carry a Smiths song and I really like his version of Never Had No-One Ever. There Is A Light That Never Goes Out is covered by The divine Comedy, and again they do justice to a great track, and it is probably my favourite on the album. Most people seem to favour either Bigmouth Strikes Again by Placebo or the Supergrass version of Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others. Both are good versions but I guess they arent my favourite Smiths tracks anyway.

This is a nice album to have - if you can get a copy. It is currently trading at arround £30 on auctions. If you see a copy I would say buy it and if you really dont like it sell it on.

To be fair, I haven't actually listened to this whole CD, but I felt compelled to defend Placebo's cover of "Bigmouth Strikes Again" after reading the other reviewers opinion of it. I completely disagree. I think it's an absolutely great cover of a great Smiths song (their best in my opinion). I mean, you can't expect another band to do a song in EXACTLY the same way as the original, that's the whole point of a cover: to hear another band's take on a song. I think it's great, they've kept the song pretty close to the original, while infusing it with their own personal sound. And I also think that Brian Molko sounds good singing it. My point: I don't know about the rest of the CD, but Placebo's cover is definitely worth a listen.

I thought the artists who slowed down the tempo were dragging out the songs as if to say, "Look at me, I'm doing a Smiths song." Showboating.

Odd that this would be the second review in two weeks after a few years of nothing.
Tracks 3-7 get my five stars. The others, dare I vituperate, are crap. ("There is a light"!: what a turd; how do you stultify a morbid but _jolly_ Smiths song?)
I bought this for the Trashcan Sinatras's cover; love them; thought they got a bad draw with "Over": how do you out-melancholy the Smiths? Best not to try.
Didn't know Billy Bragg but liked his sound on "Never".
Thought "Cemetry Gates" was nicely skewed but still as bouncy as the original, edifying perhaps to the small part of me that wants covers to be "true" to the originals. (What makes a good cover, after all?)
"Big Mouth" was good for its now-hackneyed updates of "megadrive" and "discman"--and the intro gives one the impression of subtlety, before its recourse to mozz/marrian riff.
Always hated Bis's "Thorn"--until a night about two weeks ago: driving up the coast, no traffic, windows down, and the "disco" (as some have impugned it) drum machine and synths just really caught me; also the understatement of the lyrics. I had it repeating for more than an hour. A gem. Makes the album. Just burning it for a friend tonight made me add my bit, here.