The Smiths [Original recording]

The Smiths | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording
• Label: Warner Bros / Wea
• ASIN: B000002L5P
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Music
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (62 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,093 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #56 in Music > Alternative Rock > Indie & Lo-Fi > General

Track Listings

1. Reel Around The Fountain

2. You've Got Everything Now

3. Miserable Lie

4. Pretty Girls Make Graves

5. The Hand That Rocks The Cradle

6. This Charming Man

7. Still Ill

8. Hand In Glove

9. What Difference Does It Make?

10. I Don't Owe You Anything

11. Suffer Little Children

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

With their debut album, the Smiths launched an all-too-brief, but profound career that, largely owing to their outspoken lead singer, would be enshrouded in controversy and cultlike devotion. Lyrically, Steven Patrick Morrissey waxed haute poetic about homosexuality ("Hand in Glove") and child murders ("Suffer Little Children"). Musically, this album kicked a hole through the lip-glossed synth-pop that dominated the early-'80s music scene. Still cloaked in the lingering influences of New Romantic new wave and Clash-like punk, this album, like most great rock debuts, represents the group at its most raw and stark. But the core elements of the Smiths' sound, rooted in Morrissey's subtly off-key, morose crooning and nearly freeform lyrical arrangements floating over guitarist Johnny Marr's plucky, concise guitar riffs, are well-established here. The rhythm section displayed a similar relationship: Andy Rourke's mobile bass lines seemed almost to disregard any supportive undertones they could have lent to Mike Joyce's straight-ahead, no nonsense drum patterns. All the tugging and pulling worked brilliantly, cementing the sound that made the Smiths a landmark band of the 1980s. --Beth Bessmer

Product Description

No Description Available.
Genre: Popular Music
Media Format: Compact Disk
Rating:
Release Date: 20-JAN-1989

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Manchester, so much to answer for .... February 7, 2002

By Melissa Hardie

Format:Audio CD

The Smiths were the best musical moment of the 1980s -- I know, I lived through them. This album is probably my favourite, and must be in the canon of amazing debuts: nothing like it before, and nothing since. For one thing, there was the cover art. At at time when most bands favoured monochromatic "new wave" dots and blobs, the covers were sober, nostalgic, personal and iconic. Crushingly vivid colours and their signature style made it exciting just to *see* their albums. In this case, the murky photo of Joe Dellesandro gives a hint of the Morrissey world view and aestheticism, but it's ambiguous and out of context, meaning that the Smiths became very hard to "brand."

But of course the appeal of this record came from its musical beauty. Morrissey's plangent, steady voice was astonishing, but moreso were his lyrics. "I dreamt about you last night, and I fell out of bed twice/ you can pin and mount me, like a butterfly." Reel Around the Fountain still gives me goosebumps -- it's an anthem which evokes not just the usual teen angst, but what is unusual, and sad, and real about it as well.

I love every track, but most of all its wonderful beginning, the glorious insouciance of "Hand In Glove," and the mordant "Suffer Little Children" which evokes the grisly Moors Murders as a foundation myth for Mancusian angst, but also for all of us who were trying to sort out the sixties of our childhoods in the early eighties. Morrissey & Marr, along with Squeeze, were the poets of the eighties, and this cd will give you a rich sense of its virtues, rather than the gelled and synthesised excess most people know.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars a tentative first step April 1, 2002

By Erline Andrews

Format:Audio CD

Having heard first the best of/singles compilations, The Queen is Dead, Strangeways Here We Come and a number of Morrissey's solo albums, and having read of Morrissey's extravagant boasts prior to the release of this record, The Smiths was a surprise.
It's so quiet, so introspective, so humble almost.
It crept into my heart slowly, after repeated listens.
The structure of the songs is very simple. Their strength lies primarily in Morrissey's beautiful voice and lyrics. Overall, the latter seem more personal here than on any other Smiths/Morrissey album.
The Smiths is also the most haunting album, made so particularly by Suffer Little Children and The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, two beautiful but almost unbearably disturbing songs.
The 11 songs on The Smiths, with the exception of the last, explore dark, sometimes unsettling aspects of love and relationships.
I'm still learning and I won't call myself an expert by any means, but I can name no one who tackles personal dysfunction - desperation, insecurity, delusion, dependency - with as much honesty and with as sharp a ring of truth as does Morrissey.
Other bands use garish make-up, distorted guitars and vocals and other gimmicks to shock or disturb.
But The Smiths deliver a bigger emotional jolt using impeccable melody and a warm voice singing lyrics like these:
"... a child cries: 'find me, find me, nothing more/We're on a sullen misty moor/We may dead and we may be gone/But we will be right by your side/Until the day you die/This is no easy ride/We will haunt you when you laugh/Yes, you could say we're a team/You might sleep/But you will never dream'" (Suffer Little Children) and
"There'll be blood on the cleaver tonight/When darkness lifts and the room is bright/I'll still be by your side/For you are all that matters/And I'll love you till the day I die/There never need be longing in your eyes/As long as the hand that rock the cradle is mine."
Listen and squirm.

23 of 28 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars THE album that changed my life! October 14, 2007

By RickChicago

Format:Audio CD

1984. The year I was supposed to graduate from high school but I did not. I had to make up a phys-ed class worth 1/16th of a credit. All because I got an "F" because I told the drunk and vile phys-ed teacher to F***off. I was in-the-closet in high-school, suicidal, lonely, and this phys-ed teacher made it clear that he hated fags. Back then teachers - any teacher - could get away with anti-gay remarks.

This album, with its unabashedly homo-erotic cover art and covertly gay references - was what saved me not only that year but became the essential soundtrack for the rest of my life. It has become the album I come back to always -- more than any other Smiths or Morrissey work. I use to think the other later works from the Smiths and Morrissey were my "favorite" but over time it is this album that I find is the most sharply-focused and has the most "soul".

The Village People, David Bowie, Boy George, and others toyed with and were coy about sexuality, androgyny, and homosexuality - but to me The Smiths and this album in particular was the first real honest, and unabashedly direct about being homosexual. Gay life whether it was laid out in romantic longings and sentiments, or pure outright lust, were given equal (i.e., to "straight" love) and forthright treatment for the first time in my musical experience. The directness of the music, the way the instruments were played, and the production were a perfect match.
If you can distill Morrissey's and the Smiths sound, this work would be 95% proof. Others may say the production is so-so but I disagree. The sound is crisp, the drums and cymbals are tight, the entire album appears to have been played with such an alacrity - no other Smiths or Morrisey work seems to have such a directness about it.

Put on a really good set of headphones and listen to this album, there is no muddiness at all on this work. You hear the guitars, bass, drums, and voice - all distinct yet oh-so-drop-dead-gorgeously intertwined. The music is played so head-on that you get a sense that there is no sense or room for pretense. There is something almost classically baroque about the over-all structure of the songs and melodies that I find gives this album a "classical" and enduring feel to it. The later Smiths/Morrissey works tend to have a more theatrical or orchestral feel to them that while beautiful and grand seems to somehow rely too much on electronic drapery ("How Soon Is Now" being a lead example) you go back and listen those songs and then go back this album, their most seminal work in my humble opinion.

Now I LOVE all of The Smiths/Morrisey's work but their debut album to me is lyrically, musically, rhythmically, vocally, politically, socially, romantically, sexually, and spiritually, their most honest, direct, and purest to who they are/were. I'm not a rock critic but to me this album never ceases to amaze me that every time I listen to it, I always think what a little miracle this album really is - dare I say it is one of the most brilliant and miraculous musical points in rock history.