The Smiths: Classic or Dud?

As close as you're gonna get: https://www.discogs.com/Kirsty-MacColl-The-Real-MacColl/release/2324631

This is a great EP.

Johnny Marr played on half a dozen tracks on Kirsty MacColl's album Kite. Brilliant stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfvVslecjwI

And he's playing on her version of You Just Haven't Earned It Yet Baby.

Forget how good Kite is. Need to get a copy as I think I only ever listened to my Dad's

non-album singles added to CD re-releases as bonus tracks don't count

― we used to get our kicks reading surfing MAGAzines (sic), Wednesday, May 23, 2018 12:59 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sure, dude

Marr is on Walking Down Madison and Children Of The Revolution on Electric Landlady too (with The The's David Palmer on drums).

Morrissey is an utter thundercunt, but it's difficult for me to imagine The Smiths without him. It would depend on the vocalist and what they could come up with over the backing tracks.

Doesn't Marr still call "Dusk" the best album he's ever played on? Definitely the best sounding!

a good bit of Kite is the core of The The's band. James Eller, David Palmer, and Johnny Marr.

Didn't The The have ABC's rhythm section for a while? That's Palmer, right, and ... ?

Also:

"Get the Message" is consistently cited as a defining track by Electronic. Allmusic picks it as a highlight of the Electronic album in a 4/5 review,[14] while bbc.co.uk states that "the excellent 'Get the Message' still holds its own alongside the best of early '90s Mancunian tunes".[15] In 2007 Johnny Marr said it was "...maybe the track I'm most proud of out of my whole career",[16] and in June 2009 reiterated that it is "the best song I've written".[17]

This is my favorite version of "Walking Down Madison," the one I heard on college radio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Irgsx58SkJI

The demo is better https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9JHeKyCoTw

a good bit of Kite is the core of The The's band. James Eller, David Palmer, and Johnny Marr.

Eller and Palmer are on four tracks together, Marr is on eight* overall (writing on two), they're all together on three: Free World, Mother's Ruin and Don't Come The Cowboy.

*nine for Alfred: three of the four Free World b-sides are bonus tracks on the 1989 CD

(the fourth, a Kirsty original, isn't even on the 2005 CD, which had NINE bonus tracks including remixes and demos, but is on the 2012 one, which has 17 on a second disc)

Marr is paired with Guy Pratt a bit on Kite and on Madison: good team, especially for that kind of deceptively tasteful pop.

And he's playing on her version of You Just Haven't Earned It Yet Baby.

Never realized that, but I've never owned a physical copy of the song. That really *is* about as close as it could come.

Morrissey really does lift a lot of MacColl's vocal quirks and melodic ideas, and I think she took a bit from him later on. Not really a symbiotic existence, but game recognizing game.

She didn't really cross paths with them until toward the end though, right? 1986/Bigmouth?

Yeah, she's on "Golden Lights."

And "Ask".

and those are all 1986.

Get The Message is a decent tune, but the actual song over it is pretty woeful. Awful words.. that chorus! And i mean get *what* message can i ask?

https://www.throwbacks.com/content/images/2017/06/Barney-the-Dinosaur.jpg

I have been particularly interested in Eletronic but went back to it following this thread and... I still don't really like it.
I don't hear much of Marr's greatness and input in the songs, including "Get the Message".
In a way, I find the album less interesting than it should be considering all the quality musicians/songwriters involved.
And nothing in it is better than New Order, Joy Division, the Smiths and PSB...
I guess it's just not for me !

Kirsty and Moz were great mates at the end. Heartbreaking bit in his book where he receives a postcard from her a week after she was killed, from the same holiday as.

Good old school ILM thread. Anyway, dud. Sounds like some tone deaf bar patron karaokeing over an overcompressed demo.

best English band of the 1980s no question

At this point Morrissey can go jump in a fire

xp: dude - Maiden?

Johnny Marr has gotten much better looking with time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0783yB5_V4

He was pretty in The Smiths and beautiful in The The, that’s just a bad look for him

(his wellend / LG sideburnsy looks in the early ‘00s were p hideous too

he has weird hairdos

He's a British indie guy of a certain age, of course he has weird hairdos.

Does he, particularly?

I mean ... I'd be impressed with myself if I had *hair* at "a certain age".

Marr was the ideal straight boy whom his best friend crushes on.

Has anyone read his memoir?

xp one might even say the platonic ideal.

and may even return the devotion with a hand holding or kiss or three

I listened to his memoir on audiobook, as read by ... Johnny Marr! It was totally worth it. His refusal to throw Morrissey under the bus is kind of deep. And I will never understand why people take Oasis seriously. But I highly recommend it for every other reason (and maybe even for those).

Cool! Have you also liistened to Lol Tolhust's memoir, as read by ... Lol Tolhurst?

How about Bob Dylan's memoir, as read by ... Sean Penn?

Pete Townshend reading his.

Bits where you hear he's not taking things quite as seriously as the printed word seems.

Morrissey's memoir is read by the actor David Morrissey, which I hope is a nod to Spinal Tap.

Maybe Johnny could read Andrew Marr's memoirs when they're published.

This came up this last weekend on the baseball thread and wanted to share:

joe panik

― mookieproof, Friday, May 20, 2022 7:19 AM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Hang the DJ.

― clemenza, Friday, May 20, 2022 9:53 AM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

That double pay in Game 7 of the 2014 World Series will live for infinity for us Giant fans. Good luck in life Joe.

― Bee OK, Friday, May 20, 2022 3:32 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Panik on the street's of London...

I was a pretty big Smiths fan and even saw them three times but always hated that song. Yes, they were bonkers live, an experience of a lifetime.

― Bee OK, Friday, May 20, 2022 4:24 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

this remains one of the better fielding plays i've ever seen

― mookieproof, Friday, May 20, 2022 4:27 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

That was an outstanding play, I have never seen that before. He's was a great second baseman but his bat only lasted like rwo seasons. The Giants had to move on.

― Bee OK, Friday, May 20, 2022 4:48 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

The only Smiths song I love!

― clemenza, Friday, May 20, 2022 5:54 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

(I believe he played in Toronto for six or seven minutes.)

― clemenza, Friday, May 20, 2022 5:54 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Ya they got a decent return for him too iirc - Dickerson and Cimber

― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Friday, May 20, 2022 5:59 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

i've been watching a dickerson this year. he got yepez'd

― Bruce Stingbean (Karl Malone), Friday, May 20, 2022 6:01 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

The only Smiths song I love!
Tastes, huh. To me it was the first song where it was the Smiths by the numbers. No originality to it and he is being a huge dick (with those lyrics). This was the same band that did brilliant songs like "Still Ill" and "The Queen is Dead?" No wonder they broke up, garbage.

― Bee OK, Friday, May 20, 2022 6:25 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

retire, morrissey

― Bruce Stingbean (Karl Malone), Friday, May 20, 2022 6:28 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

he played about 20 miles away from me last weekend in Pasadena for two nights via Cruel World. Yes, he needs to go away.

― Bee OK, Friday, May 20, 2022 6:32 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Bottom line is that I hate "Panic" in its paint by the numbers way mostly, best thing about that song is that it only lasts two minutes.

They were lightning in a bottle. My own personal experience, they were the band that spoke most directly to me at that particular time in my life (I was 18 when the first album came out). The Morrissey/Marr tension was what really made it work, and of course was also what made it all implode. None of them, including Moz, has done anything as great since the breakup, and now Moz and his big fucking mouth have come perilously close to trashing the legacy of one of the great bands of the age.

One thing, as noted several times upthread the rhythm section did not get nearly enough love. I still remember being joyfully astonished when I saw Sinead on her first U.S. tour and they were in her band.

Recently listened to some Smiths and the bass lines have an amazing musicality that you just don't hear that often.

Was a massive fan but it's not just Morrissey having a "big fucking mouth" - many of his current opinions are abhorrent.

Oh, no doubt, but with Morrissey you're never quite sure whether he really means what he says. I remember him saying all kinds of provocative shit back in the day, although, in the current context, I suppose that's irrelevant.