IF IT'S NOT LOVE THEN IT'S THE POLL THAT WILL BRING US TOGETHER - ILM Artist Poll #72 - THE SMITHS - RESULTS THREAD

I do get the impression he read that as a quote and found it almost literally hysterical.

I finished the Goddard book yesterday. This is an excellent time to read it! It really is well done and researched, highly recommended. "A Light That Never Goes Out: The Enduring Saga of the Smiths" by Tony Fletcher might be a better narrative read (I haven't read it yet), but this is perfect to read along with the poll -- either front to back or read the entry for each song as it comes up in the poll.

That sounds like a cue to start today's rundown.

http://i.imgur.com/RyYL6lw.jpg

30. ASLEEP (B-side of 'The Boy with the Thorn in His Side')
488 points | 23 votes

I'm going to go down to no. 16 today and finish it off tomorrow.

too low!

This was the last song I cut off my list. Happy to see it place.

Kicking myself for leaving "London" off. Should've been in my top 10.

I suspect the cries of "TOO LOW" are going to increase a fuckload from this point on.

http://i.imgur.com/YHYL8P3.jpg

29. GIRLFRIEND IN A COMA (Single A-side | Album track from Strangeways, Here We Come)
496 points | 25 votes

Too high

Aw, it's a pretty tune. This is about the right placement imo.

This is kind of their Left Banke song.

Hahaha! Funnily enough, I agree... there's a fair few tracks that have already placed that I prefer over this. I don't mind it, of course, but I think that there have been superior songs that have placed below it.

I love the feeling of the chorus in Girlfriend in a Coma, and voted for it. It's effortlessly catchy but no way is it better than Asleep.

In terms of tracks from this album, it's probably mid-table for me, below 'Death of a Disco Dancer' and 'Stop Me...' etc.

It ended up being the highest I put anything from Strangeways, which surprised me. Listening to it again I didn't find the atmosphere of Last Night I Dreamt or Death of a Disco Dancer as engaging as I'd thought, though I voted for those as well.

This was the last song I cut off my list. Happy to see it place.

― Kitchen Person, Saturday, 5 March 2016 15:20 (42 minutes ago) Permalink

Asleep was mine too. Great song, but I can't vote for a Smiths song without guitar

http://i.imgur.com/Unihgk2.jpg

28. RUBBER RING (B-side of 'The Boy with the Thorn in His Side' 12")
549 points | 26 votes | 1 first place vote

Great song

Asleep is generic Smiths to me. Well I Wonder is prettier.

One of their best. Book mentions shared tempo with "Green Onions," then a shift in key and a more disjointed, Chic influenced funk and wraithlike strings.

Among the most original and emotionally potent tracks of their career, the title was Morrissey's metaphor for The Smiths' repertoire, as perceived by their most ardent admirers who were emotionally dependent on his every word...

..his ruthless rebuke 'hear my voice in your head and think of me kindly' assumes an unsettlingly spectral timbre; a haunting reprimand from the other side. Morrissey's own voice from the dead is echoed in the sample culled from an obscure EP originally distributed with Dr Konstantin Raudive's 1971 book Breakthrough: An Amazing Experiment In Electronic Communication With The Dead...

On the 12 inch, this was blended together with "Asleep." It's too bad these and some of the other singles weren't included on TQID.

whoever gave "rubber ring" a first place vote: i like your ideas

You are sleeping, you do not want to believe, you are sleeping

this poll makes me feel so basic, i really went with the classics. great to discover new songs!

'Rubber Ring' was in my top five. Absolutely top stuff.

For an essay written for my college freshman comp course, I cited the lyric in "Rubber Ring" about the pop scene to decry '90s radio. I had particular distaste for "Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough."

My #1!

Only Morrissey could self-mythologize like this. "I'm a god to melodramatic teenagers, but lots of melodramatic teenagers grow up/become well-adjusted. HOW DARE THE INGRATES." The voice kind of reminds me of some of Shakespeare's sonnets—the poet saying "you are only redeemed by ME, so credit where it's due."

Otm; it's probably my favorite self-conscious address to the the listener in the Smiths' discography because its self-memorializing is so ridiculously grandiose, even by Morrissey's standards.

Also god that double-stop in the bass in the verse. And the guitar line under the chorus. And the fact that the chorus "hook" is just Morrissey mumbling nonsense syllables. What a song.

the strings!

or is it a single cello? I haven't heard it in ages.

http://i.imgur.com/vcNh8XU.jpg

27. YOU JUST HAVEN'T EARNED IT YET, BABY (Album track from The World Won't Listen)
567 points | 23 votes | 3 first place votes

if you're wondering why...

my #1 -- the peak of '80s jangle.

Btw, the illustration here for "Girlfriend in a Coma" is perfect.

Love "Rubber Ring" - an insecure Morrissey projecting into a future where his fanbase has outgrown his bedsit miserablism; "I'm holding the torch in the corner of your room - Can you hear me?!"

When "You Just Haven't Earned It Yet Baby" got some discussion in the nominations thread, I listened to it and kind of scoffed at the idea that someone would rate it that highly. I just listened to it again, more closely this time, and you know what, it is pretty great. For some reason it never made a strong impression before now.

This one and London still sound great decades later. Or rather, they sound better to me than some of the songs that I loved as a teen/early 20-something largely for lyrical content and affect.

TOO LOW! (My #2)

http://i.imgur.com/z7eSPTV.jpg

26. GIRL AFRAID (B-side of 'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now' 12")
581 points | 25 votes | 3 first place votes

For all the naysayers, the "Girl Afraid" intro pretty much demonstrates Marr's virtuosity. And for anyone that would use a lesser word, congratulations, you, too, must be a virtuoso.

BTW, this poll has sent me back to some bootlegs and man, dysfunctional or no, the band was super tight at the end of its run. You'd think a lot of these songs would be tough to play live, and maybe they were, but they all sound great.

I'm loving how many B-sides/non-LP tracks we're getting in a row here!

As I've said before, Marr has created some wonderful guitar work over the years, but I certainly wouldn't describe him as a virtuoso.

barbarism begins on ILM

does it really matter in terms of everyone here's discovery/experience of the band whether a song was a "B-side"? Hatful, Louder than Bombs, and World Won't Listen were widely available comps that I feel like people considered the equivalent of "albums." And The Smiths got next to no American radio play while they were active, so the single vs. b-side/album track distinction wouldn't be meaningful in terms of that aspect of experiencing the band.

^ this

I imagine it may have been a different story depending on where you grew up, but in America there wasn't any real distinction between what was a Smiths album and a Smiths compilation. B-sides are every bit as familiar to me as album cuts, and probably more so because I listened to Louder Than Bombs more than anything else.

xx-post

Honestly, who cares if he's a virtuoso? I have no idea (nor do I care) if a guitar bit requires skill to play or not.

Does it sound good? Most of the time it does, yes.