The Miracle of the Smiths

umm, i missed it, but that is one of the most amazing album covers i've ever seen. please let that be real.

To re-revive:

http://smithsrecycle.blogspot.com/2010/10/updatey-ness.html

Don't like the sound of Wnr Br0$ shutting their blog down. Surely they'd have bigger fish to fry.. ah well let's hope so.

Meanwhile there's a brilliant How To Buy The Smiths article right at the back of MOJO December issue which just came out in the uk. It goes for Hatful.. as the best album, as voted for by writers and members of MOJO forum. I concur!

Heads up, folks. It's started:

http://smithsrecycle.blogspot.com/2010/10/etaatb-01-rt131-hand-in-glove.html

didn't really 'get' the smiths until recently - this will be a good way back in. cheers!

i can see just from the first blog post that i'll be learning a few things here. and there was me fancying myself as some kind of Smiths expert!
what was Brixton Ace i wonder? never heard of it before.

this is going to be fun, those cover scans are incredible.

update!

http://smithsrecycle.blogspot.com/2010/10/etaatb-02-rtt136a-reel-around-fountain.html

well i didn't think it possible to make the smiths interesting in 2010, but here we are

hand in glove was amazing, thanks for posting the updates about this...would have had no idea.

shocked by how excited I am for this

had no idea about a planned RATF single. Jeane was always a brilliant song. one of the few lesser known B sides thanks to it's exclusion from the 80's era compilations.

I like how dismissive the post is about morrissey

yeah I find it weird that someone could be a smiths fanboy w/o being a morrissey fanboy, at least on some level

Not really -- I've encountered enough people over time who are very explicitly all about Marr and the music above all else, and who really don't bother with Morrissey solo much. They're a smaller and much less visible group of Smiths fans than the expected norm, but they're there.

well I can understanding not liking his solo career - I personally don't like much beyond the singles - but his persona and lyrics are such a major part of 'the miracle of the smiths'...

but yeah, people are weird

morrissey as a person does my head in to be honest. that night he flounced offstage last year in Liverpool after 1 song was the last straw for me. The Smiths are still my fave band of the 80s by some distance but his solo career could make a good 6 track mini album at best imho.

Morrissey has evolved an not always in ways I have found satisfying as I, too, have evolved. He has a couple of singles I like but The Smiths was the great musical love of my adolescence and that doesn't mean I have to keep following now. Ned, I love Marr but the last time he was in town fronting his forgettable band, I actually yawned and ended up leaving.

Haha believe me, I couldn't even muster that level of interest for Marr solo.

one time an old band i was in did a bunch of smiths covers for a cover band contest.

was really interesting learning their material....gave us such an appreciation for them as musicians...marr's parts are incredibly odd and difficult to learn, such a personal style of playing guitar (and frankly or guitarist had to just get it "close" esp on the more picky stuff)...

another thing that really sticks out when you sit down and learn the parts is how amazing rourke and joyce are as a rhythm section....rourke's bass lines are so melodic and invenetive, even if he's not really "showy" in a classic musicianly way....

another weird thing, is that sometimes the parts weren't the "right" number of measures...like in general in rock it will be okay well four bars of this, then sixteen bars of that, then eight bars of the chorus, etc etc...def EVEN numbers

sometimes with the smiths it would be well four bars, then eight, then FIVE, then twelve or something...it was usually apparent that they were conforming the songwriting to whatever lyrics morrissey had and not vice versa...

My favourite memory was Andy Rourke's remark on Marr singing a melody line along with Morrissey during a session, saying they sounded like Peters and Lee.

(check the harmonies on Electronic's "Get the message")

ah, this stuff sounds great thus far ... deep smiths immersion begins NOW.

Why I am still so geeked to hear this? I should have grown out of this by now.

drums sound way bigger on this reel around the fountain.

what was Brixton Ace i wonder? never heard of it before.

I think it's the Fridge now.

yeah, all those troy tate mixes are pretty sweet.

Cannot wait to get home tonight to dl these! Figures that the week I quit obsessively checking the blog every day it would finally launch.

never heard the Tate bootleg sound so good as on Accept Yourself here.

yeah i actually compared my copy of the tate sessions to the tracks they've posted and it's a huge improvement.

Figures that the week I quit obsessively checking the blog every day it would finally launch.

In 2010 people aren't using RSS feeds?

Google Reader please.

this is from an eno interview i read yesterday...don't know if it had been suggested prior or whether 'pop in 85' really did mean 'them, the smiths', automatically

...What do you think of modern pop music?

I rather like them, The Smiths. I think they're a good band. I think Morrissey is an extraordinarily arrogant person, especially considering that he's probably the most successful tone-deaf singer the world has ever knows. But that being said, I like his singing quite a lot, and I like their records. I could live without some of his studied miserableness, I suppose.

But I don't listen to records much.

yeah i actually compared my copy of the tate sessions to the tracks they've posted and it's a huge improvement.

These all sound so much better than the Tate sessions I already had...they're almost unbelievably good.

The most thorough examination of all the various different Tate sessions/ demos i've come across is here. I'm glad somebody went to the trouble of working all this out.
http://tinyurl.com/322arwp

This isn't being updated fast enough!
;)

I agree. I thought the concern was with it being taken down quickly. Bizarre to post two in a row then nothing for going on 2 days.

really enjoying the first two singles. finally had a chance to listen to them both in full. hope they end up releasing all of the Troy Tate sessions with this fantastic mastering. Sounds great.

Oh my, two days, lawdy.

The gap between my general indifference towards the Smiths and my love for "Panic" is huge. I actually find "Panic" weirdly moving. Not for any specific sentiment expressed. It's more like being moved by somebody making a perfect, once-in-a-lifetime statement in a two-minute song.

panic is music that says something about me and my life. i don't know what though.

In 2010 people aren't using RSS feeds?

Google Reader please.

Haha, I do use this, but for some reason I've had trouble with blogs I've added in the last 6 months not updating. Think I've fixed it now though.

.. throw me a frickin bone here

was hoping for an update this weekend. not all the interesting in This Charming Man but they may have something interesting. Really interested in Barbarism.

It'll be Charming, plus all the remixes...

(there's been a few unreleased ones)

well in the meantime..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9588NWjagT8&feature=related

morrissey is the str8est looking dude in that freezeframe

A miracle!

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

british parliament looks like an amazing thing

OTM