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

I like 'Reel Around The Fountain', but it's my least favourite opening track of theirs. You'd think that they'd open their debut with something with a little more power to it, like they would later do with 'The Headmaster Ritual' and particularly 'The Queen Is Dead' ...

one thing I love about HOH is the position of "Reel Around The Fountain"

I think that there's something discombobulating about making 'Reel Around The Fountain' the opening track of the album, but in a good way. the debut was the second Smiths record I listened to after Louder Than Bombs and I remember being surprised by how eerie and strange the whole album was compared with the later stuff. it makes less of an impact for me on HOH, sandwiched between two other ballads

xp They can do power from time to time but it's not what they are about. RATF is a way more appropriate opening track for them.

Oh yeah, I agree that the debut is quite an eerie record in places: 'Suffer Little Children', 'The Hand That Rocks The Cradle'... 'Pretty Girls Make Graves', even. I'd say a song like 'Suffer Little Children' in particular is 100% successful in providing an eerie vibe, in a way that 'Meat Is Murder' isn't.

I think that there's something discombobulating about making 'Reel Around The Fountain' the opening track of the album, but in a good way. the debut was the second Smiths record I listened to after Louder Than Bombs and I remember being surprised by how eerie and strange the whole album was compared with the later stuff. it makes less of an impact for me on HOH, sandwiched between two other ballads

I disagree strongly; HOH was the first place I heard "Reel Around The Fountain" and it was an instant standout for me, to the point where I immediately played it again once it finished. (Also, I already knew "Back to the Old House" and "Please, Please...", the latter being the first Smiths song I ever heard thanks to the Pretty In Pink soundtrack, so I knew what to expect from them.)

I voted for The World Won't Listen over Louder Than Bombs - LTB was a handy way to collect (nearly) all the non-album stuff but I think the sequencing lets it down a bit, it's never really felt like an album listen to me.

I think that there's something discombobulating about making 'Reel Around The Fountain' the opening track of the album, but in a good way

yeah, the album goes into weird and unsettling places for a debut that's also packed with singles, and this sort of sets it off in an appropriately uneasy but assured way, portending something awful but being excessively pretty about it. for years "reel" was my favorite smiths song, which i think owes a lot to how it announces that record, and also announces the smiths as a band. (at least for me. the s/t was the first record of theirs i heard)

I know that some Smiths fans count those compilations (partcularly Hatful of Hollow) as "proper" albums alongside the main 4, but I don't think I ever have. They're useful to own, though.

In the same way as, say, The Beatles' Past Masters or Yellow Submarine are useful to own, I mean.

Ah, y'see, The Queen Is Dead was the first "proper" Smiths LP I heard, and then I went backwards from there to the beginning and got Strangeways last... so after hearing the thundering opening to The Queen Is Dead, 'Reel Around The Fountain' sounded a bit soggy in comparison. I do like the song, though!

my introduction to the smiths story is incredibly bad. i read perks of being a wallflower in high school, which prominently refers to the smiths and "asleep" in particular, over and over, and i was like "i gotta check this band out!! also my zits are exploding everywhere, whoooaa, shoot i forgot to do my homework, aw man and i hate my parents but i guess i love them too!"

Also, a bit baffling to put 'Reel Around The Fountain' as an opening track

The Smiths thought this was the stand-out song in their early set - the nearest they had to an all-time classic. It was going to be their second single before the whole paedophilia controversy. It's always been used as the most obvious example of the duff production/performances on the debut album - they had Paul Carrack add some keyboard to try to liven it up. The version on Hatful of Hollow is way better (as is the Troy Tate one), but received wisdom is they never recorded a great version of it.

Yeah, I'd definitely agree that it's one of those songs they never truly nailed in the studio. It's a wonderful song, but they never really got the best out of it that they could. It's understandable that it's often cited as an example of the production flaws of the debut... the drums in particular sound terrible - I'm not so much talking about Joyce's performance, although it is quite basic and not as assured as his drumming on later releases, more the actual sound as captured by the producer/engineer. Those snares sound really feeble, and the reverb sounds as if it's there to try and cover the bad snare sound up.

Turrcan's hate for Level 42 is hilarious at this point.

not sure if any of the 'Reel..' nay sayers are familiar with the Troy Tate version. easily the best version of a song i was never a huge fan of.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOZ7iXsaoeM

Aw, man. Does LTB at #3 mean MIM is going to miss out? Assumed HOH would place

Blows my mind that this band did all it did in 5 years, and that Johnny Marr was still only 23 when they broke up. (FWIW, Tommy Stinson is a few years younger than Marr!).

Johnny Marr was still only 23 when they broke up

Yeah this is incredible to me.

Yeah, it's an incredible output over so few years and at such a young age. I think Paul Weller split up The Jam when he was in his early 20's, too. If only they could have found a manager that Morrissey could put up with or found it hard to be a prick to, and there may have been more Smiths music.

Even stranger, or not, was Marr's incredible lack of ego, going on to such a journeyman career, where even when he did officially join bands (Electronic, The The, Modest Mouse, the Cribs) he seemed as much a support player as when he played session guy.

http://i.imgur.com/03Y6FcD.jpg

2. MEAT IS MURDER (studio album, 1985)
1485 points | 45 votes | 8 first place votes

The best - my number one. Every track great (including the title track). A total showcase for Marr's most inventive playing.

whoa, kind of surprised by that, even though i like MiM (it was #5 on my ballot). just kind of shocked that Hatful didn't make it!

But wait, what was number 3?

Never mind, I missed it.

I am also shocked Hatful got bounced (because I cannot imagine that TQID isn't #1)

Whoa! Was just quietly mourning it's likely non-appearance, behind Strangeways, which felt like an outrage. Phew!

xxxxxxxp:

Yeah, absolutely... for all the praise that Marr has had, either as a guitarist or for his songwriting, he comes across as being quite modest. Even during videos where you see him demonstrating his guitar parts and talking you through it, there seems to be no ego there in a "yeah, I wrote this, aren't I amazing?" sense. Morrissey, on the other hand, I get the feeling he believes every single amount of positive press he's ever had.

Meat is Murder is perfect from start to finish. The title track is so haunting...really disturbing song.

Yeah, I think we can all guess what's #1 at this point.

I really prefer the cassette version of the album cover with the single image

http://eil.com/images/main/The+Smiths+Meat+Is+Murder+345583.jpg

I never play Meat Is Murder as a complete album but I like most, if not all, of it as individual songs

It's probably Rourke's best album in terms of his bass playing: 'Barbarism Begins At Home' has, of course, already been mentioned, but also 'Rusholme Ruffians' wouldn't be anywhere near the song it is without that nimble baseline that runs throughout the whole track... and to think they fired the guy at one point!

As you listened to the catalog for this project, did any new favorite songs emerge? Did any particular album surprise you in any way?

Since I've worked in the United States, in the last six or seven years, I've picked up on the fact that Meat is Murder was the record that was the introduction to the Smiths for a lot of people. Living in Portland meant that I would meet people who heard that record first. I know now that that record is more important to a lot of people than I realized. So I guess I kind of listened to it differently because a lot of my friends know that record best. I always have really liked "The Headmaster Ritual" off that record, and "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore."

I'll be very disappointed if 'That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore' isn't up there in at least the Top 15. That one has never lost its potency for me.

I still think Rourke was pretty great from the very first single onwards, but yeah, plenty of memorable bass on MIM. I actually get a bit impatient with the final 1/3 or so of MIM, and tend to underrate it when I'm not listening to it. But I think voted for at least 5 of 9 tracks.

Nate seriously dragging out this painfully obvious #1 result here :P

The Smiths s/t was my #1 pick. This might sound daft, but, for me, the very muddiness of the sound actually felt like an integral part of the band's whole aesthetic. I always remember my first experience of it - sat on a draughty train station platform, waiting for a delayed train home, and this gloomily pretty music bathed in murk coming out of my cassette Walkman speakers. It fit. Like watching an unremastered early '60s kitchen-sink drama on the telly; all grubby greys and thin sound. The CD-era sleekness of Strangeways, and the stadium-filling drums of TQiD, never appealed to me as much. It wasn't quite the Smiths I fell in love with.

http://i.imgur.com/iVtbK8t.jpg

1. THE QUEEN IS DEAD (studio album, 1986)
1821 points | 51 votes | 16 first place votes

Meat is Murder is my favorite in terms of production, too. Gleaming, saphirric sound...

queen has never been my favorite smiths record bc of its wacky sequencing and at least three songs i have no use for

53 album ballots and 51 votes for TQiD - so who was the other person who didn't put it in their top 5?

Non shocker #1 but still great album. MIM was mine with TQID second.

It always surprises me that MIM appears to be their worst album in terms of critical reception. Guess the title track (which I really like) irritates a lot of people.

QiD was pushed out of my ballot to make room for RANK - which I have a nostalgic soft-spot for that won't budge.

Struggling to comprehend how someone can pick a top 5 from a band that only has four studio albums, one of which is TQID, and not include that in their ballot.

there's always the strategic vote

Totally dig DavidM's description the debut. While I had Hatful at #1, there's not much in it. 1983-84 Smiths will likely always be the very best Smiths in my mind. (Even though I barely heard them until about the time they broke up!)

i have to say, though, coming at the smiths catalog years after it all happened, i don't really see TQID as a slam dunk #1 (although it was #1 on my ballot). i can see reasonable arguments for all four. and if someone happened to like the other three a little better, and also wanted to throw in a vote for a live album or hatful or one of the other collections, i could see that too