The Miracle of the Smiths

don't Smiths royalties all still go to Joyce anyway?

Do they? I was just making an assumption.

unlikely

all Morrissey's royalties on Smiths sales were supposedly going to Joyce until the judgement on his second lawsuit was paid off (basically bcz Moz refused to go to court, so Joyce got a default judgment placing a lien on Moz's cut)

this was in 2001 from a 1996 lawsuit, so maybe they've sold enough millions of records since then to polish off the debt. seems

unlikely

though

what's this about Hatful not being blue anymore??

https://www.discogs.com/The-Smiths-Hatful-Of-Hollow/release/6342695

i think people are mistaking a t-shirt in a photo for the actual album

also, the CD has always cropped sleeve dow

n

yeah that CD cover has been around for 30+ years, the reissue CD in the 'Complete' box went back to the original vinyl sleeve; replica stickers and all.

I bought my vinyl copy of Hatful in 1988 or 1989, by which time Rough Trade had already changed the blue gatefold to a no-border single sleeve like this:

https://i.imgur.com/7sR98ZN.jpg

TBH I was joking upthread and actually prefer it that way. The blue is kind of garish.

ah, the Australian CD had the full blue-bordered sleeve, I never knew that wasn't standard

iirc the Salford Lads pic on the original was the one shot from the photoshoot that Johnny told Moz not to use. Can easily believe he vetoed it and insisted on the student protest one.

My copy of Hatful has the same cover as Alba's, I think I prefer it to the original too but on the other hand it is missing the great inner photo from the gatefold:

https://davidduffin.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/smiths-hatful-of-hollow-gatefold-2.jpg

There's just something quite 80s corporate training manual about the blue.

The outside/inside of the live CD/vinyl in this new reissue is quite tasty

https://img.discogs.com/9DB8oFgLR2IJ-EMk9kJKpsUGHVw=/fit-in/600x588/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-11023833-1508591212-5632.jpeg.jpg

https://img.discogs.com/DK1xhjmdtJG07Dr72kIG9S1YoJ4=/fit-in/600x596/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-11023833-1508591939-9403.jpeg.jpg

burroughs and kerouac, not bad

Any new Smiths cover stars at this point just feel like pastiche to me.

But I don't know if anyone has remarked yet on how wonderful it is to hear the Boston concert. I've been listening to I Want the One I Can't Have on repeat.

i can really relate to the OT. when i first started getting into the Smiths (post-HS living w hardcore punk rockers) i really went through a Smiths phase where i listened to them over and over. there was something special, something like a warm blanket, an emotional realm they manage to always hit perfectly. the music really is the archetypal emo music, music for rainy days, music for self indulgent misery and acting like a fool. they have that echoey drum sound, they are just another guitar band, but they are perfect at capturing a mood.

i was listening to "Strangeways" the other day and paying close attention to the arrangements. "A Rush and a Push" has this minor key Stones-Kinks thing going, with some harpsichord and is that marimba? giving off "Under My Thumb" feels a bit but also sort of being a harpsichord ska track. Morrisey is the key to it all, he glides over these songs, wailing and moaning the songs into phantasmagorical form like a wailing ghost. plenty of acts in the 80s had the emotional crooner thing going on but Morrisey really stands out in his performance. the whole band is great and the music is lovely and on top of that you have this singular voice.

"Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Love Me" is beyond classic, it is legendary. post-apocalyptic 50s broken heart waltz of doom. one of the saddest songs ever, it is self-aware without losing any of the poignancy of the emotional dream of the work: "this story is old, i know, but it goes on". devastating.

i used to have a t-shirt that had the black and white hatfull art on it and the shirt itself was the exact shade of blue as the cover

wish i still had it

ha! me too!
i also no longer have that shirt
i always felt super cool in it when i was a teen

did you buy yours at The Alley??

no i ordered it from the back of a magazine lol!

now that i look up some images of hatful of hollow tshirts. i don't see the one i had anywhere pictured in the top results and it occurred to me that i did not have a proper hatful of hollow tshirt -- i had a tshirt with the image from the s/t album and the shirt itself was hatful-of-hollow blue

i did order it from the back of a magazine and i no longer have it -- that much was accurate
memory getting saggy!

"
iirc the Salford Lads pic on the original was the one shot from the photoshoot that Johnny told Moz not to use."

what a fucking dumb thing to do

https://nowtoronto.com/music/features/why-im-breaking-up-with-morrissey/

This is a great piece imo

Written by one of my best friends, full disclosure

fixed link

in the midst of life we are in death et cetera
et cetera et cetera et cetera et cetera
in the midst of life we are in death et cetera

debt iirc

ex cetera iirc

The etcs are a great fadeout lyric and indeed were in 1966 when Jackie Lee used it.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RQBCuxKDnmA

Would happily buy tickets for a Smiths reunion with Peter Cetera

Would happily buy tickets for a Smiths reunion with Peter Cetera

omg it is death

anyone recommend a good morrissey bio?

Mein Kampf

lol

Not exactly a bio but Simon Goddard's Songs That Saved Your Life is a great read xp

i keep forgetting morrissey wrote a memoir and somehow convinced penguin to publish it as a "penguin classic"

https://i.imgur.com/ufnBs8a.jpg
wish i knew how to photoshop morrissey's bio onto this

Morrissey's autobio is hilarious tbrr

if you want a bio of the Smiths the one to read is Fletcher's "There is a Light That Never Goes Out" imo

morrissey's autobio is quite funny. there is much more on the court case about the smiths' royalties than there is about the 5 years of the band the smiths existing. lots of stuff about how the smiths singles didn't sell as well because of the incompetence of rough trade - they didn't send enough copies to the shops to meet the demand! - but also about how solo singles of his charted higher than any smiths single, which proves solo moz is better than the smiths!

yeah it is rife with bitchy score-settling, which, I mean, what else would you expect

i also have never forgotten this line from early in the book, when talking about the dilapidated manchester of his youth, which is something like "streets to define you, streets to confine you". very teenage poetry

Anyone get past the first page of his novel?

omg it is death

Iirc, it is "death" one time and "debt" the other.

thanks all

https://www.instagram.com/tv/B-MaNn8BB3N/?utm_source=ig_embed