the smiths

The Smiths revolutionized pop music with the innovative guitar sound and introspective intellectual angst of this charmingly gruesome landmark.  The band was started in Manchester in 1982 by Steven Patrick Morrissey and John Maher (who later changed his name to Johnny Marr).  The rhythm section of Simon Wolstencroft and Dale Hibbert were replaced by Mike Joyce and Andy Rourke by the time they were signed to independent Rough Trade Records.  Label head Geoff Travis suggested producer Troy Tate (from The Teardrop Explodes) for the initial sessions at Elephant studios in Wapping.  After listening to these first tracks, producer John Porter offered to rerecord the album.  The new sessions were done at London's Matrix Studios, with some final overdubs done at Eden Studios in London.  The album cover was designed by Morrissey featuring actor Joe Dallesandro in a cropped still from Andy Warhol's film 'Flesh'.   The finished album features Morrissey on vocals, Johnny Marr on guitars and harmonica, Andy Rourke on bass guitar, and Mike Joyce on drums,  with Paul Carrack on keyboards, and Annalisa Jablonska on vocals ("Pretty Girls Make Graves", "Suffer Little Children").  

'The Smiths' courted controversy with lyrics that addressed homosexuality, child molestation, and murder.  Morrissey expressed at the time:    "I'm certainly not going to change the way I write because I think it's essential. If I have to be accused of anything, it's because I write strongly and I write very openly from the heart... which is something people aren't really used to. They're used to a very strict, regimented style - and if you are too personal, and I don't mean offensively personal but just too close then it's what a 'strange' person, let's get him on the guillotine...At the end of the day the truth comes through and we shall find the highest success.  Our egos are not so fragile that we are shattered by anything some mini-streamroller at Sounds could write. We're not that fey - good grief. Neither were we really affected that much by The Sun. It's just the rest of the world you have to worry about - you have to take their feelings into consideration - which is a great burden.  It really proves that you don't have as much control over your destiny in this business as you think you do. There are people who like you and there are people who hate you. So why should you give the people that hate you precedence? Really we should stamp on it. It's history already...Much of what I write about is unrequited.  I feel that I do have a unique view of it because obviously it dominates every individual's life - which I've observed for quite a time. I feel I have a particular insight, which sounds terribly pompous and terribly ostentatious. It's funny though that most people that get enchained to the idea of 'absolute love' are usually totally irresponsible and self-deprecating individuals...I'm not a bitter and twisted individual with a whip crashing down on lovers in the park!...It's not really ego. If you have something and you know that you're good why be shy and hide behind the curtains? There's no point...It's more essential to me than breathing - it's more natural to me than breathing. I don't know why I'm here, it's like being hurled on an escalator and you go up and you don't have any say in the matter. That's all really...The whole thing really is a matter of life and death. And that's how serious we are...If the whole threat thing means you have a brain and you use it, then we're a threat. But if it means anything other than that, well, I don't really see how we're dangerous in any way. I don't think we'll disturb anybody - and I don't think it's coy to say that."

 Marr remembers:    "Before I joined the Smiths, I was frustrated because I couldn't find anyone else in Manchester who was as serious as I was. But when I met Morrissey, it was clear he felt just like I did. So off we went. On the first day of actually being together as writers, we talked about our dreams and what we were gonna do and how we were gonna do it. And amazingly, nearly all of it came true — things as specific as being on Rough Trade Records and touring America. But as far as songwriting, when we started out Lieber and Stoller were my main inspiration...In terms of the music, I think the first record is kinda like a time capsule. I don't want to describe the music too much, because then I just sound like a journalist, but I like ['The Smiths'] because of what it meant and how people heard it as something new when it came out. But it really doesn’t represent how the group sounded at the time. I think a first record should be a document of what the band sounds like live, and we had some aborted recording sessions that sounded more like that than the finished album did. But I don’t not like it. We wanted to be a modern band and impress our friends who had good taste and I think we did that." 

Due to the support of fans like DJ John Peel, 'The Smiths' made its debut at number two on the British album chart.  It also charted at number one hundred and fifty in the US, seventy-seven in Australia, sixty-five in Canada, forty-four in Sweden, twenty-eight in the Netherlands, and nine in New Zealand. 




http://www.thesmiths.cat/




http://www.morrissey-solo.com/

http://www.johnny-marr.com/





'Hand in Glove' found its way to number one hundred and twenty four on the UK singles chart.




'This Charming Man' hit fifty two in Australia and twenty five in the UK.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PV4eiDi12w







'The Smiths'
full album:



  All tracks written by Morrissey and Johnny Marr.

Side A
1.     "Reel Around the Fountain"     5:58
2.     "You've Got Everything Now"     3:59
3.     "Miserable Lie"     4:29
4.     "Pretty Girls Make Graves"     3:44
5.     "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle"     4:38
Side B
6.     "This Charming Man"     2:42
7.     "Still Ill"     3:23
8.     "Hand in Glove"     3:25
9.     "What Difference Does It Make?"     3:51
10.     "I Don't Owe You Anything"     4:05
11.     "Suffer Little Children"     5:28