Album of the Week #14: "The Queen is Dead" by The Smiths

John · 08-07-2006 2:34am #1

We've had Morrissey but we're long overdue a Smiths album. The Queen is Dead or is she? Best album ever released by The Smiths? Has everything Morrissey done paled in comparison?

crybaby · 09-07-2006 4:31am

possibly the best album of the 80s and by far the best thing released by The Smiths. one of my personal favourites

nlgbbbblth · 09-07-2006 2:31pm

Yes. The Queen Is Dead is their finest LP.

That first week [late June 1986] I was off school for the summer holidays and played the LP five or six times a day.

ZWEI_VIER_ZWEI · 09-07-2006 7:36pm

Not bad choice, though I'd have preferred if you chose an album by a band that didn't suck...

John · 09-07-2006 8:36pm

ZWEI_VIER_ZWEI wrote:

Not bad choice, though I'd have preferred if you chose an album by a band that didn't suck...

Careful now...

Aoibheann · 09-07-2006 11:42pm

Nice one

John2: The Eraser any good btw? Dying to hear it (I know it's been leaked) but I'm waiting til it's released (on Tuesday is it?) to buy it...

John · 09-07-2006 11:47pm

It's out already. I've only listened to it once, it's all right but too early to form an opinion on it.

Aoibheann · 10-07-2006 12:00am

Stupid release dates lie to me. ;_; Ah, I see, that was the US release. Though it says UK release is tomorrow. Liar of an interweb.
I hope they have it in the music shop in Cavan, otherwise a trip to Dublin/wait while order comes in is in store. *crosses fingers that they have it*

Ah right, thankies.

I'll find out soon I guess.

prothalamium · 10-07-2006 7:23am

"Oh Mother/ I can feel the soil falling over my head"

That was f*cking harrowing the first time I heard it.

loyatemu · 11-07-2006 11:04am

not their best album - Hatful of Hollow and Meat is Murder are better. the production on TQID has also dated quite badly.

nlgbbbblth · 11-07-2006 9:06pm

loyatemu wrote:

not their best album - Hatful of Hollow and Meat is Murder are better. the production on TQID has also dated quite badly.

Hatful of Hollow is a compilation of radio sessions, singles, b-sides. Not a proper studio album.

The production on The Smiths is way worse than on The Queen Is Dead

Jonny Arson · 11-07-2006 9:12pm

nlgbbbblth wrote:

The production on The Smiths is way worse than on The Queen Is Dead

I'd agree about the poor production on The Smiths but I'd still rate that album on a near par with The Queen Is Dead.

The Queen Is Dead, what an album, never get sick of it. One of those few albums that I never get sick or tired of listening to. Classic stuff. Long Live The Moz!

nlgbbbblth · 11-07-2006 9:14pm

The 1983 Troy Tate sessions for The Smiths are far better than the finished product that emerged the following February. Despite good sales and a #2 entry in the charts, it was a somewhat underwhelming record. 'Elephant ear' was how the production was described.

John · 11-07-2006 9:20pm

Stephen Street (Queen is Dead engineer) interview about the album

RE*AC*TOR · 12-07-2006 9:47am

What an album. A perfect album, complete within itself. I went throught periods of listening to this album over and over and over. Haven't listened to it in a while, but am listening to it now while writing this.

"Has the world changed or have I changed". Somehow I think the music on this album, more than any other, suits Morrissey's unique voice and annunciation. Right from the first drum kicks of the first track, there is a certain urgency to the album. The musicianship is tight as ****. This is perhaps the thing Morrissey has lacked most in his (albeit excellent) solo career.

With the second track "Frankly Mr Shankly", we shift to a more bouncy, seemingly trivial affair.... on the surface. Certainly the music is more jaunty, except for the screeching guitar just before the lines "Fame, Fame, fatal Fame, It can play hideous tricks on the brain". Thematically, I guess it falls into the Morrissey preoccupation with himself, and disdain for the establishment. Either way the lines:

"But sometimes I'd feel more fulfilled
Making Christmas cards with the mentally ill "

and

"Frankly, Mr. Shankly, since you ask
You are a flatulent pain in the arse "

are absolute classics.

"I Know Its Over" - "Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head " - depressing song? Well I remember the first time I heard Jeff Buckley - he reminded me of Morrissey - especially from this song. That's rare praise indeed. This is a great song in its own right. Builds to a bit of a crescendo with the repetition of the above line. I think the best line though is the very biting:

"If you're so funny
Then why are you on your own tonight ? "

"Never Had No One Ever" - title fairly much sums up the song. Possibly the weakest song on the album. Never really gets out of first gear. However, it segways well into the spectacular "Cemetery Gates". What a song. I would rank this among the Smith's finest achievements. I guess most people who grew up in the 80s should be familiar with this. Stunning lyrics, brilliant music.

"So we go inside and we gravely read the stones
All those people, all those lives
Where are they now ?
With loves, and hates
And passions just like mine
They were born
And then they lived
And then they died
It seems so unfair
I want to cry"

The pace picks up again for "Bigmouth Strikes Again". While it has urgency and a certain catchiness, I'm not quite sure how it was picked to be the main single off the album.

"The Boy With A Thorn In His Side", was actually released as a single a year before the album was released. The album version is actually a slighty remixed version. Either way its a fine song.

"The boy with the thorn in his side
Behind the hatred there lies
A plundering desire for love "

"Vicar In A Tutu" - actually I revise my earlier weakest song award for "Never Had No One Ever". This is certainly poorer, lyrically at least. It is trivial. But at least it is brief. Redemption comes in the way of "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out". Many hail at as the Smiths greatest moment. And I know people to whom this song holds particular emotional resonance. Its a great song. While being a relatively straigtforward song, the ambiguity of the lyrics and the emotive implied romantic theme conjure a vivid, moving image. Some have compared the theme to the film Rebel Without a Cause, and some have said that the title is a paraphrase of what Hugh Latimer said to Nicholas Ridley as they were about to be burned at the stake as heretics during the reign of "Bloody Mary", Queen Mary I of England.

"Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out." [source: Wikipedia]

Then we end this album with "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others". Again you could argue that it a trivial song. But it is rescued by the music. That jangly, slighly synthetic sound, the one that defined the Smiths and certainly influenced a generation of Brit Poppers and Pre-Brit Poppers (The Stone Roses). Its a defining album. I would say it is to the Smiths what OK Computer is to Radiohead, what Relationship of Command is to At The Drive-In, what Pet Sounds is to the Beach Boys.

Its certainly been a pleasure to listen to this album again after so long.

Great choice for Album of The Week.

loyatemu · 12-07-2006 12:00pm

nlgbbbblth wrote:

Hatful of Hollow is a compilation of radio sessions, singles, b-sides. Not a proper studio album.

yeah, I know this - its still great though, I mentioned it because i think its probably better than any of their "proper" albums. In particular the BBC session versions of some of the tracks off The Smiths far outshine the official versions.

Album of the Week #14: "The Queen is Dead" by The Smiths

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