Author:Iain Key & Richard Houghton
Another stash of memories from the People’s History book thread.
The basis of these books is fans, band members (sadly absent here), their entourage sharing the moments that formed, defined, and (possibly) broke the band. And give an insight to the enduring legacy, influence and reverence.
And it is that legacy, influence and reverence that is important in these books – A People’s History of The Thompson Twins would unlikely (a) make the grade, or (b) sell that much if it did.
The Smiths were indeed a moment in time marking a point in the early 80s when “Indie” moved from being “small audience material on minor record labels” to a crossover into the mainstream.
This is not intended to be a definitive history but a history across 300 pages told by those who were involved, were there, bear the scars, and still hold the highest esteem for an outspoken (some would say odd-ball) singer, musical partner in crime and tune, plus backing from a solid if un-noticed (until the court case) rhythm section.
The stories range from their fist gig at The Hacienda when Morrissey got annoyed with the crowd and the poster stating “We are THE Smiths, not just Smiths”, to first appearances on The Tube and Top Of The Pops (not as many stories of people going home, buying a deaf aid and waving gladioli about as I though there may have been), to the last recording sessions in Streatham, before Johnny Marr quits and the NME publish the “Smiths To Split” headline.
At the core of The Smiths is one of those perfect chemistry / stars aligning moments – the 4 /5 key players would never achieve the same heights on their own.
OK, Morrissey has had a long solo career, and Johnny Marr rightly recognised as a guitar influence and in-demand gun for hire guest musician.
But personally, I don’t believe it better The Smiths output.
The band’s time was brief (effectively 1983 to 1987 as a recording unit), but in the same time it took Yes to go from 90125 to Big Generator, The Smiths had formed, released 4 albums, 2 compilations and 20 singles, and disbanded.
Indeed, they started something that they couldn’t finish. Didn’t hang about to actually finish it, and have spent years fighting each other to make sure they don’t actually finish it.
The final words (which are conflicting and I think show where each are at) go to Morrissey and Johnny Marr.
Johnny Marr: Everything that I was doing in The Smiths I can do now; but there’s things that I do now that I wouldn’t have had the skill or the mindset to do in The Smiths. I would never have been able to stand in front of a 70-piece orchestra and play to thousands of people, for example. So it’s all good. I’m happy with how things have turned out.
Morrissey: I would rather eat my own testicles than reform The Smiths, and that’s saying something for a vegetarian.
Length of Read:Medium
Might appeal to people who enjoyed…
A People’s History Of (insert preferred name here).
Something with a bit more personality and depth than a (possibly opinionated) biography
One thing you’ve learned
The truth as laid out here is that Factory tried, but were not happy with the submitted demos. And as it transpired neither Morrissey or Marr wanted to be aligned to Factory, despite the presence of Tony Wilson and every other influential Manc band being aligned. And neither agreed with the “austere aesthetic of the Factory production line”.
And Peter Saville probably wouldn’t have been plundering 1960s Kitchen Sink Drama for record covers – if he did he’d be recolouring them, or finding new expensive ways to produce them.
One bold colour and a black and white print – that is The Smiths iconography
Looks an interesting read, ta Rigid.
My usual gripe about the rhythm section not getting the respect they deserve though. They were way more than solid!
Agree – they were an integral part of the whole.
Superb rhythm section
One of the best. Up there with The Jam’s and way better than most.
I have the bassline to “This Charming Man” thrumming around in my brain sometimes. It’s marvellous.
I’ll say one thing about the Thompson Twins (wow! didn’t think I’d ever start a sentence with those words), they had hits in America.
Check out the smiths over there. Oh dear. Very ‘indie’.
And yet The Smiths have a lasting influence in the US and the Thompson Twins were an 80s pop band with a few hits.
The Smiths have 22.6 million monthly streams against The Thompson Twins 1.9 million.
I find Spotify figures fascinating. They provide a pretty unfiltered look at an artist’s enduring popularity. Clearly higher numbers for an older group require at least a) popularity in the US and b) crossing over to younger generations.
The Smiths at 23+ million monthly listeners (362 in the world) have clearly done that.
The Cure, probably the biggest alternative band at the time, plus with extra love recently because of the comeback album are at 25 million (330 in the world), so a bit better.
But Depeche Mode, a stadium band in the late 80/early 90s, are at 16 million, well below; New Order 8.5 million; Pet Shop Boys 11 million; Pixies 10.5 million; Talking Heads 11 million; Bunnymen 2.4 million; Felt 120 thousand; The Fall 194 thousand; Wedding Present 50 thousand…
So ver Smiths are huge, bigger than they were at the time; way bigger than a whole bunch of ‘alternative’ types who were more successful than them at the time; and hugely bigger than their Festive 50 indie contemporaries.
Fwiw, I still quite like them, but my 22 year-old daughter absolutely adores them while her boyfriend says all the songs sound the same. We all agree that Morrissey is an arse however.
That’s interesting. I had a look too and Morrissey is at 2m – slightly more than the Thompson Twins then.
And quite a lot more than Johnny Marr’s 400k which he’ll be pleased about. Though no doubt he won’t be satisfied and it’s probably all an industry conspiracy against him etc.
Morrissey is pretty big in America (or was). At least as a live attraction. and teenagers are still getting into The Smiths over here (my daughter being one of them)
Ah, welcome back Mr Daze!
It would be much nicer if you started to communicate about the stuff that you actually like (which is always interesting from you.) We know you don’t like this bunch of non-hitmakers!
Nice review. I still have to get through the monolith that is Morrissey and Marr : The Severed Alliance by Johnny Rogan. I did start Morrissey’s autobiography but gave up fairly quickly.
What was the problem with Morrissey’s tome ?
I found it unreadable
Agreed. It needed a severe editing.
It suffered more than averagely from the usual celebrity autobiography blight: interesting at first but boring after success. The last half (as far as I got before binning it, anyway) seemed basically to be a list of tour dates.
The Severed Alliance is really well researched and written. Anything that got Moz’s dander up to the extent that he wished Johnny Rogan “death in an M6 pile up” clearly had touched a nerve.
My University years in Bradford were 1983-1987.
I loved this band…further comments to follow.
I probably need to think about this more than my Desert island Bands!
They wouldn’t be one.
Those last quotes are interesting. My understanding from a few years ago was that Morrissey was prepared to discuss a reunion for the purposes of a very lucrative tour, but Marr that killed the idea stone dead.
The Smiths were an exciting band – and despite the lack of US pop chart evidence, they were definitely mainstream by the time Strangeways was released.
I remember the Smashie and Nicey radio DJ contingent pretending to like Ask (the follow up to Panic) lest they were accused of not being down with the kids. Matthew Bannister was sharpening his axe at about that time…
In the UK, it was possible to show some correlation between a band having big hits and actual popularity. In the UK, The Smiths had a steady stream of top 20 singles and the LPs sold very well.
This wasn’t so obvious in the States when you looked at the Billboard top 10, which was compiled more from radio airplay than record sales. This is why Bible Belt FM appeasin’ Soft rock dominated the US charts. And yet, Smiths songs did seem to appear in Hollywood movies and in 1988, the Rosebowl stadium in LA attracted 80,000 teenagers for Thomas Dolby, OMD, Wire and headliners Depeche Mode. Between them, they had only had a handful of minor US hit singles.
The thing about The Smiths is they were odd and different at the beginning. Challenging even. But to a significant number of people, the really resonated. I think the run of singles they produced, the excitement they created, and the brilliance of all of the albums makes them unique. The amount of success they had in a short space of time is really like no other. And it is a lasting legacy (despite Mozza’s attempts to undermine it).
Well I thought they were completely fantastic, although Moz is obviously an arse these days and has been for some years. Not just the stupid comments and Farageisms, but he also looks so crap these days…yes, we all age, and put on a few pounds, but keep your shirt on man, invest in some trousers that actually fit and stop wearing those hideous prissy shoes.
As a huge fan the only album I don’t really play is the “Rank” album, the live one, because even at the time I thought that was much too rocky and overblown, when at their best they had a lightness of touch which served them really well. This was aided by a rhythm section that could adapt to whatever the song needed.
There’s an argument to suggest they were a logical progression from what bands like the early Orange Juice had been, which I don’t think gets mentioned enough. Indeed it was a bit depressing when the “Madchester” thing became so huge shortly after, which wasn’t a patch on what the Smiths legacy left behind.
At first I thought they were an interesting weird band, like a lot of C86 type bands. But for me they became an unattractive and overplayed dominant cultural phenomenon – musical tzatziki. It was expected to like The Smiths. I preferred the dour 80s ‘S’ band coming out of Leeds than the one out of Manchester, with Eldritch having a more enjoyable and less overplayed form of camp weltschmertz than Morrissey, who actively seemed to hate people.
Interesting. During this time, let’s not forget, a time period when Simple Minds and U2 were arguably in their absolute pomp, you could be ridiculed and laughed at for wearing a Smiths tshirt by the sort of football casual types who were into Level 42 etc as well as bands like the above, or “weekender weirdos ” who liked bands like say, The Cult or even The Cure.
All of which just made me like them even more of course!
I liked all of the bands you mention at the same time in the 1980s.
The Cult live at St Georges Hall in Bradford is one of my top five gigs.
Personally I didn’t mind a bit of the Cult or The Cure at the time. U2 and Simple Minds less so. (Much less so by 1985.) But it always seemed to be fans of those types who were the most mocking of The Smiths and their fans. All those comments like “Oh it all sounds so miserable” etc. Yeah OK, petty fan factionalism it may have been, especially now we’re all much older, but these things mattered when you were 18!
I fully embraced all of those bands at the time and saw them all live,
A time and a place i rarely revisisit these days though
Good point Nick, there were of course lots of different youth ‘tribes’ at the time, though I think early Simple Minds and U2, (pre- Waterfront and Joshua Tree), would have been seen as just as weird by the football casuals bedecked in burgundy, pastels, Pringle jumpers, side partings and taches (I’m thinking OF&H’s Boysie in his younger days) I used to see on the streets of Reading on a Wednesday and Saturday afternoon.
I suppose I’m being quite culturally myopic in using the NME as a reference point. For its writers and readers, liking the Smiths became the dominant and tiresome orthodox. I suppose I could have turned to the Melody Maker (the Dandy to NME’s Beano), but I found the writing was better in the NME.
Ahh, the NME…
I was rather turned off The Smiths at the time, by all those
“Morrisey saved my life!!!” type articles – not the band’s fault, of course, and I can listen to them now with almost no prejudice at all…
I think it was the ‘weirdness’ that the Pringle jumper and tash mob couldn’t get.
That’s probably why the more macho ‘non-weird’ bands like Oasis appealed more.
In my (admittedly limited) experience the Level 42-listening football casual types I knew seemed to graduate towards towards The Stone Roses and, later on, Oasis even though they ridiculed The Smiths.
Acid House also seemed to be popular with those who previously showed little interest in anything remotely ‘alternative’.
I loved the Smiths and even though I realise I was also meant to like The Roses, Oasis etc. they just left me cold.
I don’t disagree with any of these comments, they’re all very valid and well made. I was never particularly a huge fan of acid house but it truly changed a lot of what people’s listening was. You would never have got the clubbing/football crowd into more “psychedelic” type music like the Stone Roses before about 1989. No “lads” went to those sort of gigs before that. Oasis are different-they were easy to digest because their tunes and lyrics were simple, and of course they looked like they’d stepped straight off the terraces at Maine Road. (Which of course, they had.) Compared to even the Roses they were a basic and “not particularly weird” option for people who thought Moz was a foppish oddball.
For the record, I had a fair bit of time for the Roses, at least initially, but the plodding, overblown, derivative and much too full of themselves Oasis just never did it for me at all.
I found The Smiths musically and lyrically much more interesting. Quite different bands to me.
I think it can only be subjective. They were different, of course, but both had musical and lyrical depth and complexity.
I like to dance, so bought Sisters and New Order records at the time, and only bought The Smiths on 7″ singles, or compilation LPs. Until The Queen Is Dead, which blew my tiny mind.
They do seem to still appeal to younger generations. Offspring The Elder asked me if I’d ever heard of them, having heard There Is A Light on a mixtape, so I pointed her at the S section of the Kallax and left her to it.
Does the S section also contain Showaddywaddy?
Yes, with the Smiffs just before the Smurfs.
No, but it does contain Shakin’ Stevens (best of, a £1 charity shop purchase).
Smiley Culture* to the left, Snap! to the right.
(*) Should the artist formerly know as David Victor Emmanuel be in the ‘C’ section, between Culture and Culture Club? Discuss. Turn your papers over now.
I like to dance too, which is one reason why The Smiths do very little for me.
This Charming Man is alright in that regard, which is why it was one of the few I bought.
How Soon Is Now is pretty much the only song of theirs I like.
SOHO’s Hippychick is even better!
You can also dance to What Difference Does it make, Panic (ironically), Hand in Glove, Bigmouth Strikes Again and many others
Barbarism…is the main dancey one, I reckon – I mean proper dancing, not the Mozesque shuffle on one leg.
Here’s Moz and Marr frugging to that brilliant bassline
That’s the least Smiths-like Smiths song I have ever heard.
To answer dai, you can probably dance to Metal Machine Music if you chose to. I personally wouldn’t put any most Smiths song unless I wanted to clear the dance floor, possibly now excluding this one.
“Mozesque shuffle on one leg” I am really sold…
I can’t imagine anybody dancing to Sisters of mercy unless it is done ironically but there you go. Smiths had a scintillating rhythm section and I found them eminently danceable on a large number of their songs
I guess there’s a failure of imagination on both our sides, dai. And that’s OK.
I should stop now and leave this Smiths thread to the fans. I am glad their music brings delight to others.
You can dance to lots of Sisters songs. Doktor Avalanche knows how to keep a groove going. The main idea behind This Corrosion is that it was “the soundtrack to a disco at the Borgias”. Fulfills that brief pretty well.
I did consider This Corrosion after I wrote my post
Fantastic band, still mean a huge amount to an absolute ton of people.
Not sure why this thread has become about dancing. You can probably dance to anything but I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone go “I really want everyone at the dancefloor at this party, best stick The Smiths on”.
But then I doubt the main priority of the band was ever to make people dance. It’s not what this music is “for”, and it doesn’t detract from its quality any more than if I point out that you can’t really dance to Dylan either (or indeed most of the bands beloved of this parish – we’re in headphones country here).
In terms of what The Smiths are actually for, it’s probably several things but among them must surely be those moments where one gently revels in one’s status as a well read outsider who is too sensitive for this coarse world, who dreams of disappearing into a bookshelf, and whom those vulgarians will never truly understand. Glorious stuff.
Yikes!!
That because you need to get the girls on the dance floor first in order to fill it. The boys cavorting to The Smiths or The Sisters of Mercy will empty it probably. Doesn’t mean you can’t dance to them though
Back in the day I would step out on the dancefloor at The Oxford Brookes University and there were just as many girls as boys dancing to The Smiths. We did a move similar to Morrissey on TOTP while performing What Difference Does It Make. A kind of variant on The Twist. Barbarism Begins At Home is especially groovy. They were really quite jaunty for a while, prior to The Queen Is Dead. In those days it was considered more interesting to dance to less apparently dance friendly records. Anyone can dance to disco but what about 1969 by The Stooges or Run Run Run by The Velvets? I was that brave soul at The Mars Bar in Cardiff in 1985 when all the clientele wanted was The Sex Pistols.