SOME POLLS ARE BIGGER THAN OTHERS - ILM Artist Poll #72 - THE SMITHS

1. Rank your top 20 Smiths songs. I think the list below is everything, if something's missing let me know, likewise if you specifically want to vote for the Sandie Shaw version of Hand In Glove.

Normal scoring: 1:40, 2:36, 3:33, 4:30, 5:28, 6:26, 7:25, 8:24, 9:23, 10:22, 11:21, 12:20, 13:19, 14:18, 15:17, 16:16, 17:15, 18:14, 19:13, 20:12

2. Albums: rank your top five albums, compilations are more than welcome.

Send your ballots to me at nathanwoolls AT gmail.com.

Deadline is midnight UK time on Monday March 1st 2016.

A Rush And A Push And The Land Is Ours
Accept Yourself
Ask
Asleep
Back To The Old House
Barbarism Begins At Home
Bigmouth Strikes Again
Cemetry Gates
Death At One's Elbow
Death Of A Disco Dancer
Frankly, Mr. Shankly
Girl Afraid
Girlfriend in a Coma
Golden Lights
Half A Person
Hand In Glove
Handsome Devil
Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now
How Soon Is Now?
I Don't Owe You Anything
I Keep Mine Hidden
I Know It's Over
I Started Something I Couldn't Finish
I Want The One I Can't Have
I Won't Share You
Is It Really So Strange?
Jeane
Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me
London
Meat Is Murder
Miserable Lie
Money Changes Everything
Never Had No One Ever
Nowhere Fast
Oscillate Wildly
Paint A Vulgar Picture
Panic
Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want
Pretty Girls Make Graves
Reel Around The Fountain
Rubber Ring
Rusholme Ruffians
Shakespeare's Sister
Sheila Take a Bow
Shoplifters Of The World Unite
Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others
Still Ill
Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before
Stretch Out And Wait
Suffer Little Children
Sweet and Tender Hooligan
That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore
The Boy with the Thorn in His Side
The Draize Train
The Hand That Rocks The Cradle
The Headmaster Ritual
The Queen Is Dead
There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
These Things Take Time
This Charming Man
This Night Has Opened My Eyes
Unhappy Birthday
Unloveable
Vicar In A Tutu
Well I Wonder
What Difference Does It Make?
What She Said
What's The World
William, It Was Really Nothing
Wonderful Woman
Work Is A Four Letter Word
You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby
You've Got Everything Now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8QURwE3NGI

A new poll!! Very cool.

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

Actually, delete that one..

Oh, this is gonna be fun, and hard. Coming up on a big deadline this week but will definitely get cracking on a ballot after that. Such a manageable catalog too!

It's so weird seeing how few songs they actually recorded. It felt like so much more.

Harbour Lights is missing

Strike that, it's "Golden Lights" and it isn't missing, soz.

There's actually probably a lot of stuff I don't know about, and there's also those outtakes that were leaked a few years ago. So long as I'm made aware of any alternate titles, etc, vote for whatever you like.

this will be a good opportunity to give their album cuts a better chance. shamefully, i tend to just stick with the louder than bombs/hatful of hollow songs.

Yeah, I got in through my brother's copies of Best... I and II in the early 90s and taped my favorites. Then eventually I got Louder Than Bombs and a while after that The Queen Is Dead but it was absolutely ages before I got the other three albums and I still have never felt like I knew their details and deep cuts as much. The first one especially - it sounded so little like the stuff I had been initially drawn to.

I tried to get a bunch of us to go see them at Reading Uni, but "never heard of them" ..

Did get to see them at the Hexagon about a year later, Meat is Murder tour, James supporting.

Then eventually I got Louder Than Bombs and a while after that The Queen Is Dead

tbh I could live with these two forever, but there are good deep cuts I might miss from time to time.

"That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore" is an essential part of any Smiths diet

I didn't get MIM until a few years ago and it was better than I imagined.

A good reason for me to explore their catalogue; right now, my ballot would probably consist entirely of "Ask" and "Panic."

the first album is the only one I would be okay dispensing with, it's too uniform

nah there are some super standout classics - i mean "This Charming Man," "What Difference Does It Make?" "Hand In Glove" - where I practically can't imagine the Smiths without those songs. There's definitely the dirgey-wirgey stuff that does make it feel samey, but I wouldn't toss the whole record.

sure, and the standouts are standouts for a reason. Just feel its melodically and stylistically weaker than the others.

Also, all of those songs appear in superior form on Hatful of Hollow

first album sounds a little clumsy compared to what came later, but I think has this unsettling intensity that is absent from the other records. there's an old nabisco post on one of the smiths threads where he talks about what a weirdo Morrissey is, and how if he hadn't become a pop star he's the creepy loner who hangs around the library making other ppl uncomfortable or something. and I think that really comes across on the debut, that this was written and recorded when he didn't know that he was going to make it as a pop star, that there was the possibilty he was just going to end up being the library guy

xpost ha, fair point. it's definitely like the last album i would send new fans to if they're working their way through the discography.

yeah that's great point too, soref (and nabisco). i mean it is also just much more ... gothy? than the others. not sure what the non-anachronistic term would be but it's surely the most "emo" album... with MIM feeling the most DIY punk, "the riches of the poor" and all. despite "how soon is now?" it's generally jauntier and there are more notes of sunshine or hope-against-the-odds. by the queen is dead we're in full theatrical irony/camp territory which is a different animal though it may come from some of the same profound emotional spaces.

I think that really comes across on the debut, that this was written and recorded when he didn't know that he was going to make it as a pop star

is this true, though? it was released in 1984, recorded in 1983, and a few weeks ago i went on a random live smiths youtube binge and i thought i remembered the crowd going absolutely NUTS in '83, like piles of flowers were being thrown at morrissey wherever he turned. it was absurd

but my memory isn't reliable (it could have been an '84 clip with all the flowers), and others would know much more about the smiths' pre-debut notoriety

I think a lot of the lyrics for the first album were written before he even met Marr? idk though, I will admit that all of these are just impressions based on listening to the albums and zero research, I may well be completely wrong

the lyrics sound so much like teenage concerns/teenage points of view, it's easy to forget that he was already just a few months shy of his 25th birthday when the first album came out, I do get a sense that he felt time was running out in terms of his chance to 'make it' (maybe last chance to avoid having to become a proper grown-up, rather than spending the rest of your life in the protracted adolescence of pop stardom?)

imagine Morrissey as an accountant

You Just Haven't Earned Income Tax Credits, Baby

I was looking for deductions and then I found deductions

But sometimes I'd feel more fulfilled
Reviewing quarterly earnings statements with the mentally ill

Do people prefer the Hatful of Hollow version of This Charming Man? Really?

I do, by miles and miles and miles

Everything on the debut sounds to me like it was recorded through a pillow.

oh totally disagree on this charming man. hatful version sounds sloppy/messy. would have to A/B the others though, kinda forgot they had other versions.

Are votes for different versions being amalgamated in the rollout?

This is going to be tough. I think I've got my top 5 songs pretty much set, but beyond that, I've only got the vague sense of how my ballot will turn out.

tbh, I'm going to wait until it starts raining again to listen to the catalog, cuz I just can't bring myself to get my Moz on when it's 75 degrees and sunny outside

I'm going to total all different versions together but I will breakdown the totals when I do the rundown.

xxp

the first album is the only one I would be okay dispensing with, it's too uniform

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, February 16, 2016 5:23 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think The Smiths has a lot of great material on it, but I don't think the production of the record is all that great and the end result gives me the impression that they didn't manage to capture the best possible performances of the material. Meat Is Murder has better production, but I don't think the songwriting is anywhere near as strong. They got it right with The Queen Is Dead and I think Strangeways, Here We Come has some excellent moments. Ultimately though, this band are more about individual tracks for me rather than albums in full.

They're one of the acts by way of whom I learned the term "singles band" - there are like whole crucial aspects of their sound that barely come across on the albums, or seem like side notes or comic relief or something. It's like if most of the Beatles singles were Ringo songs and all of them were in most fans' essential desert island tracks.

Whipped up an initial list of 25 songs and can't see myself parting with any of them. I can already tell that nothing from Strangeways is gonna make my ballot

I've never really understood the love people have for the Hatful of Hollow versions of the s/t album tracks - none of them seem better at all except What Difference Does It Make has much better drums than the s/t, and the guitar tone is a bit more forceful, but that's balanced out by the s/t version having the guitar overdubs which do add a lot and it's slightly faster too. The other Hatful of Hollow versions seem definitely inferior

^^I'm in the same boat. The Hatful version of "This Charming Man" in particular, while lovely in its own way and interesting for having a slightly different take on the main riff, could never compare to the s/t version, which to my mind is the Rourke/Joyce rhythm section's finest hour. It has this wonderful headlong propulsive rush to it that the Hatful version lacks.

Sent off a ballot; I spent enough of my adolescence steeped in this music, and go through subsequent Smiths phases often enough, that I don't want to overthink the rankings.

JRN OTM

still unreleased after all these years and maybe my favourite *ever* Moz vocal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3diNIsKG2w

and yeah re the lyrics on the debut, some were written pre-Smiths and ever pre-Marr. when they had their first meet, Marr left with a copy of the words to Suffer Little Children, written out like a poem. so arguably their most famous lyric ("Oh Manchester, so much to answer for") wasn't even written as part of a song let alone a Smiths song.

my fave ever Smiths-related photo

http://www.johnnymarrplaysguitar.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Smiths.jpg

Well I Wonder
I Want The One I Can't Have
What She Said
Half A Person
William, It Was Really Nothing
Still Ill
Hand In Glove
Reel Around The Fountain
Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me
There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
Accept Yourself
I Won't Share You
Is It Really So Strange?
Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now
Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want
Pretty Girls Make Graves
How Soon Is Now?
That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore
The Boy with the Thorn in His Side
I Don't Owe You Anything

I'm honestly considering just submitting Louder Than Bombs as my ballot

2-Disc The Sound of The Smiths lords over all.

Comparing best-ofs to albums and comps isn't really fair imo

never gotten the point of those later comps (well, besides money obv), the catalog isn't daunting and none of them have done an interesting or definitive job

ha yeah exactly. and there's still a bunch of stuff missing even from 'the complete' box sets and such. it's such a poorly preserved back catalogue.

I bought the Australian double vinyl version of The World Won't Listen thinking it did a p good job at collecting the non album stuff, does it not?

Looked it up and at 28 tracks I'm p sure it does, don't know how widely available it is nowadays (going for a fair amount on Discogs)

Is the Australian version different from other pressings?

World won't listen has a very similar tracklist to Louder than bombs, it's just that the handful of LTB exclusives are better than the WWL exclusives. But they're both great collections. It's just that you probably wouldn't want to own both unless you're a completist, and if you were only going to own one, you might as well go with LTB

Stretch Out and Wait on LTB > Stretch Out and Wait's bizarre and not as nice outtake version on TWWL

LTB wins

Wait what is on TWWL that isn't on anything else?

The Australian version's much longer, but maybe the current worldwide issue's the same. Def weird there isn't a definitive non album material comp xpost

XP from wiki:

However, The World Won't Listen contains two songs that do not appear on Louder Than Bombs: the single version of "The Boy with the Thorn in His Side" and the single edit of "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore." Additionally, The World Won't Listen contains different versions of two songs that would appear on Louder Than Bombs: "Stretch Out and Wait" features an alternate vocal and "You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby" appears in a slightly different and longer mix. Also of note is the fact that "Ask" appears on both The World Won't Listen and Louder Than Bombs in a slightly different and longer mix than its single version.

I think those exclusives have reappeared on the hits comp of yr choosing.

For those of you stuck: look at LTB, pick nine or ten songs, look at the other albums, pick out nine or ten songs.

I believe that's the exact math of my ballot.

i think i voted for 1/2 of meat is murder, about the same number of songs as I voted for on LTB

just remembered that in high school my go-to song to play while getting ready to go out for some social activity was Headmaster Ritual which now seems ... problematic

The Australian version's much longer, but maybe the current worldwide issue's the same.

Yeah, I think that double LP TWWL might have been replaced by the more familiar tracklisting by the time of the first death of vinyl. I only recall laying eyes on it once. It's probably not that much more common than the Education In Reverse version of Viva Hate, that other Aus oddity.

:D

"Note that there is a mispress of this release, with a The World Won't Listen sleeve, and labels from Record 1, but with the vinyl pressed from a George Harrison album;
George Harrison - Cloud Nine."

Just learnt for the first time that the rest of the world got a stingy version of World Won't Listen, sucks 2 b u

(I taped World off a bigger boy at school and bought Strangeways myself. This is a p good précis of the Smiths that doesn't make you think Strangeways is a weak album.)

yeah i thought i was pretty well versed but that version of TWWL is new to me.

fyi only three songs on the list I posted haven't received a single vote so far BUT WHICH THREE?

― nate woolls, Friday, February 26, 2016 6:55 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wondering if this is still the case now voting has closed or if everything they recorded got at least one nod.

I came close to including 'Golden Lights' and 'Work Is A Four Letter Word' on my ballot but they both just missed out, now I'm worried that one or both of them will have received zero votes

(I know the story about 'Work Is A Four Letter Word' apparently being the final straw that persuaded Marr to quit, but those two tracks make me wish that the Smiths had stayed together to do an entire LP of 60s brit chanteuse covers)

I think that Australian double album TWWL is the only LP that has "The Draize Train"

(Rank? That's a live version)

Australian double album TWWL doesn't appear to have 'Money Changes Everything' which was on the UK cassette version of the album (but not on the UK LP), can only assume that someone at Rough Trade got off on upsetting Smiths completists

Nope, there were two songs left that didn't get a single vote

xxxp

i'm guessing "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" and "This Charming Man"

lol

"Jeane"?

no, I voted for Jeane

me too

Death At One's Elbow?

Oscillate Wildly

xp - i voted for it

I'm bored, I'm going to run down the albums tonight

I voted for Oscillate Wildly too

hrah!

I put Oscillate Wildly as #1 on my ballot.

just posting the link to the rollout here for those who use bookmarks, because i hadn't realized it started:

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

Thanks.

P sure I voted for "Jeane". Did anyone vote for "Golden Lights"?

I actually like Golden Lights and didn't realize it was so despised until recently. But I didn't vote for it.

aw man is 'golden lights' despised? i didn't vote for it cuz i already had 11 ltb tracks and trust me that took some paring down but i do like 'golden lights', i like moz's vocals on it and i always always have time for kirsty. i guess i could understand ppl not voting for a cover.

It was probably "Work is a four letter word"

That was one of them, yes.

Ooh,bonus point to me.

I'll go for both: 'What's the world'

Bingo!

Eeeeee

i hope The Draize Train places.

Wonder how many songs got zero votes?

With 80 ballots and only 70 odd songs I can't imagine there's many

Just the two: Work is a Four Letter Word & What's The World

Ah, I thought they were the ones you'd voted for that no-one else had.