Meat is Murder is the best Smiths album

It really is a toss-up between MIM and TQID. One is my favourite Smiths album, and the other is the best, but I can't work out which is which.

And, erm, obviously How Soon Is Now pushes things in its own favour.

When they grew up, I stopped liking them. MIM is tolerable in parts, and they got steadily worse thereafter.

(Actually I listened to so much Smiths as a teenager that these days I can only really enjoy live recordings and radio sessions and b- sides and alternate versions -- anything but the proper singles and albums. So of the official Smiths releases it might actually be Rank that gets trotted out most.)

The best album by The Smiths is 'The Smiths'.
Eleven reasons why:

1. Reel Around the Fountain
2. You've Got Everything Now
3. Miserable Lie
4. Pretty Girls Make Graves 5. The Hand That Rocks The Cradle

6. This Charming Man
7. Still Ill
8. Hand In Glove
9. What Difference Does it Make?
10. I Don't Owe You Anything
11. Suffer Little Children

The production is awful. I suppose. I've gotten used to it sounding like that though, to be honest. But it is muggy and muddy. Even so: 'I Don't Owe You Anything' = most beatifulist Smiths song ever. No filler, great pop singles and bookended by two classic epics.

I can. _The Smiths_ is a TERRIBLE-sounding album, plus all of the best songs have superior versions on _Hatful of Hollow_.

the production on the first isn't great but it doesn't strangle the life out of these very brilliant songs. Meat is Murder=far too much filler. Queen is dead has some brilliant singles but doesn't do it as an album for me.

Not in my reality - I think they were a live band, and albums band and a singles band in that order. As far as such artificial divisions go that is. I don't think they go very far. The Zombies were a singles band, but the compilation of their 14 singles is often heavy going and their O&O album isn't.

Another vote for MIM, I've long speculated where 'Bad Morrissey' first emerges. I think its in TQID, much as the title track is fantastic, Frankly Mr Shankly is bullying from a position of power and Vicar is just trivial piffle.

only just discovered this board, couldn't find my first post on it for a week. aha! there's a search button.

great read. you guys are brilliant! a few points I can't resist adding...

can't believe MIM is more Marr than Morrissey. The singing on 'well I wonder' is to these ears the best he ever did; the lyrics to several songs (most of side one for starters) are as sustained in their wit, bite andpoetry as Marr's guitar lines.

personally I'd dismiss comps, even band-sanctioned ones like LTB and HoH - partly because they make the discussion too easy, but mainly because they don't enable me to assess the Smiths as an album band. Put all a singles bands singles and best sessions on an album and it's bound to be good - but what can they do when they have to complete an album...

... and with that borne in mind, I think the point about the thematic coherence of QID is a good one. If 'album' is were 'pop' pretends to be 'art', that's a key consideration. And ghastly fopp is also right, things do go downhill slightly at the end... but ....

I saw them do Barbarism Begins at Home at Glasto (84?) and it was astonishing: funky (yes! funky), experimental, everything working. The scat at the end the most brilliant yodel over a piercing treble riff. So when I hear the album I hear 'bad recording' not 'bad song'. And meat is murder may be weak but 20,000 students with it scrawled on their bag would have told you different. Did lead to a lot of unfortunate pigeonholing of the band though.

And talking of bad recording, I would beg Simon who doesn't like the HoH version of 'reel' to listen again. I think it's astonishing, especially the last few seconds - far and away superior to the album version. Which is also a thing of beauty.

And I agree with Alex, it's sad but true. Rock was dead. Morrissey and Marr (and early Stipe) found just one more new thing to do with it. Since then, the only life in the beast has come from outside the genre.

one of the best lyrics Morrissey ever penned, but to these ears Marr's driving avant garde background noise is just a mess, an idea that didn't quite make it off the drsawing board.

Oh, no - I just did.

can you explain the above please.

'Queen is dead' has a bit of 'careless' wordplay from morrissey and marr's music is very good but not as brilliant as in the first album.

Jon: "I saw them do Barbarism Begins at Home at Glasto (84?) and it was astonishing..."

If we're going to count live versions of "awful" album tracks, what about the Oxford '85 version of "Meat Is Murder"? I hated that song until I heard this one...

Btw, 'I want the one I can't have' was the highlight for me of Mozzer's show on Tuesday night. Captured everything that made the Smiths great.

As for best album, if you put a gun to my head I'd probably say Hatful of Hollow even though I don't like suggesting compilations for these things. But because it was released with lots of previously unavailable versions not longer after they were actually recorded I think you can just about count it (but not Louder Than Bombs which didn't even come out over here until later!)

You're not the only one David, I think that too.

that's why a lot of good stuff came from singles and b-sides and the yr liking of comps such as louder than bombs reflect this. i agree that all those actually are great.

I think they are more focused on the first album. i like the melancholia on that rec. a lot of ppl complain abt the production but they never specify what it is abt it that they dislike. i thought it was alright myself.

The debut contains the most striking and cohesive set of songs (of the proper LPs), with nary a half-baked idea in sight.
Hatful wins with its punchier renditions from the same golden period.

It vaguely mirrors chronological order, the canonical post-punk/indie career trajectory. :)

25 years old.

As Mike D. said on Twitter, read the Drew Daniel one. It's at the end.

I've been listening to this a lot lately.

'I Want the One I Can't Have' is the Smiths song that really did it for me, and still does. Nothing else on MisM really hits that peak, so I prefer TQisD overall.

I'VE SEEN THIS HAPPEN IN OTHER PEOPLE'S LIVES AND NOW IT'S HAPPENING IN MINE I'VE SEEN THIS HAPPEN IN OTHER PEOPLE'S LIVES AND NOW IT'S HAPPENING IN MINE I'VE SEEN THIS HAPPEN IN OTHER PEOPLE'S LIVES AND NOW IT'S HAPPENING IN MINE I'VE SEEN THIS HAPPEN IN OTHER PEOPLE'S LIVES AND NOW IT'S HAPPENING IN MINE I'VE SEEN THIS HAPPEN IN OTHER PEOPLE'S LIVES AND NOW IT'S HAPPENING IN MINE HAPPENING IN MINE HAPPENING IN MINE HAPPENING IN MINE HAPPENING IN MINE I'VE SEEN THIS HAPPEN IN OTHER PEOPLE'S LIVES

god damn I had actually forgotten about that song! That used to be my favorite Smiths song, and now it is again.

but it isn't funny any more though.

the fake ending isn't really funny anymore tbh

Normally I can't stand self-righteous shit but I love the way it bothers people, and I ate a lot of meat at the time and continued to do so, but it makes me laugh the way things make people uncomfortable, I mean, you CHOOSE to be uncomfortable, it's just a record.

It's not a great song, I don't think. I like the way the extremism of it bothers people, though.

Not my favorite Smiths album in any case, I like when they got more commercial (in the US).

I'd love to hear an instrumental version of the album; Morrissey's singing on the album is distracting in its monotonous bleating...which I don't think about his singing on other albums nearly as much.

Barbarism Begins At Home is THE SMITHS: OVERPOWERED BY FUNK

(kinda)

yeah, kinda! if we were POLLING this I think I'd be sorely tempted to vote for "Barbarism".

I'd love an instrumental version too, and I like the singing here as much as anywhere. I just love the sound of the record, little things like how well Rourke is hooked up or the way the guitar strings actually sound new. It's my favourite and I never understood why it was supposed to be the half-baked one.

Man, I really do get carried away in that Stereogum thing. Everybody else is a tasteful, slender paragraph and I've got a serious case of "tl;dr". Alas . . .

But your piece deserves the space! It's a marvellous read.

Also thank you for posting as I'd forgotten what your new handle was.

Appropriate subject material to get carried away with, really.

Well I Wonder is my fav. on the album too. Really enjoyed your tl;dr take on it.

I've now heard 3 Smiths songs I've really liked, all at random, and all from this album.

(today's discovery: That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore and its rather gorgeous chord-progression/fadeout)
(previous discoveries: How Soon Is Now (obv) and Meat Is Murder (less obv but a better song than HSIN and in fact a really impressive piece of music))

I borrowed "Louder than Bombs" from a friend recently and I think it is just as good.

I'm listening to this album properly now and it's really good o_O

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME

oh man the title track is shite. Side 1 is their best album side tho.

It's all about "Rusholme Ruffians" for me.

side 1 just kicked my ass!

side 2 will send it gently back to sleep

First 2 tracks on side 2 are good tho, not counting this sticking "How Soon is Now" in there bullshit

Some of the best guitar of the 80s, imo.

Even Johnny Marr doesn't think much of 'Nowhere Fast', but it's my favourite.

Johnny Marr is a bit of a boring dolt tho tbf

Well I liked MIM the track when I heard it. Sounded weird and floaty and heatstroked.

Meat Is Murder (less obv but a better song than HSIN

Uh...

HSIN is a fucking dirge tbf

It's all about the guitar on The Headmaster Ritual.

Well I Wonder is my fav on this album.

Agree 100% that this is the best Smiths album, aside from Singles at least. The weird chord progression and guitar twangs on Headmaster Ritual are just perfect. I like jaunty/jangly/echoey Smiths over epic/strung-out/smooth Smiths. The lower sound palette on TQID totally changes the feel of the album, not necessarily for the worse, but even "Cemetry Gates" is subdued because of the muffled jangly stuff. The lower tones push the guitar into the background and make Morrissey and the lyrics the main focus. Maybe that's the real difference--I hear the instrumentation on MIM and the singing on TQID.

Then again everything I just wrote about MIM can also apply to "Bigmouth" and "Thorn".

Stevie T = genius

There was something mad and evil about this album that nothing else they did captures. Definitely their best proper album, though "Hatful Of Hollow" may best it overall.

'I Want the One I Can't Have' is better than anything on TQID, but MIM loses its way towards the end. TQID is more consistent. I also think Strangeways - side 1 in particular - is seriously underrated. I can't really listen to the first one any more.

HSIN is a fucking dirge tbf

"Dirge" is the last thing I'd call it. It's an earnest plea to be noticed, loved, a yearning, not any sort of dirge, and it's set up over one of the Smiths' most propulsive backdrops of sound.

...not to mention it wasn't originally included on the album!

The live version of Barbarism Begins at Home with Pete Burns is worth hearing. Moz & Pete slope off to the tourbus after a couple of verses, leaving the other three to go into overdrive for about 10 minutes. They reveal themselves to be the great lost Brit jazzfunk combo. Seriously good - Chic and the Stooges in equal measure.

seriously this album is like some sort of amazing gateway drug. I THINK I UNDERSTAND NOW

You'll soon discover this is the Smiths' least impressive album. Can't wait!

The live version of Barbarism Begins at Home with Pete Burns is worth hearing.

Where does one find this?

seriously this album is like some sort of amazing gateway drug.

Well put, it certainly was a gateway drug for me at age 17. Once I heard it, there was no going back to Casey Kasem!

BBAH w/P Burns: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx51PsNBe8E

kind of like this, surprisingly. not amazing but good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao7modba32A

can imagine it working a treat in the right club at the right time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dkwank5HVQ&feature=fvw

ha

TPL gets to the album: http://nobilliards.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/the-smiths-meat-is-murder.html