Despite having broken up 26 years ago, there’s been a lot of
talk about The Smiths over the past few weeks, largely due to the publication
of iconic singer Morrissey’s new book Autobiography.
The controversy and publicity surrounding the book might have led another
Smiths related event to pass you by: NME ranked their seminal third album The
Queen Is Dead as the greatest record of all time. But was the notoriously Morrissey-loving
magazine being too nostalgic; hasn’t anything topped that staggering piece of alternative
rock in the 27 years since its release in 1986?
The Queen Is Dead is an album of juxtapositions, flowing
seamlessly from the pop silliness of a song like Frankly Mr. Shankly to lyrical darkness to rival Radiohead. This boils
down to a set of 10 stunningly varied songs, creating an album that is, in many
senses, bizarre. Another thing the Smiths excelled at during this period was
satire, with the record mocking everything from religion to the press and,
inevitably, royalty. This parody provides some of the finest lyrical moments of
the group’s short career, with “Charles don’t you ever crave to appear on the
front of the Daily Mail, dressed in your mother’s bridal veil” being a
particular favourite.
So aside from princes cavorting in drag on the cover of
national rags, what more does the album have to offer? Musically, it’s the
Smith’s finest hour, the violent drums and bombastic bass lines of songs like The Queen Is Dead (Take Me Back To Dear Old
Blighty) contrasting with the subdued brilliance of Cemetery Gates to showcase a band who leading the indie-rock pack. Morrissey’s
lyrics are regularly dark to the point of hopelessness, surely most so on
penultimate track The Light That Never
Goes Out, where he sings “if a double-decker bus crashes into us, to die by
your side is such a heavenly way to die.” This turns from suicidal mania to
pioneering musical technique when combined by the sweet and soft synthesisers
of Marr’s music, an idea the band perfected on Girlfriend In A Coma on their fourth and final album Strangeways, Here We Come, in which Morrissey
discusses his dying partner over a bubblegum melody.
The Queen Is Dead is a timeless album, its satire remaining
sharp and its musicianship staying near unchallenged 27 years on. It’s almost
undeniably the Smith’s best record, and while the greatest album of all time
tag could be strapped to hundreds of others, The Queen Is Dead is undoubtedly a
worthy choice.
10/10
Nice. Your reviews are really good Ben. It is Will MT btw
ReplyDelete