When Morrissey’s book Autobiography was released in late 2013, it dropped to the collective sound of 1000 British music journos drooling.
The singers’ thoughts on meat, his life under the microscope, and the infamous royalties court case were once again plastered over headlines.
But as baffling, interesting, and sometimes amusing his sentiments on those topics were, one of the more surprising revelations from Autobiography came via his damnation of The Smiths debut record, while rushing through his time in the quartet.
“The album sounds exactly how The Smiths were not: pasty and thin,” writes Morrissey.
However, this is the same man who also described The Smiths’ sound as “rockets with meteoric progression: bomb-burst drumming, explosive chords, combative basslines”.
While most stopped taking Morrissey seriously – or at least the portrayal of him by the press – long ago, the singers’ issue wasn’t with the songs themselves, but with how they were recorded.
“I look back on the album that became The Smiths and I see nothing at all that had anything to do with me.”
Put it down to Morrissey being a touch overdramatic, but it’s hard to fully attain just how great The Smiths could have been when, to so many people, it sounded and continues to sound pretty darn good.
‘This Charming Man’:
Yet still, imagine the singers’ outcries if the session recorded with Troy Tate, who was originally in charge of production, were used.
After signing with Rough Trade Records in 1983, the first recording sessions for their debut album were scrapped with John Porter brought in to finish the job.
However, even these recordings, according to Morrissey, “failed everyone”.
Porter, despite being a talented producer, apparently couldn’t work his way around The Smiths’ sonic palette.
“The Smiths sound had already developed with a bullish fortification that doesn’t remotely suggest itself on The Smiths album,” continues the frontman.
While Morrissey reportedly told Porter at the time that the record wasn’t good enough, it’s said that due to the album’s already sprawling costs – apparently in excess of 6000 pounds – that there was no going back.
Although, it’s not all just Morrissey and his hot air when it comes to the disappointment of the first Smiths album.
Johnny Marr agrees, although with far less criticism.
It’s that live sound that got them noticed in the first place, and without that solid reputation, there’s no telling just how different the reaction to their debut would have been.“It really doesn’t represent how the group sounded at the time,” said the guitarist to Spin.
“I think a first record should be a document of what the band sounds like live, and we had some aborted recording sessions that sounded more like that than the finished album did.”
However Marr concludes far more positively in his assessment of The Smiths.
“I don’t not like it. We wanted to be a modern band and impress our friends who had good taste, and I think we did that.”
It’s that live sound that got them noticed in the first place, and without that solid reputation, there’s no telling just how different the reaction to their debut would have been.
“It was insane,” says drummer Mike Joyce of the band’s first few gigs at Manchester’s Haçienda.
The musician fondly describes the band’s eccentric fashion and even Morrissey’s “unusual” language when the four-piece started out in the very rock centric industrial city of Manchester.
“In 1983, to wear a woman’s top and beads was just out there,” he says to The Guardian of the singer’s attire. “People were a bit uncomfortable with it at first, but it looked so good.”
Joyce describes the songs live as “embryonic” while bassist Andy Rourke gushes over Morrissey’s onstage presence in the same feature.
‘You’ve Got Everything Now’:
“Morrissey was this very quiet, unassuming person, but as soon as he went on he became something different,” he says.
“It took your breath away.”
As an alternative to the music on offer in 1984, both sonically and aesthetically, in England perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised of The Smiths’ early sales success.
The record made it to #2 on the UK charts and continued to chart for the next 33 weeks. Comparative single – and Morrissey’s least favourite Smiths song – ‘What Difference Does It Make?’ also reached the #12 spot in February of 1984.
Still, for the many who didn’t see The Smiths in the 80s, it’s hard to know what you missed out on or at least what Morrissey thinks we missed out on.
Critics at the time apparently didn’t know, either. The acclaim bestowed on the album would help launch the band as one of the most prominent music groups of the 80s in the UK.
Even in America, a territory where The Smiths were unable to fully crack, Rolling Stone labeled the 11 songs of their debut “so rhythmically insinuating that the persistent listener is likely to find himself won over almost without warning,” while attaching a four star rating to the record.
Subsequent online reviews surfacing in the 21st Century are no less celebratory either.
A 2007 BBC review maintains, “although it’s not their greatest work, The Smiths remains an incredible statement of intent”.
Despite its unachieved potential, The Smiths still stands as a strong debut release.
At the time, Morrissey, Marr, and co. combined a British guitar sound with the frontman’s own polished lyrics.
Never one to shy away from writing darker narratives, Morrissey’s tales of misery would forever define the outfit. It’s apparent from track one of The Smiths. ‘Reel Around The Fountain’ sees the singer tackle child abuse with a brisk organ and mid-pace drumbeat, giving the opener an eerie atmosphere.
‘Suffer Little Children’ proves the album is bookended by grisly sentiments, this time with the Moors Murders in mind. After reading Beyond Belief: A Chronicle Of Murder And Its Detection on the child murders, the song became one of the first that both Morrissey and Marr worked on together.
It’s fitting, as the final song of their eponymous debut does well to define the core sound that many remember The Smiths for. The track is a morose yet emotionally and incredibly powerful five minutes of music.
“You might sleep, but you’ll never dream” is a line that can only be described as haunting.
‘Suffer Little Children’:
However, there are less extreme examples of literature that Morrissey took inspiration from for the album. ‘Pretty Girls Make Graves’ was named after a quote form Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums.
The track, much like ‘The Hand That Rocks The Cradle’, is content with a slow pace as an acoustic guitar, electric undercurrent, and unthreatening drumbeat play second fiddle to the singer’s unavoidable tones.
‘Miserable Lie’ stands out not only for being the fastest track on the record, but also for Morrissey’s wail, which reverberates throughout.
Far from languishing sonically, the majority of The Smiths carries upbeat tempos to juxtapose the now iconically depressing lyrics.
‘Pretty Girls Make Graves’:
‘This Charming Man’ comes midway through and acts as the album’s golden centerpiece. The jangling pop rock tune peaked at #25 on the UK chart, however since its release, it has aged considerably well.
Like much of The Smiths music and indeed their debut album, it is more popular in retrospect than it was at the actual time of its release.
When reissued in 1992, it jolted to #8 on the UK charts – making it their biggest song by chart position – while in 2004 BBC Radio 2 listeners voted the track in at #97 in the ‘Sold On Song Top 100’ poll.
If that wasn’t enough, Mojo Magazine placed the track at the pinnacle of their 2008 ‘50 Greatest UK Indie Records Of All Time’ poll.
While many Smiths fans believe the band’s 1986 LP The Queen Is Dead to be their best – which was only encouraged by NME placing it at the top of their ‘Top 500 Albums of All Time’ list – ‘This Charming Man’ is considered as one of the four-piece’s best tracks, as the aforementioned polls and charting proves.
The Smiths though, has still been adored enough by critics to feature on various album polls by different music publications.
The Guardian placed it at #73 on their list of ‘Best Albums Ever’, while Slant Magazine listed the record as the 51st best album of the 80s, just as NME slotted it in at #97 on their ‘Top 500 Album’s Of All Time’ list.
Like much of The Smiths music and indeed their debut album, it is more popular in retrospect than it was at the actual time of its release.Again, despite the quartet’s modest success, the States’ Rolling Stone placed it at #22 on their ‘100 Best Albums Of The 80s’ list, #481 on their ‘Top 500 Greatest Album’s Of All Time’ feature, and #51 in their list of the ‘100 Best Debut Albums Of All Time’.
Again, despite the quartet’s modest success, the States’ Rolling Stone placed it at #22 on their ‘100 Best Albums Of The 80s’ list, #481 on their ‘Top 500 Greatest Album’s Of All Time’ feature, and #51 in their list of the ‘100 Best Debut Albums Of All Time’.
The evidence outlined by music journalists and music fans alike is significant. The Smiths isn’t quite as bad as Morrissey makes it out to be in Autobiography.
Although that’s hardly a surprise, with the album’s legacy bestowed upon it by the fans that have continued to find The Smiths after their disbandment in 1987.
That is, of course, the greatest indicator of the brilliance of not only The Smiths, but also their entire discography.
With the band arguably more popular and well known now than in their short lifespan, The Smiths have aged rather gracefully in the history of music.
While their eponymous debut album is nowhere near as good as The Queen Is Dead or Strangeways, Here We Come, it marked the beginning of a short, yet illustrious period of a dysfunctional band who would go on to make history – and not just for the wrong publicity fuelled reasons.
The biggest testament to the album’s quality though is perhaps its ability to grow in popularity and maintain its relevance, even after all of the tabloid drama that has tarnished The Smiths’ brand.
Not all records are good enough to survive that. Then again, few records are as good as The Smiths.
