Encyclopedia
The Smiths were an
English rock group active from 1982 to 1987. The group was based on the songwriting partnership of
Morrissey and
Johnny Marr, and were signed to the independent record label
Rough Trade Records. Considered by critics to be the most important
alternative rock band to emerge from the British indie scene of the 1980s, the Smiths have had a major influence on subsequent alternative music, including the
Britpop movement and bands such as
The Stone Roses,
Gene,
Radiohead, Blur, Suede,
Oasis,
The Libertines, and
Doves. At the time, the group was notable in particular for two things: Morrissey's unusual, witty, and controversial lyrics, and Marr's music, which helped return guitar-based music to popularity after it had fallen out of favour in the UK charts. The group released a total of four studio albums and several compilations in fewer than five years, as well as numerous singles.
Although not commercially successful outside the UK while they were still together, The Smiths won a growing following both at home and overseas in the closing years of the twentieth century, and they remain cult and commercial favourites to this day.
History
The group was formed in early 1982 by two
Manchester residents.
Morrissey was an unemployed writer who was a big fan of the
New York Dolls and briefly fronted
punk rock band
The Nosebleeds.
Johnny Marr was already a very skillful guitarist with a talent for songwriting, and he provided the music for Morrissey's lyrics throughout the group's career. Mike Joyce was recruited as drummer after a short audition. Dale Hibbert initially played bass, and provided demo recording facilities at the studio where he worked as a sound engineer. However, after two gigs, Marr's friend
Andy Rourke replaced Hibbert. Marr and Rourke had previously worked together in The Paris Valentinos along with Kevin Kennedy, who later became a household name in Britain as Curly Watts in the television show
Coronation Street is Britain [i]'s longest-running television soap opera [i] and its ...
.
The precise origin of the band's name is unknown, although they stated that it was a reaction against names they considered fancy and pompous such as
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and
Depeche Mode. The name may also be an homage to
Patti Smith, one of Morrissey's idols, or
Myra Hindley's brother-in-law David Smith, who informed on the
Moors Murderers. Another theory regarding the origin of the band's name suggests that it was an ironic joke to give the band a quintessentially English name when all of the band members were of Irish descent. Somewhat contrarily, in a 1984 interview Morrissey stated, "I decided [to call ourselves "The Smiths"] because it was the most ordinary name, and I think it's time that the ordinary folk of the world showed their faces.". The band also considered the names "Smiths Family" and "Smithdom" before settling on "The Smiths".
Signing to indie label
Rough Trade Records, they released their first single, "Hand in Glove," on 13 May 1983. That record, as all of their later singles, was championed by DJ
John Peel, but failed to chart. The follow-ups "
This Charming Man" and "What Difference Does It Make?" fared better, however. Aided by much praise from the music press and a series of studio sessions for Peel and
David Jensen at
BBC Radio 1, The Smiths began to acquire a dedicated following--which, particularly in the case of Morrissey himself, continues to be something of a cult following. Morrissey's lyrics, while superficially depressing, were often full of mordant humour and his lovelorn tales of alienation found an audience amongst a disaffected section of youth culture, bored by the ubiquitous synthesizer bands that then dominated the charts. Morrissey wrote about ordinary things, social statements of life, and everything from despair, rejection, and death, to vegetarianism and the English music scene.
The group also had a very distinctive visual style. Album and single covers featured colourful images of film and pop stars, usually in
duotone, designed by Morrissey and Rough Trade art coordinator Jo Slee. Single covers rarely featured any text other than the band name, and the band themselves did not appear on the outer cover of any UK release. The "cover stars" were an indication of Morrissey's personal interests--obscure or cult film stars , figures from
1960s British culture , or pictures of unknown models taken from old film or magazine photos. In contrast to the 1980s obsession with exotic fashion, typified by new romantic artists such as Spandau Ballet and
Duran Duran, and highlighted in magazines such as
The Face and
i-D, the group dressed mainly in ordinary clothes--jeans and plain shirts--which reflected the "back to basics" style of the music. Morrissey occasionally affected props such as a hearing aid , thick-rimmed
NHS-style eyeglasses, and most famously bunches of flowers .
The Smiths
By February 1984, The Smiths fanbase was sufficiently large to launch the band's long-awaited
self-titled debut album to number two in the UK chart. Its mood was unremittingly bleak, exemplified by such track titles as "Still Ill" and "
Suffer Little Children," the latter referring to the
Moors Murders that had stunned not just
Manchester but the whole of Britain in the 1960s.
Also evident were Morrissey's studied references to literature and popular culture icons. His frequent acknowledgement of his many idols in interviews, along with more lyrical subtle reference encouraged a literary bent amongst fans, who already had a tendency towards bookishness. Both "Reel Around the Fountain" and "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" met with controversy, supposedly being suggestive of pedophilia. In addition, "Suffer Little Children" caused an uproar after the grandfather of one of the murdered children heard it on a
pub jukebox. In spite of the uproar, the song is in fact entirely sympathetic to the children's plight and led to Morrissey establishing a friendship with Ann West, the mother of victim Lesley Ann Downey, who is mentioned by name in the song.
Shortly after the release of the album, Morrissey idol
Sandie Shaw recorded "Hand in Glove" backed by Marr, Rourke, and Joyce. The hit single resulted in the band performing barefoot on the
Top of the Pops was a long-running British [i] music chart [i] television programme [i]...
show.
1984 also saw the release of a couple of singles which weren't taken from the album: "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" , and "William, It Was Really Nothing" . The year ended with the compilation album
Hatful of Hollow. This album collected singles, B-sides, and the versions of songs which had been recorded throughout the previous year for the Peel and Jensen shows. The radio session versions were felt by many to be superior to those released on singles and the debut album.
Meat Is Murder
Early in 1985 the band released their second album,
Meat Is Murder is The Smiths [i]' second studio album [i], released in February of 1985. ...
. This album was more strident and political than its predecessor, including the
vegetarian proselytising of the title track , the light-hearted republicanism of "Nowhere Fast," and the anti-corporal punishment "The Headmaster Ritual" and "Barbarism Begins at Home." Musically, also, the band had grown more adventurous, with Marr adding rockabilly riffs to "Rusholme Ruffians" and Rourke playing a funk bass solo on "Barbarism Begins at Home." The album was preceded by the re-release of the B-side "How Soon is Now?" as a single, and although that song was not on the original
LP, it has been added to subsequent releases.
Meat Is Murder was the band's only album to reach number one in the UK charts.
As well as the album being more political than its predecessor, Morrissey brought a political stance to many of his interviews, courting further controversy. Among his targets were the
Thatcher administration, the Monarchy, and Band Aid. Morrissey famously quipped of the last, "One can have great concern for the people of
Ethiopia, but it's another thing to inflict daily torture on the people of England."
The subsequent single "Shakespeare's Sister" was not a great success in chart terms, nor was the only single taken from the album, "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore." Many considered this an odd choice for a single, with its backwards guitar and lack of any consistent hook. The charts reflected this, with it barely cracking the top 50. September 1985's "The Boy With The Thorn In His Side," however, was an indication of bigger things to come.
The Queen Is Dead
During 1985 the band completed exhausting tours of the UK and the US while recording the next studio record,
The Queen Is Dead. The album was released in June 1986, shortly after the single "Bigmouth Strikes Again." A typical mixture of the mordantly bleak , the dryly humorous and a number of songs that synthesised both of these sides , the record reached number two in the UK chart, and is now generally thought of as their best work. In 1989
SPIN magazine rated
The Queen Is Dead as number one of "The Greatest Albums Ever Made." Subsequent "Greatest Albums" lists by numerous music publications have placed the album at the top or within the top ten, including the
NME is a music [i] magazine [i] in the UK [i] which has been publ ...
and
Melody Maker. In June 2006, the NME even dedicated an entire issue to the twentieth anniversary of the record's release.
However, all was not well within the group. A legal dispute with Rough Trade had delayed the album by almost seven months , and Marr was beginning to feel the stress of the band's exhausting schedule. He later told
NME, "'Worse for wear' wasn't the half of it; I was extremely ill. By the time the tour actually finished it was all getting a little bit ... dangerous. I was just drinking more than I could handle." Meanwhile, Rourke was fired from the band in early 1986 due to ongoing problems with
heroin. He received notice of his dismissal via a Post-it note stuck to his car windscreen. It read, "Andy - you have left The Smiths. Goodbye and good luck, Morrissey." Rourke was temporarily replaced on bass by Craig Gannon, but was reinstated after only a fortnight. Gannon was retained and switched to rhythm guitar. This five-piece recorded the singles "Panic" and "Ask" , and toured the
United Kingdom; after the tour ended in October 1986, Gannon was fired.
Strangeways, Here We Come
1987 started off well for the band. The single "Shoplifters of the World Unite" was released early in the year to chart success--as well as mild controversy and concern from parents over whether the song encouraged children to thieve. This was followed by a second compilation,
The World Won't Listen , and the single "Sheila Take a Bow," the band's second UK top 10 hit. Another compilation,
Louder Than Bombs is a compilation album [i] by The Smiths [i]. ...
, was intended for the overseas market and covered much the same material as
The World Won't Listen, with the addition of "Sheila Take a Bow" and material from
Hatful of Hollow, as that compilation was yet to be released in the States.
Despite their continued success, personal differences within the band--including the increasingly strained relationship between Morrissey and Marr--saw them on the verge of splitting. In August 1987, it was announced that Marr had left the group. Auditions to find a replacement for Marr--with Roddy Frame supposedly being lined up to join the band at one point--proved fruitless, and by the time
Strangeways, Here We Come was released in September, the band had ceased to exist. The breakdown in the relationship has been primarily attributed to Morrissey becoming annoyed with Marr's work with other artists, and Marr growing frustrated by Morrissey's musical inflexibility. Marr in particular hated Morrissey's obsession with covering 1960s pop artists such as Twinkle and
Cilla Black. Referring to the songs recorded in the band's last session together , Marr said, "I wrote "
I Keep Mine Hidden," but "Work Is a Four Letter Word" I hated. That was the last straw, really. I didn't form a group to perform Cilla Black songs."
Strangeways peaked at number two in the UK but was only a minor US hit. The track "Paint a Vulgar Picture" proved somewhat prophetic in foretelling how the group's songs would be "reissued and repackaged" in seemingly innumerable compilations. The infamous 30-second video for "Girlfriend in a Coma" garnered video rotation on MTV in America. The album received a lukewarm reception from critics, but all four members name it as their favourite Smiths album. A couple of further singles from the album were released with earlier live, session, and demo tracks as B-sides, and the following year the live album
Rank repeated the UK chart success of previous albums.
Post-Smiths careers
Following the group's demise, Morrissey immediately began work on a solo effort, collaborating with
Strangeways... producer Stephen Street and fellow Mancunian Vini Reilly, guitarist for The Durutti Column. The resulting album,
Viva Hate , was released six months later, reaching number one in the UK charts. Morrissey continues to perform and record as a solo artist.
Johnny Marr returned to the music scene in 1989 with
New Order's Bernard Sumner and
Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant in the
supergroup Electronic. Electronic released three albums over the next decade. Marr was also a member of
The The, recording two albums with the group between 1989 and 1993. Marr has also worked as a session musician and writing collaborator for artists including
The Pretenders, Pet Shop Boys,
Billy Bragg, Black Grape, and
Beck. In 2000 he started another band, Johnny Marr and the Healers, with a moderate degree of success, and would later work as a guest musician on the
Oasis album
Heathen Chemistry. In addition to his work as a recording artist, Marr has worked as a record producer. Recently, Marr has worked on
Modest Mouse's upcoming release, even helping
Isaac Brock to write some tracks. It has been announced that Marr is now considered a fully-fledged member of the band and intends to tour with them. Marr has also been recording music with
Liam Gallagher of
Oasis.
Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce have continued working together, including doing session work for Morrissey and
Sinéad O'Connor, as well as working apart. Rourke has recorded and toured with Proud Mary and is currently forming a
supergroup with fellow bassists
Peter Hook and Mani , called Freebass. He has recently started a radio career, hosting a show on Saturday evenings on XFM Manchester.
Unfinished business
The Smiths were reunited in court in 1996 to settle a royalties claim by Joyce against Morrissey and Marr, who had claimed the lion's share of the Smiths recording and performance royalties and allowed only ten percent each to Joyce and Rourke . Morrissey and Marr claimed that the other two members of the band had always agreed to that split of the royalties, but the court found in favour of Joyce, and ordered that he be paid over £1m in back pay and receive twenty-five percent henceforth. As Smiths royalties had been frozen for two years, being under financial pressure Rourke settled for a smaller lump sum to pay off debts, and continued to receive ten percent. Morrissey was described by the judge as "devious, truculent and unreliable." The singer later said, "The court case was a potted history of the life of The Smiths. Mike, talking constantly and saying nothing. Andy, unable to remember his own name. Johnny, trying to please everyone and consequently pleasing no one. And Morrissey under the scorching spotlight in the dock, being drilled. 'How dare you be successful?' 'How dare you move on?' To me, The Smiths were a beautiful thing and Johnny left it, and Mike has destroyed it.". Morrissey's 1997 solo album
Maladjusted included a song titled "Sorrow Will Come in the End" which commented on the case, and which was omitted from the UK version of the album due to fear of libel action. Morrissey appealed against the verdict, and was not successful.
Things heated up once more when in late November of 2005. While appearing on radio station BBC 6 Music, Mike Joyce claimed to be having financial problems, and said that he had resorted to selling rare band recordings on eBay. As a teaser, a few minutes of an unfinished instrumental track known as "The Click Track" was premiered on the show. Morrissey hit back at Joyce with a public statement shortly after, on the website .
Relations between Joyce and Rourke cooled significantly as a result of Morrissey's statement which revealed that Joyce had misled the Courts by not declaring that, amongst others, Rourke was entitled to assets seized by his lawyers from Morrissey. Rourke, it stated, had been deprived of royalty payments from Morrissey as they had already been covertly seized by Joyce who was obligated to declare that others had an interest in funds he wished to seize.
The future of The Smiths
As a result of the court case, a Smiths reunion seemed like it would almost certainly never happen, despite the apparent thawing of relations between Marr and Morrissey in recent years. Both Johnny Marr and Morrissey have repeatedly said in interviews that there is no way a reformation will ever take place. In 2005,
VH1 attempted to get the band back together for a reunion on its Bands Reunited show. The show abandoned its attempt after its host Aamer Haleem was unsuccessful in his attempt to corner Morrissey before a show.
In December 2005 it was announced that Johnny Marr and The Healers would play at Manchester v Cancer, a benefit show for cancer research being organised by Andy Rourke and his production company, Great Northern Productions. Rumours suggested that a Smiths reunion would occur at this concert, but were dispelled by Johnny Marr on his website. What did eventuate was Rourke joining Marr onstage for the first time since The Smiths broke up, performing "How Soon Is Now?".
Morrissey refuses to reunite with his old band members, going as far as to say that he would “rather eat [his] own testicles than reform The Smiths, and that’s saying something for a vegetarian.”
In March 2006 Morrissey revealed that the Smiths were offered five million dollars to reunite for a performance at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, which he turned down, saying, "No, because money doesn't come into it." He further explained, "It was a fantastic journey. And then it ended. I didn't feel we should have ended. I wanted to continue. [Marr] wanted to end it. And that was that."
When asked why he would not reform with The Smiths, Morrissey responded “I feel as if I’ve worked very hard since the demise of the Smiths and the others haven’t, so why hand them attention that they haven’t earned? We are not friends, we don’t see each other. Why on earth would we be on a stage together?”
Personnel timeline 1982-1987
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal format:yyyy
ImageSize = width:800 height:300
PlotArea = width:750 height:250 bottom:20 left:20
Colors =
id:canvas value:rgb
id:grid1 value:rgb
id:grid2 value:gray
id:bars value:rgb
BackgroundColors = canvas:canvas
Period = from:1982 till:1988
ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:1 start:1982.0 gridcolor:grid1
bardata=
bar:Singer text:
bar:Guitar text:
bar:Secgit text:
bar:Bass text:
bar:Drums text:
plotdata=
- set defaults
width:25 fontsize:L align:left anchor:from textcolor:black fontsize:S mark: width:25 shift:
bar:Singer color:red
from:1982.58 till:1987.83 text:"Morrissey"
bar:Guitar color:blue
from:1982.58 till:1987.75 text:"Johnny Marr"
from:1987.75 till:1987.83 text:"Ivor\nPerry" shift: color:grid1
bar:Secgit color:yellow
from:1986.42 till:1986.92 text:"Craig Gannon"
bar:Bass color:green
from:1982.58 till:1982.83 text:"Dale\nHibbert" shift:
from:1982.83 till:1986.38 text:"Andy Rourke" shift:
from:1986.38 till:1986.42 text:"Craig\nGannon" shift:
from:1986.42 till:1987.83 text:"Andy Rourke" shift:
bar:Drums color:black textcolor:white
from:1982.58 till:1987.83 text:"Mike Joyce"
Discography
Albums
UK Singles
Re-issues
- "This Charming Man"
- "How Soon Is Now?"
- "Ask"
Samples
Bibliography
- David Bret. Morrissey: Scandal and Passion
- Simon Goddard. The Smiths: Songs That Saved Your Life is a book on British rock band The Smiths [i], written by UK ...
- Mick Middles. The Smiths: The Complete Story
- Johnny Rogan. Morrissey and Marr: The Severed Alliance
References
External links
- - up to date Morrissey and Smiths news
- - The Smiths and Morrissey Resource
- - Strangeways - Smiths Fan's Forum
- - Artwork and Gig downloads
