The Smashing Tunes Thread (Part 2)

It’s bollox how that other wanker gets most of the credit for the smiths.

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Always comes across as a decent human being as well unlike the other fella

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No it’s not. Morrissey was incredible.

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Possibility the best 3 minutes of xylophoning you’ll ever hear.

Violent Femmes - Gone Daddy Gone

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Think most into music at this stage know who the master was

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It’s a terrible shame that ads are mainly what alerts me to good music these days.

Danger Twins - Just Like That

The Prodigy - Voodoo People

Marr was/is an awesome guitar player, but barring a few decent tunes with Electronic he never recorded anything of note (to my ears) after the Smiths,
Morrisseys early solo career was as good as much of the smiths and he continued to churn out good albums for many years, is he a cunt now, most definitely, but don’t forget what he gave us as young lads, his lyrics will live on longest

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Some nice lyrics but never liked Morrissey as a singer at all either. Ruins a lot of great tunes with his warbling over them in my opinion.

I decree today that life is simly taking and not giving.
England is mine, it owes me a living.

I love Morrisseys voice, but that may be because I loved the songs he was singing so much.
Outstanding and all as he was (in my opinion) there was scores of guitarists that Morrissey could have teamed up with and become a success, there was only one Morrissey

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While Marr was outrageous in terms of his standard at the Smiths, it was the lyrics and front man presence of Morrissey that tipped them into greatness for me.

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I think the Smiths were the product of the serendipitous meeting of Morrissey then at his wits end and the supremely confident Johnny Marr. Morrissey’s singing was like nothing ever heard in rock before - Billy McKenzie of the Associates was the closest in style but his style was massively over the top. Marr was playing jangly guitar chords that really hadn’t been played in England since the 60s and only the Paisley Underground movement and to a point REM were playing the guitar anyway similar with a nod to the Byrds.

I don’t think Morrissey would have succeeded with a backing of the lumpen indie rock that predominated at the time and Marr would have had no impact with the Dave Gahan type singers who were popular in the indie scene. It was just a lucky accident and then they assembled a decent rhythm section.

It is telling that in nearly 40 years there hasn’t been a decent or notable cover of a Smiths song. I think it would be too difficult to pull it off musically and vocally.

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The chemistry must have been incredible between the two to do what they did in such a short space of time. They had 70 odd songs in around four years and you could count the duds on one hand, if even at all.

They were producing their own stuff as well - well Marr was. And he threw a flute onto There is a Light that Never Goes Out. Sure why not?

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Mark Ronsons stop me if you’ve heard this before isn’t bad

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The other element that might be forgotten was that at the time there was a TV show called The Tube that aired at tea time on Friday on The new channel 4. It was fronted by Paula Yates and was the first program that almost exclusively promoted indie rock and the Smiths were regulars on it and it was very popular. Morrissey’s awkward dancing really appealed to the awkward indie set. I suspect without this visual aid the impact of the Smiths may not have been as profound.

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The dream academy - please please let me get what i want is good

Having a bit of a Stereolab evening. This is my favourite

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There was an entire album of smiths covers released in the 90s
Obviously I really liked this one

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