The Smiths - are they overrated or not?

Hmmm that's a question I have toyed with over the years

 

Johnny Marr has that amazing ability to so cleverly and successfully mesh and layer subtly complex and wonderfully melodic guitar parts together that it sounds deceptively simple and easy. When you sit down and try to transcribe and play even ostensably simple sounding songs like Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want you start to appreciate the layering and arrangements that he put into the music. Total genuis and streets ahead of his contemporaries at the time. Johnny also from his teens had a much wider scope of reference in terms of influence than his indie rock peers with a huge knowledge of soul and funk music along with traditional folk and acoustic musicians like Bert Jansch. No other guitarist of his youthful age was bringing that level of influence and dedicated craft to his instrument into the 1980's left field music scene. Then there was Morrissey, a singular talent of a similar ilk.

 

I agree they were a good band, but I don't think they were underrated here in the US. They were together only 5 years, '82-87. In those days it took some amazing bands that long just to break beyond their local scene. They got some significant college radio air play here in the northeast with "How Soon Is Now" and "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore." "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want" was on the soundtracks of Pretty In Pink AND Ferris Bueller's Day Off, two of the biggest teen movies of the 80's. And they played a 15,000 seat amphitheater in MA 86. Believe me, if you were in college in the 80's, or were a big music fan, you knew who The Smiths were.

Were they overrated? No, they worked hard, their label worked hard for them and they enjoyed some well deserved success.

 

although i still wouldn't call them overrated at all, i think you're coming from at least the same ballpark as me. i think the music (especially marr) is some of the greatest and most original to come out of the 80s ( yes, there's a lot of byrdsy jangle, but the weaving of lead and rhythm guitar parts,and the sheer beauty of his playing is something that felt very new). the lyrics are incredible, both touching, pathetic, and extremely funny like nothing else out there. it's just morrisey's over the top mannerisms that i just can't quite warm up to. there are smith's songs that are among my favorite ever, but there are others that make me cringe- and it's all down to how much patience i have for morrissy and his mozz-isms.

cheers,
rob

 

very true. i even heard his playing refered to as being influenced by 'highlife' (black south african guitar music from the townships), and though it might not be obvious i can hear some of it in there. true genius.

cheers,
rob

 

In my dotage, I have less patience for Morrissey's adolescent angst than I used to when I discovered these records as a teen, but, with each passing year, Marr's genius only grows in my estimation. Was listening to The Queen Is Dead the other night: "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others" is one of the most amazing pieces of guitar music ever recorded.

 

just a technicality, but the 'please please, please' on f.b.d.o. was actually performed by the dream academy. great post, though!

cheers,
rob

 

You can hear a bit of that influence in "The Boy With the Thorn in His Side," also a bit of the chord inversion games Townshend used to play with on tracks like "Substitute."

 

As I stated in another recent Smiths thread they were the last truly great band. Stones, Zep, Who, Smiths. That kind of company.

 

I think their album, "The Queen Is Dead", is overrated. In fact I find their four studio albums to be patchy affairs, however as a singles band they definitely deserve credit; they made some of the best singles ever, and the B-sides were just as good. Overall, I think they were a great band, but their best work is to be found on the Hatful Of Hollow/The World Won't Listen/Singles compilations.

 

Morrissey is an artist that I can pick up and listen to and dig and then next time turn it off in horror on the second song and throw the cd into the pile, not to resurface again for several years. Neil Young is another artist that can either seem brilliant or intolerable to me, depending on the mood that I'm in. Does that mean Neil Young is overrated? I'd say, probably a little, although that does nothing to diminish his otherwise brilliance. The Queen Is Dead is a pretty good album that has survived a pretty forgettable decade (and genre) in rock: I can stand now very few of those former Indie heroes of yesteryear.

 

Smiths - Overrated
Morrissey Solo- Underrated

 

By people from the UK-yes
By people from the US-no

 

Add R.E.M. and the Replacements, and I'd probably agree.

I'm sorry I missed the 60s, but I can't imagine anything more thrilling than living through the Smiths' run in real time, when they were dropping another genius non-LP single every three months. Like a lot of the iconic 60s bands, they crammed an amazing outpouring of creativity into a very short span of time. It was pretty thrilling to witness as it happened.

 

I'd also add The Jam, Blur, Oasis, Radiohead, and Arctic Monkeys to that list.

 

No way are they overrated. They are one of the greatest bands ever, but are unfairly stereotyped as a vehicle for Morrissey's mopiness. Great rhythm section, greater lyricist/vox, greatest guitarist of the 8os.

 

i think what he means is along the lines of joe strummer calling the more doctrinaire punk fans (including himself at times) 'stalinist'- meaning very rigid, dogmatic, and judgmental about their beliefs and opinions. it is hyperbole, not literal. i don't agree entirely with anton, but i can see what he's saying to some extent.

cheers,
rob

 

Indiscriminately tossing around the term "hipster" as a way to slam artists perceived as being too cool is grotesquely overrated.

 

If there is a truly great band after R.E.M. and the Smiths, Blur would be it, in my opinion.

 

That makes me the quintessential hipster, I guess.

 

I think you meant to type, "along with Jimmy Page, the greatest producer/guitarist/bandleader ever."

 

you, sir, are STILL ill! lol

cheers,
rob

 

I think Morrissey's mopiness is overstated. I think there's a lot of humor in both his solo work and the Smiths' songs that he gets very little credit for.

 

I completely agree.

I got into the Smiths and R.E.M. around the same time (junior h.s) and i was late to the game (1986)--it was exciting to get those 12' singles from England when they would come out. I remember getting Girlfriend in a Coma shortly after finding out the group broke up. I loved the b sides--including the song that made them break up--"Work Is A Four Letter Word". Liking the Smiths out east on LI was NOT hip amongst my peers AT ALL. Maybe with the older kids, but not too many from what I remember. Everyone listened to top 40 (WBLI) or maybe rock radio (WRCN). You couldn't get WLIR (or later WDRE) out by us.

 

This statement is an oxymoron. If a band is well known enough to be overrated, they can't be a quintessential hipster band.