I'm extremely familiar with the discography of Electronic, Morrissey, and The Smiths. Anyone that thinks that Morrissey doesn't need anyone else to be genius, and the genius of The Smiths was Morrissey alone, is probably Morrissey. Solo Morrissey was only ever as good as the musicians he was working with. The initial post Smiths period with Stephen Street - up to about half way through the "Ouija Board" single - was very, very strong. Then he was getting into dull and tepid material like "He Knows I'd Love To See Him", and "Tony The Pony." By the time of Kill Uncle he was demonstrating flashes of genius. What we can see is that without a strong and capable foil, Morrissey just isn't that good. And Marr was the best and first of those. Stephen Street and Alain Whyte being the other two. Morrissey started believing that he didn't need anyone else and has torn through a lot of band mates over the years (7 guitarists, 7 bass players, 8 drummers) in 30 years. The last truly great Morrissey song is "It's Not Your Birthday Anymore" which was the last period he wrote with Alain Whyte. Morrissey - on his own - wasn't The Smiths. He was a huge part of The Smiths ; the morbid humour, the British kitchen sink drama imagery, the quaint nostalgia for a England that never really existed. But we can see what in The Smiths wasn't Morrissey, when we have solo Morrissey and no one else was contributing to his vision. And solo Morrissey after 1994 really wasn't very good. The classic fallacy of many bands is that the frontman is the band, and whilst most bands have a 'leader' as such, these aren't the only people in importance in the band. The Smiths wouldn't have been anywhere near as great had one of the people been different : and the four piece was perfectly balanced. As we can see when Craig Gannon lasted only a matter of months in the band. Electronic were very good, but not very prolific. And, at the same time, Marr was in The The, who were very, very good ... until Marr left. Neither of them were absolutely forgettable.
Amazing to think that Marr completed his work with The Smiths at age 23 (left the band in June 1987, four months before turning 24)
Oops, I need to make a small qualification to something I posted earlier..... Reading through further posts reminded me that the track "Money Changes Everything" from World isn't on Bombs. The reason this slipped my mind is that I had the original CD release for World, which did NOT have this track. It was added to later reissues. But really, no matter what, there are a few singles/B-sides which are not on any of the canon releases, such as "The Draize Train", "Wonderful Woman" (one of their GREATEST songs IMO), "What's The World?", etc. The few stray tracks are only available on more recent compilations, and I don't even know if they're ALL there. That's a long way of saying that the canon releases and canon compilations (Hatful, World, Bombs) STILL miss a few things.
The Smiths was definitely a band where the whole was worth more than the sum of its parts. It was the perfect combination of youthful energy, burning ambition, and boundless talent. I went through a period of listening to a lot of solo Morrissey and considering it excellent, but it doesn't have the staying power of classic Smiths.
I don't mind that those tracks are missed, to be honest —they're third tier Smiths, at best. 'What's The World' is freaking awful. Only 'Wonderful Woman' has any worth, and it makes a good B-side.
Well, I agree that "What's the World" isn't one of their best tracks, but I don't think it's awful. I think it's better than "Oscillate Wildly" or "Golden Lights" for example. And remember, of course, that there are still others I didn't mention that are unavailable on Bombs or World. And I think some of these other B-sides are pretty good. Not everyone will agree that they're third rate. Are they? Could be... I never bothered with this one because I already have, if not exactly every last track they recorded, certainly every one that I want. So I wasn't interested in this even if it might have two or three tracks I never got.
The 2CD version has every non-LP track apart from "The Draize Train.", though a live recording of that is on Rank. The Sound of The Smiths - Wikipedia
Thanks for the link. I already have "The Draize Train" and like it, outside of its thin recording. Looking at the link, though, I see that Sound doesn't have "Accept Yourself", "Work is a Four Letter Word" or "I Keep Mine Hidden". So that's four missing B-sides that I can think of. Personally, I like all of these. But even if one disagrees with me on their musical value, others will want them, so it's a shame they were left off.
You are so wrong it’s laughable, Morrissey continues to put out top quality songs and albums, you just don’t like him for your own personal reasons. I remember you from the Morrissey tread.
Plenty of solo Morrissey is absolute drivel, starting with the songs like "Tony The Pony" onwards. He sang fantastically and inventively on the last album, but the words aren't great, and the music itself is bland and forgettable. Disagree with me all you like, but I won't blindly swallow everything an artist puts out and proclaim it genius when it clearly isn't. If you think the genius of The Smiths all came from Morrissey you're deluding yourself.
Isn't a version of "Accept Yourself" on Hatful Of Hollow? Though I had completely forgotten about those other two songs!
"Accept Yourself" on Hatful is the BBC version. But I'm talking of the actual B-side version, which was a studio recording, and IMO it's also better. That's just personal taste, but in any case, I made my initial comments on the various stray B-sides because @MikeManaic61 was considering buying Bombs, Hatful or World, and didn't want to buy more than one of them. So in light of that, I mentioned that unfortunately, some B-sides would be missing no matter which one he chose.
I think Hatful is essential purchase. The gap between World and Louder is much smaller so you don't need both if you're stretched budgetwise, you can make that and either/or decision. No matter what you do there'll be some songs missing, which is bizarre to think about, given how few Smiths songs there are, that some are still not readily available on album 33 years after the band split up!
I disagree about Hatful because I just don't like the BBC tracks, but I'm the only one in the world who feels this way. Actually, I don't even know if Mike was after B-sides specifically, because he didn't say so. But I'm making the assumption that the B-sides were part of his focus since all 3 releases concentrate on them to one degree or another. And I agree that it's strange that this hasn't been remedied on the newer compilations.
You are so wrong again, fist off his newest album is a wonderful collection of songs, I highly recommend it even to a new listener. His voice sounds better then ever at the age 61, he was touring almost non stop until the corona virus hit in March. Every artist has a few clunkers and a few miss steps after a dozen or so albums but you love to attack him at every opportunity, you must work for Pitchfork.
Anyone who knows me knows I loved Morrissey, but he has fallen from a great height over the years to mediocrity. I've bought (*checks Discogs*) 428 of his records including The Smiths, so trust me, I get no joy from pointing out he's hit the bottom and kept digging in the past decade. You love him, and think everything he does is still great, which must be far more enjoyable than my experience of him as I watch him turn into an irrelevant and empty shell. I'm starting to think that this must be what being a Lou Reed fan was like 20 years ago when he did The Raven album and had his TaiChi master doing interpretative dance during the gigs. I don't attack him at every opportunity. His recent records are bad. His band don't care as much as they used to, and it shows. Even when he is singing phenomenally - and no one can doubt his voice is on great form at the moment - the music backing him and his current lyrics are an artistic dumpster fire. That, coupled with the obvious demonstration that he can be a quite unpleasant person on occasion that's apparent in near enough every page of Autobiography, has taken the blinkers off my eyes. The only pitchforks round here are the ones you've got out for me. If you really think lyrics like the ones below aren't laughably bad, you must be the kind of person who just doesn't listen to lyrics, and if that's the case, what on earth are you doing listening to Morrissey? "Everyone has babies Babies full of rabies Rabies full of scabies Scarlet has a fever Ring is full of ringworm Angel of disdain Poor little fella has got rubella Liver full of fungus Junior full of gangrene Mine is melanoma Tike full of gripe Whippersnapper's scurvy Urchin made of acne Get that thing away from me" I mean, I'd grown out of such utterly simplistic writing when I was 18. Those aren't lyrics, they're graffiti.
You just babble on about nothing, you have no clue about this artist and that is why you got booted off the Morrissey thread.
I didn't get booted, I lost interest. You're not a very interesting person to talk to, and quick to insult me, so ignore for you. Keep licking Morrissey's tasty boots, and enjoying the gruel he serves you.
Thanks for bringing this up to attention again! I still haven't decided like you mentioned, I am interested one of the compilations with the most b-sides. I already bought the 4 studio albums a couple weeks back.
My view is that either Louder or World are redundant as almost all of one is on the other. On reflection, Louder Than Bombs is the better choice as it has "Sheila Take A Bow" / "Is It Really So Strange?" / "Sweet And Tender Hooligan" on it, as well as most of the original songs that are on Hatful, whereas World has some alternate mixes but no exclusive songs. Hatful has about 10 radio session versions on that aren't on Louder though, if that bothers you.
The most B-sides (and non-album A-sides) can be found on Louder Than Bombs. Several tracks on Hatful are just BBC performances of songs from the 1st album. Most people seem to feel the BBC versions are better, including the band. I don't agree, but that might be irrelevant anyway since you want the highest concentration of non-album material. I suppose, to be fair, I'd suggest that you might eventually want to try Hatful IF you feel underwhelmed by the first album. But if it doesn't leave you wanting, I'd skip it. The non-BBC tracks are also on Bombs. There might be one song, though, which has a different version on each. Something tells me that Hatful has an acoustic guitar version of something where Bombs has a full band track, but I can't remember clearly. Someone else here surely knows. Damn, their catalog is even messier than I already thought!
