Your favourite Smiths studio album opener is...

I have a fondness overall for Reel Around The Fountain as the marquee Smiths curtain-raiser but understand wholly the challenge from The Headmaster Ritual and The Queen Is Dead; what do other readers think?

 

A rush and a push for me

I am the ghost of troubled Joe..

 

Amazing.

I always heard it as "I am the ghost of a child-like shell"

Really!

 

Tough. If this were a weakest link thread, then 'The Queen is Dead' would be the first to go, as merely 'good' rather than 'great' IMHO, then I'd be really hard pushed to choose one of the other three. I might go with 'A Rush and a Push' as I guess that might be the outsider in this race.

Edit: Wow! Having voted and seen the scores, it's in the lead at this early stage with over twice the votes of the second placed song.

 

Reel around the Fountain is a great song but as album opener i prefer headmaster ritual. The others are no match for these two imo.

 

"The Queen is dead, boys
And it's so lonely on a limb..."

 

The headmaster ritual

 

Im very surprised that is leading the score.

 

And then I realised that I already posted this fact earlier, about the misheard lyrics!

Yes no accounting for taste, I would think if it was a head to head, Headmaster Ritual would smash it!

Meanwhile in the last few seconds another vite for TQID.

 

Oh! Take me back to dear old Blighty,
Put me on the train for London Town,
Take me anywhere,
Drop me anywhere,
Liverpool, Leeds or Birmingham
But I don't care,
I should like to see my

Mike Joyce then has his finest hour in the band, which doesn't say much. But out of all the main records this one feels like a great opener, even if they're all relatively good in other respects.

 

Got to go for The Queen is Dead as it's my all time favorite Smiths Song

 

Reel Around The Fountain is my favourite song, but A Rush and A Push... is the best opener.

 

None of these would show up on the list of my favorite Smiths songs or the songs I think are the Smiths' best or most essential.

I'm one of those who think the Smiths weren't really a great albums band and none of their albums is really great. But they were a great singles bands and their collections of singles is pretty much the only Smiths I return to. I know Hatful of Hollow is not an album but a collection of singles and radio session, but it's still, by far, my favorite Smiths album and really the only Smiths album, other than a singles collection, that I find myself returning to very often, and "William It Was Really Nothing" brilliantly opens that album, and opened the show the first time I saw the band too. As a result I always think of that one as the Smiths' greatest opener. But of the tracks on the list I'd pick "The Queen Is Dead."

 

Well they only had four. But each of them were very good, one in particular often universally acclaimed.

I could accept a singles band tag, there may be little scope for argument there but I an reticent in this clime of pigeon-holing everything.

I think that The Smiths were a great English band and an important one during a time of great change in the music industry.

They portrayed an Englishness not seen since perhaps The Kinks or dare I say it, The Beatles.

 

They were a great band. I wasn't familiar with their music when I had a chance to see them on their first full fledged US tour in 1985 and it was one of the most memorable concerts I've ever seen in any genre of music. But I was always a little disappointed by the albums.

 

The Queen Is Dead. The intro of "Take me back to Dear Old Blighty" followed by the thunderous drums of Mike Joyce and then Johnny Marr's guitar were the first thing I heard by the Smiths. I was hooked within a couple of seconds and have been a fan ever since.

 

The love for a rush and a push is tied up with the sadness that this was it in 1987, the last album from a band already extinct , and that opening line ..”the ghost of troubled Joe” .. coupled with the closing I won’t share you..still makes me sad all these years later ..

 

While I ultimately agree that The Smiths were best as a "singles band", their albums have brought me endless enjoyment. I have to give the nod to "Reel Around The Fountain", as it just blew me away on first listen and continues to fascinate even now... just an incredibly emotionally complex lyric/music. Even though their albums could have structural issues or weaker moments, the band still only really had about three truly "weak" moments for me in their entire output: "Miserable Lie", "Golden Lights" and "Meat Is Murder". I do find TQID to be somewhat overrated; Hatful of Hollow, Louder Than Bombs, and the debut get the most play from me. And recently I was reminded of what a great song "Well I Wonder" is; I had virtually forgotten about it since the 80s!

My favorite Smiths' "objects" are the UK 12" singles... they were surprisingly easy to obtain upon release as imports in my small Southern town, and just sounded AMAZING thanks to the 45rpm format.

 

A rush and a push. Pure Smiths force.

 

The Headmaster Ritual

"belligerent ghouls run Manchester schools"

As opposed to where?