Seminal group of the Eighties. And, therefore, in its way, a Singles album has to be super-seminal.
I didn't really know how big The Smiths were until I went to University. When they were together, they had two singles go to number ten, and no further. Ask reached number 8 on its re-release in 1992.
But they were big. Very big. Local band, local heroes where I grew up. I almost knew them.
And then at University my sole claim to 'cool' was my tenuous connections with The Smiths. All the thinking people were into The Smiths. When they appeared on the South Bank Show a crowd gathered in the JCR. Okay, a crowd always gathered for the South Bank Show - it was partly a Sunday night thing - but the crowd for The Smiths was massive.
It's one of these albums that you either know every track on it and can adequately write your own rave review, or else you're just not into them and never will be. I did start a list of all the ones I really like, but it just became a track listing, so I shall just say that I think my favouritest of all is Panic.
One of the things I found fascinating about The Smiths was that immediately prior to them it was usual to have singles of five or six minutes in length, and there was even a belief that 'longer' was 'better' or, at least, better value for money. But The Smiths reinvented the three minute single - and gave them some bloody long titles.
About five years ago there was a series on the telly about the great bands of the Eighties, a sort of Where Are They Now? but cool, with attitude. I found the one on The Smiths painful, hearing about the seemingly unhealbale rift between the two geniuses that are Morrissey and Marr.
This album is on CD. Standard functional packaging. We shall revisit The Smiths when we reach 'S' on the cassettes - actually, ex-vinyl...
(and you thought I only had a Greatest Hits compilation...?)
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