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The songs on this album are probably more familiar to the casual Smiths fan, with songs like Panic, The Boy With the Thorn In His Side and There Is A Light That Never Goes out still getting fairly regular play on channels like VH2, and occasionally crop up on the radio. The sound here had become more pop orientated than the songs on Hatful... with Johnny Marr layering a number of different jangling guitar tracks and gorgeous melodies, which were really taking a greater dominance over the more pedestrian drums and bass. Panic is a great way to start the collection, with a sound that is very much in keeping with the other highlights of this collection and has that great lyric, "hang the DJ", which, I'd imagine, is familiar to people who don't even like The Smiths. This leads seamlessly into Ask, London (the great cover-version of this by the band Cinerama is well worth checking out), Bigmouth Strikes Again and the slight rockabilly of Shakespeare's Sister, before we reach the sublime beauty of There Is A Light... which is quite often, my personal favourite Smiths' song in the world.
Two more pop classics follow, with the storming Shoplifters of the World Unite and the bouncy, The Boy With The Thorn in His Side, which again, has that trademark Smiths' sound that has yet to be recreated by anyone since (including Morrissey solo). The collection moves seamlessly from the pure pop of songs like Ask and Shakespeare's Sister, to the cartwheeling angst of Bigmouth Strikes Again and You Just Haven't Earned It Yet Baby, right the way through to the utter despair of Unlovable and Asleep. Asleep is probably the bleakest song the Smiths' ever recorded, far surpassing previously dark offerings like How Soon is Now and I Know It's Over, with Marr and producer John Porter using atmospheric sound samples and stripping away all of the instrumentation to leave a simple, solo piano. Meanwhile, Morrissey invokes suicide ("sing me to sleep, I don't want to wake up on my own anymore") whilst singing in a voice that is at an absolute lulled peak.
The rest of the collection continues the greatness established by the first half, moving from the subdued Unloveable ("I wear black on the outside, coz black is how I feel, on the inside") to the darkly comic Half A Person, to the pastoral sounding Stretch Out And Wait (another perennial favourite of mine) and onto that great instrumental track, Oscillate Wildly. The collection comes to a close with the Paint a Vulgar Picture-precursor You Just Haven't Earned It Yet Baby (which has that classic Smiths' sound), and the experimental pop song, Golden Lights, which features the vocals talents of Kirsty MacColl (as does Ask). The World Won't Listen, along with Hatful of Hollow, is an excellent introduction to the Smiths, and is probably the best example of their style and sound.
It started off with 2 of the Smiths more commercial singles, Panic and Ask. Panic had become an unlikely hit the summer before, indeed, its Dublin reference in the lyrics had made it one of the first Smiths songs that people didn't call "depressing". It's a kind of stomping, glammy anthem which zips along in less than 2 and a half minutes. Ask, which follows is one of the Smiths' weaker singles with a fairly bog standard Morrissey tune, though it features nice jangly guitar from Johnny Marr.
London is one of Morrissey's "leaving home and heading to the big smoke" songs. Lyrically it's right on the money, with lines like "and you think they're sad because you're leaving, but did you see the jealousy in the eyes of the ones who had to stay behind." Musically it's a very fast song, which speeds up even more towards the end. Many of the songs are less than 3 minutes long, and quite fast in tempo, so the album flies along.
The rest of the first "side" of the album features mainly album and non-album singles, but the heart of the album is after this when we get to the B-sides. The Smiths' singles were always worth buying, more so than any other band of the era as some of their strongest songs were on the B-side. Asleep is a wintry ballad, which sounds as morbid as Morrissey gets, over a simple piano tune, with some studio trickery creating a howling wind. Unloveable follows, a classic Morrissey self-loathing ballad. Check out these lyrics: "I know I'm unloveable, you don't have to tell me" or "I wear black on the outside cos black is how I feel on the inside". Some would base their ideals for living around these throwaway lyrics. The music itself is relatively simple, a descending guitar line with plenty of room for Morrissey to sing the aforementioned lyrics.
The next track, Half a Person is even better. Marr's guitar playing on this one is quite wonderful, and Morrissey's vocals sound great, without an ounce of strain on them. The song borrows a little from the Velvet Underground's "That's the Story of My Life", but the Smiths put their own twist on it to create an absolute classic... "if you have 5 seconds to spare."
Stretch Out and Wait follows, another superb slowish song . Marr chooses a great set of chord changes, which I haven't heard anywhere else, and the melody is quite unusual also. Lyrically, Morrissey's very much on `home ground' ("will the world end in the night time I really don't know").
The one completely new song here is You Just Haven't Heard It Yet Baby, which is kind of like the great lost Smiths single. The tune is bright and upbeat, and it sounds like it would have been a hit. Once more Marr excels himself on guitar.
Listening to this album it's hard to review these songs, as most of them are completely imprinted on my brain. However it would be wrong to ignore this album for that reason. Final track Rubber Ring, says it all: "don't forget the songs that made you smile, and the songs that saved your life."
Get "Louder Than Bombs" instead - it does, as well as lots of additional tracks, most of which are also on "Hatful Of Hollow".
The only selling point of this collection over "Louder Than Bombs" is the alternate version of "Stretch Out And Wait".
Add to that the rather poor instrumental "Money Changes Everything" which Johnny Marr gave to Bryan Ferry for the basis of his "Right Stuff" single. "The Draize Train" would have been a better choice of Smiths instrumental to include in my opinion.
Another problem with this collection is that 5 of the tracks appear on "The Queen Is Dead" and "Meat Is Murder" LPs which makes the omission of "Sheila Take A Bow", "Is It Really So Strange" and "Sweet And Tender Hooligan" even more disappointing.
The songs get 5 stars but this is the least essential original Smiths release.
(I'm ignoring The Very Best Of, Best Of I and II, and Singles)
MCE was left off the 1987 CD album but was included on the cassette but not on the vinyl... Read more
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