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| "The Very Best of the Smiths" review on Stinkweeds.com |
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posted by davidt
on Friday July 13 2001, @09:00AM
Jesse Christopherson writes:
This review will soon appear on the stinkweeds.com website:
The Very Best of The Smiths
(WEA)
Each and every one of the songs on this disc is like an old friend, and the group that created them is near and dear to my heart…BUT…enough is enough. For artistic integrity, for quality of composition, for the sparkle of beautiful guitars and the depth of lyrical genius, I hereby assign this disc an "A+". For blatantly fulfilling Morrissey's prophecy (Re-issue! Re-package! Re-package!) and flogging a dead beauty with recording studio equipment, I assign an "F" for "frankly vulgar".
(more)
The Smiths released four studio albums during their five-year career. Those represent just one third of Smiths album-length releases. The following companions have augmented the Smiths, Meat Is Murder, The Queen Is Dead, and Strangeways, Here We Come, often appropriately and occasionally excessively:
-Hatful of Hollow (1984) is the greatest of the Smiths comps. It includes radio sessions and a few singles.
-Louder Than Bombs (1987) was released shortly after the end of the band. It includes a slew of singles and B-sides, many of which were previously available only on the original vinyl singles.
-The World Won't Listen (1987) is the (shorter) UK version of Louder Than Bombs, but it's essential to Smiths fans because of a few significant differences. It includes a studio version of "Money Changes Everything", and its version of "Stretch Out and Wait" has a different vocal with different lyrics.
-Rank (1988) is the (l)only official live album. Another well-produced live set would be something worth talking about!
-Best I and II (1992) included all the singles and a few album tracks. Nothing new here…
-Singles (1999) included…um…
-The Very Best of (2001), aka the matter at hand. Included are four tracks from the US version of the debut album, two from the second, five from the third and three from the fourth. The remainder are various non-album singles. Almost all of these songs were previously released at least three times, and nothing is new. Where, by the way, are "The Headmaster Ritual", and "Nowhere Fast"? How about the fan favorite "Pretty Girls Make Graves"?
I like "Panic", I really really do. But six releases excluding singles can weary even the most indefatigably obsessed ("indefatigably obsessed" being, of course, the standard definition of "a Smiths fan"). And is it really worth the butchering of a beautiful song for the sake of space? "Last Night I Dreamt…" is horribly mutilated by the loss of the piano intro (set over crowd noise from a miner's strike) that accompanied the song from first release.
Parenthetically, there are the matters of artwork and typos (to witness a class A hissyfit, screw up a Smiths song title and watch the Disciples of Morrissey hurl their vitriol). The original Smiths album and single covers were meticulously orchestrated by Morrissey, and are considered classics of the idiom. Johnny Marr called The Very Best of artwork "a sad parody".
Finally, the songs are "digitally remastered," which term lacks a concrete definition. In this case it seems to mean, "We turned up the volume". Some songs, especially "The Boy With The (that's…um…THE) Thorn In His Side" and "Ask" are a bit uglier, and the vocals sound wrong. Johnny Marr and Morrissey have both condemned this release and claim they were never consulted on the project. This album is useful only to a completist. It's utterly redundant to a Smiths fan, and there are better starter albums for people who still need to hear the group for the first time.
The record companies are not done with this cash cow. The Smiths was the most influential guitar band of the Eighties, and followers are still chasing the tail of Morrissey and Marr's solo work. Someday, there will be a boxed set. Someday, there will be remastered versions of all the original albums. Maybe someday… "Panic" will reach an even dozen.
-Jesse Christopherson
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