Girl-with-the-Thorn
Still here.
I do think if anything on this record he oversings at times because the best vocal moments as far as I'm concerned are the ones where he isn't belting out the lyrics. For example "Kiss Me A Lot" is a great song but I think he sings it with too much force and if he scaled it back just a bit it would honestly be better.
You made some great points, and I agree with you here. Part of the reason I think 'Smiler With Knife' works so well is that it's relatively intimate and pared-back musically, so he doesn't have to belt- it sounds effortless, and there is a Vauxhall-esque quality to it in that respect.
He did have vocal lessons in the early days of The Smiths. It's quite amazing if you watch the first two Hacienda shows-his voice was so flat( I like the punk quality it had), and changed drastically.
Yeah, I only realised how obvious that was recently. I was listening to 'Jeane' the other day and it struck me what a profound difference and technical improvement (although I enjoy his early singing just as much, it was less technically polished) there is between early tracks like that and his voice in, say The Queen Is Dead.