Collecting Morrissey B-sides

scoocs

New Member
Hi,

I got into Morrissey and the Smiths last year and I've got all the studio albums now. Now that I've gone through all of them I'm just wondering what is the best way to collect the Morrissey b-sides? I've got the two disc version of You are the Quarry so I've got a few already. Is swords a good place to start? I'm looking to preferably download from itunes or similar sites.

Thanks
 
The first thing to get is the HMV/Parlophone Singles '88–'95 compilation.
 
Swords is an excellent collection of the Quarry and beyond-era b-sides, however it misses No One Can Hold A Candle To You, A Song From Under The Floorboards, I Am Two People (which is excellent), Human Being, Slum Mums, and The Public Image. (I think the last two are on the iTunes version though.)

Bona Drag (the original version) is considered album canon but it is a b-sides collection from the immediate post Smiths era. Many songs are missing though and this was slightly remedied by both My Early Burglary Years and the Bona Drag reissue, but far from comprehensively.

World of Morrissey and the the aforementioned MEBY collect some non-LP stuff from the early 90s, and the reissue of Maladjusted adds that album's b-sides. However, I think it is OOP, so go with Amazon. The reissue of Southpaw Grammar does the same, but it misses the excellent You Must Please Remember, and anyway has been similarly disposed of.

There are at least two box sets of singles that you can find on Amazon, one came out in the early 90s and the other came out a few years ago but neither goes past the mid 90s.

Recent collection The Very Best Of Morrissey has a few as well, but all the songs flow together because Morrissey has developed retardation, so you can't separate them without it sounding janky.

Basically it's gonna be a bitch. God I'm glad I'm not a new fan.
 
The HMV/Parlophone Singles '88–'95 three disc compilation mentioned above contains all the a/b-sides from that era, it's absolutely essential!
 
Swords is an excellent collection of the Quarry and beyond-era b-sides, however it misses No One Can Hold A Candle To You, A Song From Under The Floorboards, I Am Two People (which is excellent), Human Being, Slum Mums, and The Public Image. (I think the last two are on the iTunes version though.)

You're right about your last point. This was the first I heard about that, so I went and checked. Unfortunately, however, that version (and none of the other versions on iTunes) contain the bonus live CD.
 
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