Strangeways is such an excellent album. Special mention for I Won't Share You too, very underrated and just the perfect song to end The Smiths.
That'd be "Hatful of Hollow", in my opinion. I still consider Strangeways by far their weakest album. Nothing on it that'd be in my top 25 Smiths songs. Still one of the best 10-20 albums ever released, though.
Ah, you see, I would disagree. For me, despite gems like How Soon is Now and Reel Around the Fountain, those earlier albums are spoiled by the weaker tracks where Morrissey had yet to get fully into his melodic, and vocal stride. Tracks like Girl Afraid, Accept Yourself and You've Got Everything Now are the reason why I hated The Smiths in the beginning (although I am well old enough to have been a fan at the time). I thought Morrissey's voice was a droning aberation and the vocal lines were tuneless. I am well aware others think them fabulous, so perhaps I'm just not hearing something! But they never really did it for me until they started to write consistently good tunes, and Morrissey learned to sing.That'd be "Hatful of Hollow", in my opinion. I still consider Strangeways by far their weakest album. Nothing on it that'd be in my top 25 Smiths songs. Still one of the best 10-20 albums ever released, though.
Girl Afraid and You've Got Everything Now and even Reel Around The Fountain is in my opinion better songs than anything on Strangeways. And the way they sounded in that early phase and their songwriting and the way Morrissey sang is exactly what makes them great to me. So Charlie, this speaks to your production point as well. Compared to which Strangeways just sounds so ordinary, too polished, too conventional, without a clear character, curiously low on energy and drive. Even though the songs are very good. But all of this is of course totally subjective.
Well, as you'd expect, I'd look differently on that.
