Mr Demos audio analysis

It's more than the "Matter of Opinion" at the end of the latest video that gives their game away.

At the end of the first chorus, I hear "Johnny" mess up getting back to the verse riff. In each chorus to verse, the same mistake is made.

Looking at the spectral selection we see below two chorus' images. The top is the first one, bottom is another later on. The left arrow indicates where the final riff of the chorus ends and the right set of arrows show where "Johnny" makes the mistake.

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As you can see, even amidst added distortion and reverb (trails off at end of recording), we can see sections of guitar have been cut and pasted to form the structure of the song.

We also see a very obvious cut (just after 3:06) where the verse riff becomes a version that rings out at the end as "Johnny" descends into playing "reel around the fountain" and a taster of "matter of opinion".

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As a matter of fact, one copy of that being practised exists,a because it was only done once has not been released as of yet.
If a person is willing to waste all of this time creating this poor quality impression, then I'm not surprised that they also researched that they played at Fagin's and that the guitar part for "matter of opinion" is just the same as satisfaction.

If they'd learned how to play the song in full they would have hoodwinked me, but the excessive filters and effects got me curious as Johnny never had those pedals.


Related items:
 
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And skinny said:

Uncleskinny
Erik said:
I’m still unconvinced this is truly The Smiths
Not that I don’t hope it is (as it’d be a really cool piece of history) but, me heart and 32 years experience screams hoax


It is The Smiths.

Wrong again...as with so, so many other things.
 
That is dedication.

Why would they do it? For attention? To sell to a collector? Insanity?
 
That is dedication.

Why would they do it? For attention? To sell to a collector? Insanity?

I'd go for No.3 but suspect any discerning serious collector would subject it/have it subjected to some testing...as demonstrated & analysed above.
 
Figured it was fake considering the singer sounds like someone doing an intentionally bad Morrissey impression

I was swayed by the accent. I have no idea how Manchester manages to pronounce an A like that. It seems to have 2 syllables.
 
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It is always difficult not to get drawn in to definitives when presenting things for people to debate & engage with. I hope the choice of wording around these demo posts wasn't such as to make people think they were 100% legitimate - the door was always left open to questions, provenance and evidence-seeking.
I believe I urged 'healthy scepticism' and also questioned the rationale behind the 'tape oxidation' explanation - which I acknowledge exists, but not to the extent others used to justify validity. That said, I have 100s of tapes recorded in 82/83 including my own voice and they are completely listenable and certainly haven't got coated in static, hiss, gurgle et al to the point of having to strain to hear what's on them.
There are malicious members of this 'fandom' that rub their hands excitedly when duping people with misinformation - they are known quantities (even when they think they've got away with it). Whether misleading art covers purposely made to deceive, posting fake tour information to disappoint eager fans or even cut and paste 'unheard' demos or 'Melanie's. So, anticipating these as part of that type of behaviour is a reasonable factor to consider.
I haven't had, as stated previously, time to scrutinise these through Audacity myself, but will do so soon to compare the OP's observations.
I'd expect a doubling down on 'evidence' over on YouTube or nothing but silence now. I'm also expecting someone to say the audio analysis is fake as that is par for the course too.
It's always a balancing act between putting information out to help people make up their own minds whilst factoring in the unpleasant creatures that thrive on deception as their raison d'être.
Provenance is King - the good will out eventually.
Regards,
FWD.
 
The first demo sounded pretty convincing and fooled me, but on the new 'What Difference Does it Make' one, the guitar is SO out of tune in the chorus I just can't swallow it. Johnny can't have been that shit that he couldn't tune his guitar, even early on.
 
There's nothing in what Tom Thump posts that suggests this recording is a fake. Amazing how willing people are to believe a bit of nonsense and some Audacity screengrabs they don't understand.

Not accusing you of dishonesty, BTW, Tom. You may well believe what you posted, but you've made five out of two and two, I'm afraid.
 
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There's nothing in what Tom Thump posts that suggests this recording is a fake. Amazing how willing people are to believe a bit of nonsense and some Audacity screengrabs they don't understand.

Not accusing you of dishonesty, BTW, Tom. You may well believe what you posted, but you've made five out of two and two, I'm afraid.

Either Tom is demonstrating that the recording is the product of contemporary fakery or he's arguing -- more intriguingly -- that a time travelling Mancunian brought back Audacity to the early '80s.

And I'm sorry if Audacity confuses you, but most of us can easily see breaks and repeats -- especially when Tom helpfully elucidates.
 

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