the queen is dead overrated?

I don't get why funny, humorous songs are seen as more "frivolous" than songs about pain and despair. It's all part of life isn't it? There seems a tendency for fans and critics to knock Morrissey's funny songs as being beneath him and being examples of him being lazy when I think they are just as much part of his outlook on life and art as any serious songs are. If you dismiss the silly songs then you are missing the whole point in my opinion.
 
funnily enough meat is murder is my least favourite smiths album ...
i find it a bit forced somehow ... the 1st lp doesnt do much for me
either ... like they hadnt really got used to making records yet ...
still ill is fantastic but i find things like the hand that rocks the cradle
a bit one-dimensional ...


How strange! The Smiths comes a close second for me behind Meat Is Murder...and The Hand That Rocks The Cradle is one of my favourite songs EVAHHHHH

Just goes to show...something. Well, I mean, when I meet a Morrissey fan I am quite excited and sort-of think we are instantly bonded cos we Both. Love. Morrissey. But it is good to have variations between us! :)
 
Well said, Jones; have a laugh with The Smiths.
TQID is brilliant writing and poor production.
Strangeways is the best album ever. If only Stephen Street had produced TQID.
 
I think some of Morrissey strongset writng/lyrics are on it and overall ii is my second favourite Smiths album after theri self-titled first effort. Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others is great though; the under produced fade in and fade out at the start;The great music by Marr; the effective and basic chorus and
"From the ice-age to the dole-age"/"As Anthony said to Cleopatra, As he opened a crate of ale, Oh, I say".
 
i don't think so. it has a strong list tracks on the lp. I know its over, there is a light that never goes out being my favourites. but meat is murder is my favourite smiths lp.
 
Well said, Jones; have a laugh with The Smiths.
TQID is brilliant writing and poor production.
Strangeways is the best album ever. If only Stephen Street had produced TQID.

You think TQID was poorly produced? How so? I agree "Strangeways" is better in that sense, but TQID "poor"?
 
I'm pretty sure Stephen Street did the same job on both albums. As engineer/production support to Morrissey and Marr as producers. He asked for producer credit after TQID and because of his work on that album they agreed he deserved the credit on the next album. That was in an interview I read with him once.
 
I think it's a great album. i like the mix of moods, humour and serious. I don't always play it through, often pick out the tracks that suit my mood at the time.

One reason people tend not to like the "frivolous" songs is that they have more rhyme in them and that seems more childish because nursey rhymes do too.
But the lyrics can be just as sophisticated, and satisfying. I get great mental images from Vicer in a tutu, maybe because my stepfather is a Vicar!
 
Whilst Strangeways Here We Come is my favourite album of all time, The Queen Is Dead is where I think everything came together for The Smiths, and it rightly deserves to be classed as their 'classic album'. The reason being, is that every single song has a different style and it showcases just what a talented group of musicians they were, and in Morrissey's case, what a great lyricist he was in being able to write with both humour and heartbreaking pathos.
As an initial fan I used to skip 'Vicar in a Tutu' and 'Some Girls are Bigger Than Others', why? Because at the tender age of 16, I found them embarrassing. Now I couldn't live without those songs, and I think the fact that Morrissey's lyrics can make people laugh, cry, cringe and gasp is what makes him utterly amazing. The tune to 'Some Girls' is also one of the best Marr wrote; such beautiful music and such daft, deft lyricism make it one of the best songs on that album.
However, I'd be hard pressed to say objectively which is THE best Smiths album, as The Smiths has a sense of urgency that can only be acheived by a genre defining debut, Meat Is Murder is difficult for a first time listener, much darker musically than their other work, but is such a rewarding album once listened to repeatedly, and contains some of Morrissey's best lyrics, and Strangeways is simply an 'album' in the truest sense of the word, from start to finish I've never skipped a track.
Overall though, if you were to choose an album to define an era, in terms of it's artwork, it's publicity (I'm thinking of the Salford Lads Club shot), it's songs / singles, and the statement it made, then I think The Queen Is Dead says it all. The Smiths are right there in the title alone, representing quintessential englishness, a great 'up yours' to the establishment, the freedom of the individual, intelligence, and a fabulous sense of humour.
 
I support this theory. Lyrically Some Girls is a bit silly because it had to be. One cannot infuse the peak of Morrissey's lyrical genius with the rampant beauty of Mr. Marrs music...it would have ruined all art forever.
 
I think Queen is Dead is the BEST album.. tied with Meat is Murder for me.. Vicar in a Tutu is great.. especially moz's voice towards the end and some girls one of a kind.. especially because it doesnt make any sense at all (lyrics wise)
 
The Queen is Dead is a f***ing masterpiece. "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others" is a sensitive, brooding, drifting album closer that fits in perfectly with the ambience of the album. "Vicar In A Tutu" is something of a throwaway, but it's grown on me, and it's actually hilarious, not to mention catchy. The album is flawless.
 
No, I don't think it's overrated. I'm inclined to agree with someone before me who said that Strangeways probably would have ended up just as iconic if they hadn't split in 1987. It's just an iconic album, which results in more attention being drawn to it than others, but with good reason for that attention - with songs like TQID, I Know It's Over, The Boy With The Thorn In His Side and TIALTNGO it is absolutely deserved (Never Had No One Ever has always been a favourite track of mine too). Vicar In a Tutu is the only (slight) letdown imho.

Personally though, Meat Is Murder is and will always be my favourite LP.
 
Without a doubt the Queen Is Dead is overrated. Insanely overrated.

Meat Is Murder is the only time The Smiths ever made a perfect album to me. Every song is brilliant and like nothing else they did before or after. It is truly Morrissey and Marr at their zenith of creativity. Whether you count "How Soon As Now?" as actually being an album track or not...it is still perfect.
 
The Queen is Dead is as good a place to start as any. i think the reason that one might be looked at as more universally popular are because the songs are a little more light-hearted and funny and the subject matter is a little different than the usual. The Queen Is Dead and Frankly Mr Shankly for instance are not as dark, they're bouncy and funny, and they aren't about that whole "rejected/homosexual" thing as one of the other posters termed it recently.
 
It's not overrated. It's just that the rest of Morrissey's work is underrated. :)

totally agree there! I used to think I didn't rate some of the Queen is Dead Songs, but then I got the DVD of Salford Uni gig (1986), and now I love all that stuff!.

(even vicar in a tutu!)


I am a living sign
 
Worm, "poor" looks like a strong word to use but writers of the calibre of Moz n Marr should have had the best and most suitable production available. The songwriting is impeccable; to go from Sex Pistols-deluxe (title track) to George Formby made sublime ("Some Girls..") with classics in between is as good as it gets.
However, the album feels to me a bit like a child kept indoors on a hot afternoon ("Ask" ref. not intended), as if M&M knew the songs were special and therefore tried too hard to get them right. I'd like it to breathe a bit more, feel a bit wilder.
I like the album very much! Shoo-be-do.
 
Worm, "poor" looks like a strong word to use but writers of the calibre of Moz n Marr should have had the best and most suitable production available. The songwriting is impeccable; to go from Sex Pistols-deluxe (title track) to George Formby made sublime ("Some Girls..") with classics in between is as good as it gets.
However, the album feels to me a bit like a child kept indoors on a hot afternoon ("Ask" ref. not intended), as if M&M knew the songs were special and therefore tried too hard to get them right. I'd like it to breathe a bit more, feel a bit wilder.
I like the album very much! Shoo-be-do.

Yeah, that's a fair criticism. I wouldn't change a note on the album but, at the same time, I do love the harder-edged, less precious versions as played live ("Rank"). The atmospheric effects used for the album's sensuous layering, as beautiful as they are, slightly ponce up some otherwise thunderous songs. I guess it's one of those things where the imperfections become dear to you over the years.

The distinction you made is interesting, also, because I think it really underscores what was so amazing about Morrissey and Marr as songwriters. The somewhat diluted quality of the studio songs when placed next to the raw versions, seen in the contrast between "The Queen Is Dead" versus "Rank" or "The Smiths" versus the BBC sessions, shows not just how great they are, which we already knew, but how living and vital they are, as if on the records they are merely ghostly echoes of live performances. Every studio recording that has a live version floating around doesn't necessarily suffer in comparison, but its status as the original is undermined and shaken a little. For me there is never an original of a Smiths song-- tracing it backward always leads to Morrissey, Marr, Rourke, and Joyce playing it live. Perhaps this is why the demise of The Smiths was doubly bitter: not only would there be no more songs, but those that existed were perfected only by the presence of their authors, they lived through Morrissey and Marr. The songs are still great without them, but great only as frozen counterfeits of a vanished and unrecoverable series of conjurations, lasting about seventy or eighty minutes at a time, which magically occurred for a few years in the mid-Eighties...
 
YouTube for "Bigmouth" (the one with Moz in jacket and tie), "Sheila.." & "Shoplifters.." all live on tv shows. That's unsurpassable Smiths. It shows that at least some of the later material could have been recorded live with one guitar. Raw, like the '68 Comeback Special.
So, I'll produce Morrissey's next album. One drummer. One bass. One acoustic guitar. One lead guitar.
*Superstar Tradesman by The View*
 
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