Are you more of a Morrissey or a Smiths fan ?
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andy_fozzy
Banned
Harsh Truth said:A question was posed...... and I gave my answer! There is something to be said for brevity, no?
Just my sense of humour controlling me again my friend.
I have nothing better to do with my time than to type redicularsely long messages.
Just humour me, and I'll shut up.
heatrowguy
Junior Member
Morrissey. No question. I'm only 18 so wasn't even alive when the Smiths were around. It was Morrissey who saved me. Whether it was Morrissey post-87 or Morrissey pre-87 it was the voice, the words and the 'soul' of Morrissey. And will be forever.
That's the thing with the Smiths. The lyrics were just as much his as his solo stuff regardless of the tune. Which he has been blessed with a fair few crackers, both pre and post strangeways.
That's the thing with the Smiths. The lyrics were just as much his as his solo stuff regardless of the tune. Which he has been blessed with a fair few crackers, both pre and post strangeways.
Worm
Taste the diffidence
andy_fozzy said:Christ, imaging let's say, Simon Le Bon singing in The Smiths
Ha! The idea of a LeBon/Marr union will give me nightmares. I'm sure I'll wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, terrified that Marr will have left The Smiths only to indulge in a string of mediocre collaborations. Then I'll clutch my "Boomslang" CD to my chest in sweet, soothing relief and say "No, it was just a dream, it was all just a bad dream".
I would never in a million years suggest Morrissey didn't stamp himself all over The Smiths, from the singing to the words to the images he chose. I just meant to say that together with Mike, Andy and Johnny, he was part of a single, cohesive band that, in my opinion, you can't really separate into parts. "Chemistry" is a cliche, I know, but I believe that bands live or die by it.
andy_fozzy
Banned
Worm said:
Yet another superb post.
How do you do it worm??
andy_fozzy
Banned
dazzak said:
Don't be jealous Daz.
I'm sure one day you'll post something interesting.
Ambrosia
Oh my sacred one...
It's a good question...Well, I should reply I'm a Smiths fan, but it wouldn't be totally right: it's true, I've discovered Moz solo records only later, just like almost everybody else, but I can't say if I could be fascinated by the Smiths without Moz. Good rhythm, catchy bass lines and jingle-jangle guitar can't be enough. Genius in music imo is having personality and without his lyrics, his tormented sensibility, his charisma and his extraordinary suggestive voice, I'm not sure at all I would have become a Smiths fan. Anyway Smiths records are masterpiece, I've no doubt about it. But some Moz's albums are underrated imo and usually people can't help comparing them to Smiths ones. So, when a record is good, critics or fans often say: "Oh, finally a song at Smiths level!". It's a too relative judgement and so sometimes having been Smiths leader can be an handicap too for Moz. And we could never know whether Moz's genius without Smiths could have been discovered or not. Moreover, it's not his fault if sometimes music in his solo albums isn't that good. He doesn't write it, does he? But he's an peerless genius all the same...
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Tony the Pony
Junior Member
tender hooligan said:
Hear, hear!
Maybe with a liiittle overweight onto Moz, since I'm utterly fascinated by him as a character.
prisoner77
Member
The Smiths simply the greatest pop songs of the 80's no one will ever touch them, Morrissey has evolved but you can't write lyrics as well when your living a life of luxury, he still has the gift of the gab but it's just not as interesting
AlbertFinney
Member
Being a Smiths fan prior to Moz's solo career my first love will always be the Smiths.
My feelings towards Morrissey are consistent but for me, Johnny was a better composer than Morrissey's other collaborators and Andy Rourke also provided the best basslines.
I think that those who are saying Morrissey would have made it with or without The Smiths may be correct. Morrissey has such a distinctive voice and obviously amazing lyrics that he was destined for some kind of stardom. The Smiths sounded and looked so fantastic and different from everything that came before them that it's difficult to imagine Morrissey having the impact that he did if he'd hooked up with lesser musicians instead.
I'm not knocking Morrissey's current musicians as I'm a big fan but musically they aren't as consistently special as The Smiths were.
My feelings towards Morrissey are consistent but for me, Johnny was a better composer than Morrissey's other collaborators and Andy Rourke also provided the best basslines.
I think that those who are saying Morrissey would have made it with or without The Smiths may be correct. Morrissey has such a distinctive voice and obviously amazing lyrics that he was destined for some kind of stardom. The Smiths sounded and looked so fantastic and different from everything that came before them that it's difficult to imagine Morrissey having the impact that he did if he'd hooked up with lesser musicians instead.
I'm not knocking Morrissey's current musicians as I'm a big fan but musically they aren't as consistently special as The Smiths were.
Worm
Taste the diffidence
Great post, Albert. I'm mostly in agreement.
When speculating on whether or not Morrissey would have made it without Johnny, the answer is probably "Yes, he would have", but the real question is "In what form?" Because although Morrissey may have found other songwriters, Marr was the one with whom he had a very special affinity. When you read about the rapport they established, it's apparent that it was more than just Johnny's strumming that appealed to Morrissey. It's as if they both had the same plans to conquer the world-- and not only the shared ambition, but the same strategy, the same idealism.
So it's easy to imagine Morrissey hooking up with other band-mates, but how would that have sounded I wonder? Mediocre? Exceptional? Good but in a different way, with more experimental sounds, like Magazine or something? It's easy to look back and wonder about what Morrissey would have done without Marr, but I think we're conditioned to think of it in a context which Morrissey and Marr created. Morrissey's solo music has followed Marr's template-- as he said the other day, "you don't change horses mid-stream". You'd have to go back to '82 and imagine the scene before Marr started writing material.
My guess is, Morrissey would have joined some fringe musicians around Manchester and had a career like Howard DeVoto's. (No knock on the amazing Howard...!) Johnny didn't merely provide a life-line to get out of his bedroom and into the music shops and the concert halls, he also fueled Morrissey's ambition to write widely popular songs that the masses would love. Together they had a vision to go with their talent-- would Morrissey have had that vision without Marr? And, again, what kind of music might he have done? Would he have sounded like The Buzzcocks? Talking Heads? The Bunnymen maybe?
What if he had never met a guitarist, but a synth player had showed up instead? As in Chris Lowe of the Pet Shop Boys (hello, Dazzak). I wonder how his lyrics would have sounded over a disco beat-- sure, an unlikely scenario, but you never know. Clearly the synth guy would have had to convince Morrissey that passionate music was possible using technology, but who knows, it might have been possible to do that. Morrissey might even have recorded a few singles and then gone guitar. The parallels to Neil Tennant aren't many but they're intriguing-- smart, witty writers who also dabbled in music journalism, brought a more sophisticated edge to pop music-- who's to say Marr didn't take away one of the world's great synth pop vocalists?
When speculating on whether or not Morrissey would have made it without Johnny, the answer is probably "Yes, he would have", but the real question is "In what form?" Because although Morrissey may have found other songwriters, Marr was the one with whom he had a very special affinity. When you read about the rapport they established, it's apparent that it was more than just Johnny's strumming that appealed to Morrissey. It's as if they both had the same plans to conquer the world-- and not only the shared ambition, but the same strategy, the same idealism.
So it's easy to imagine Morrissey hooking up with other band-mates, but how would that have sounded I wonder? Mediocre? Exceptional? Good but in a different way, with more experimental sounds, like Magazine or something? It's easy to look back and wonder about what Morrissey would have done without Marr, but I think we're conditioned to think of it in a context which Morrissey and Marr created. Morrissey's solo music has followed Marr's template-- as he said the other day, "you don't change horses mid-stream". You'd have to go back to '82 and imagine the scene before Marr started writing material.
My guess is, Morrissey would have joined some fringe musicians around Manchester and had a career like Howard DeVoto's. (No knock on the amazing Howard...!) Johnny didn't merely provide a life-line to get out of his bedroom and into the music shops and the concert halls, he also fueled Morrissey's ambition to write widely popular songs that the masses would love. Together they had a vision to go with their talent-- would Morrissey have had that vision without Marr? And, again, what kind of music might he have done? Would he have sounded like The Buzzcocks? Talking Heads? The Bunnymen maybe?
What if he had never met a guitarist, but a synth player had showed up instead? As in Chris Lowe of the Pet Shop Boys (hello, Dazzak). I wonder how his lyrics would have sounded over a disco beat-- sure, an unlikely scenario, but you never know. Clearly the synth guy would have had to convince Morrissey that passionate music was possible using technology, but who knows, it might have been possible to do that. Morrissey might even have recorded a few singles and then gone guitar. The parallels to Neil Tennant aren't many but they're intriguing-- smart, witty writers who also dabbled in music journalism, brought a more sophisticated edge to pop music-- who's to say Marr didn't take away one of the world's great synth pop vocalists?
hatfull
HIM-full
As many other people have said, it was The Smiths for me before Morrissey, but I have phases where I listen to The Smiths, and phases of listening to Morrissey more. Even after all these years, I still find little new bits that make me fall in love with The Smiths all over again. It is just the way the whole band worked together. All of the layers just made this group that touched me in a way no other band have ever managed. The way they developed over the albums still amazes me!
Morrissey still amazes me today. Just when I think I've figured out where he's going, it changes again, and I love listening to the journey he's still going on. I know a lot of people arn't fans of YATQ or ROTT, but I love them. ROTT took me ages to really get into, but even when I wasn't sure how I felt about it, I admired the fact that yet again, he'd gone off down another path, and he was the only one who had any idea where it was going. Can't wait for the next album!!
Morrissey still amazes me today. Just when I think I've figured out where he's going, it changes again, and I love listening to the journey he's still going on. I know a lot of people arn't fans of YATQ or ROTT, but I love them. ROTT took me ages to really get into, but even when I wasn't sure how I felt about it, I admired the fact that yet again, he'd gone off down another path, and he was the only one who had any idea where it was going. Can't wait for the next album!!
David
Member
I love The Smiths a lot, but I loved Morrissey's solo work first so it'll always have preceedence for me. That being said, The Smiths were so much more consistent. Let's be honest, Morrissey has done some bad stuff (Kill Uncle for me is particularly poor), and The Smiths' much was I would say about 99% perfect, but the good greatly outweighs the negatives in the solo catalogue.
Danny
Senior Member
Worm said:
He would have done very similar type of music. Musically the Smiths weren't that different to other indie bands of the time.
Look at Marr's career since the Smiths. He is a chameleon. He tends to adopt the style of whoever he is working with. Morrissey had a lot of input into the type of music the Smiths played. It was just as much his vision as Johnny's. Johnny has said as much.
Worm
Taste the diffidence
Danny said:
Very good point about Morrissey's influence on Marr-- you're completely correct-- but I don't for a second think the music of The Smiths wasn't "that different" than other indie music at the time. Maybe I just can't hear it because I like The Smiths too much, but I can't recall a single band that sounded like them. People used to say Orange Juice, which I can hear a little, but otherwise they seemed fairly original in 1983. M & M spoke far more often about the influence of pre-punk artists like Sandie Shaw, The Rolling Stones, The Byrds, The Marvelettes, and others of that kind, and conversely seemed to try and distance themselves from peers like New Order. Which bands do you think they sounded like?
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