The Queen Is Dead - The Smiths (1986)

This is me addressing possibly the biggest blind spot I’m willing to acknowledge. “Hate” is a strong word, especially in an artistic context. It always irks me when people say they “hate” a particular band or song or genre or whatever. But my feelings for The Smiths are pretty close to hate and have been for decades.

It’s not because they’re not good musicians. Johnny Marr was more or less a member of Modest Mouse for some time and did great work with them. It’s not that the songwriting is bad. I don’t love all these songs but there are plenty of good ones.

It’s partly that every time I read anything about Morrissey, it seems to be about him being a misanthropic shitheel.

It’s partly to do with the worship of the band by friends in my formative years, I imagine. People I admired (or envied, or hated, or lusted after, or whatever; I was a confused kid) made The Smiths a part of their identity in ways that made strong associations for me. I suppose I’m not going to unpack how fucked up I was at around 16 or 17 in a public post. But I admit that my judgements are seldom to do with the quality of The Smiths’ music and more to do with my associations about it. It’s the opposite end of same thing that makes me love when I hear a Poison song, even though I find it objectively pretty trash. I’m not hearing the song; I’m hearing the previous version of me processing the song.

OK, so an attempt to be objective: The Queen Is Dead, Bigmouth Strikes Again, and Vicar In A Tutu are pretty legitimately awesome tunes that I do myself a disservice when I refuse to listen to.

Frankly Mr Shankley and The Boy With The Thorn In His Side are tunes I’m more justified in not liking. Whiny vocals, too-clever lyrics, and not much to make it musically interesting. Even that is likely not an objective judgement, but I’ve taken this hypothetical out for a spin this morning and I’m ready to put it back in the garage for another ten to twenty years.