Smiths, The

The Year Of The Smiths

Comment by Barney Hoskyns, The Virgin Yearbook, 1984

GAY MEN PAVED pop’s way this year. With Boy George’s wardrobe fully open, all the closet cases came spilling forth: Burns and The Bronskis, Frankie ...

The Smiths: Fox Theater, Detroit

Live Review by Bill Holdship, Creem, December 1986

IT ALL BOILS down to the collapse and decay of the British Empire. You could blame it on Margaret Thatcher. Or on Joy Division. Or ...

Ridiculous and Wonderful: The Smiths/The Go-Betweens at the Venue, London

Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, NME, 1983

TWO STRANGELY jarring acts from Rough Trade, one increasingly abstruse, t'other ever more open, engaging. ...

The Smiths

Interview by Adrian Deevoy, International Musician, October 1983

Here come The Smiths smiling, brandishing their blooms and being hotly pursued by ADRIAN DEEVOY, our very own handsome devil. ...

The Smiths: Keep Young and Beautiful

Interview by Bill Black, Sounds, November 1983

BEFITTING A BAND verging on greatness, the Smiths have a keen sense of their own history. ...

The Smiths: Deliberately

Interview by Jon Savage, Sunday Times, January 1984

THESE ARE EXCITING times for the Smiths. A top 20 record with only their second single, ‘This Charming Man’; a non-stop stream of interviews that ...

These Disarming Men: The Smiths

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, NME, February 1984

"...the touching and bewitching songs that open hearts and purses. Art. Great Art." – Jean Genet, Funeral Rites ...

The Smiths: Hits And Myths

Interview by Dave Rimmer, Smash Hits, February 1984

From "severe starvation" to chart success without ever once ironing a shirt. Yes friends, says Dave Rimmer, it can be done! ...

The Smiths: Lyceum, London

Live Review by Max Bell, Times, The, February 1984

DESPITE THEIR PROSAIC NAME, the Smiths are very much the band of the moment. Six months ago this Mancunian four-piece were breaking out of the ...

The Smiths: The Smiths (Rough Trade)

Review by Don Watson, NME, February 1984

"And if you must go to work tomorrow Well, if I were you I wouldn't bother" ('Still Ill') ...

The Smiths and Echo & The Bunnymen: The Smith and the Bunnyman

Interview by Mark Cooper, No.1, April 1984

No.1 brings together two of rock's most charismatic singers... and two of its biggest egos as well!" ...

Not the Jones: Morrissey

Interview by Roy Trakin, Musician, June 1984

AMERICA MAY HAVE been charmed by Boy George, but it's more difficult to imagine it embracing the Smiths and their poetic singer/writer Morrissey, the U.K.'s ...

The Smiths: The Smiths

Review by Dave DiMartino, Creem, June 1984

THE SMITHS believe that it is possible to replenish appetites of both the soul and the pelvis simultaneously. That is: they might, but then again, ...

The Smiths: Morrissey A Suitable Case For Treatment

Interview by Biba Kopf, NME, December 1984

THE RECORDING of the new Smiths LP has been one of the season's better kept secrets. ...

Morrissey interviewed

Interview by Tom Hibbert, Smash Hits, January 1985

"MEAT IS MURDER!" That's the message from Morrissey. A message he's "madly serious" about. He's so serious, in fact, that The Smiths are just about ...

The Smiths: Meat Is Murder (Rough Trade)****1/2

Review by Bill Black, Sounds, February 1985

STEAK YOUR CLAIM ...

An Infamous Interview With Stephen Patrick Morrissey

Interview by Antonella Black, Sounds, April 1985

You have stars in your bath. They just fall off me... ...

Antonella Strikes Again: Morrissey Revisited

Interview by Antonella Gambotto, ZigZag, May 1985

Absurd Person Singular Antonella grapples with the shining Morrissey, now larger than life than ever before. Is there any offal truth to discover? ...

The Smiths: Dreamer In The Real World

Profile and Interview by Nick Kent, Face, The, May 1985

To his father, he was a "complete fruitcake," to his contemporaries "the village idiot". Yet in the treacherous image-bloated clone-zone of pop, his is the ...

The Smiths: Meat Is Murder (Sire)

Book Excerpt by Richard Riegel, Creem, June 1985

EVEN THOUGH I happen to think that this group's debut disc was one of the best albums of 1984, I'm afraid that they may be ...

The Smiths: Meat Is Murder; The Associates: Perhaps

Review by Barney Hoskyns, New Statesman, Spring 1985

MORRISSEY OF The Smiths is still the unlikeliest pop star of all. Watching him jerk and flounder about on Top Of The Pops last week, ...

The Smiths: We'll Meat Again

Profile and Interview by Dave DiMartino, Creem, February 1986

"I MUST BE QUITE HONEST," announces Morrissey of the Smiths. "I can understand that people can find me very irritating. And I accept that to ...

The Smiths: The Queen Is Dead (Rough Trade)

Review by Nick Kent, Melody Maker, June 1986

THIS IS NEITHER the time nor the place to indulge in trivial banter; suffice to say that The Smiths' peculiar career manoeuvres, which have caused ...

The Smiths: Newcastle Mayfair

Live Review by Len Brown, NME, August 1986

WE'RE HUDDLED together (2000 of us) in the home of heavy metal, witnessing the early disturbed sound of 'Bigmouth'. But thankfully they're just warming up; ...

The Smiths: London Palladium

Live Review by Mat Snow, NME, November 1986

IN THE FOOTSTEPS of such music-hall and variety greats as Tommy Trinder, Ted Ray and Jimmy Tarbuck, tonight The Smiths tread these venerable boards to ...

The Smiths: Strangeways, Here We Come

Review by Len Brown, NME, September 1987

"MAN THAT is born of woman hath but a short time to live and is full of misery. He cometh up and is cut down ...

England: Look Back In Anguish

Essay by Mark Sinker, NME, January 1988

"Oh, grassy dale and lowland scene/Come see, come hear the English Scheme!" (The Fall)"You might sleep, but you will never dream/Oh, Manchester! So much to ...

Hate Male

Interview by Len Brown, NME, July 1988

The Smiths were "like a life-support machine" to Morrissey. Without STEPHEN STREET – co-writer/producer of Viva Hate – it's conceivable that Les Miserable himself would ...

I Was A Juvenile Axe-Attacker: Craig Gannon

Retrospective and Interview by Len Brown, NME, March 1989

From THE SMITHS to THE ADULT NET, THE BLUEBELLS to THE COLOURFIELD and not forgetting AZTEC CAMERA… CRAIG GANNON has played with them all, and ...

Morrissey: The Soft Touch

Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, December 1989

Your fans are fiercely loyal but always "with an aura of love and gentleness". You’re being sued by two former band members but accept it ...

Morrissey: The Deep End

Interview by Nick Kent, Face, The, March 1990

Walking backwards into the Nineties, has Morrissey finally lost all sane 'focus' on his career? ...

The Smiths' Backpages

Retrospective by Ian Fortnam, Vox, June 1997

They were the darlings of the '80s bedsit generation, a loner, a muso and their mates who created British Pop pretty much from scratch. Ten ...

This Disarming Man: In Defence of Morrissey

Retrospective by Djuna Parnes, Rock's Backpages, September 2001

WHAT A CURIOUS POSITION Morrissey holds in the pop firmament of the early 21st century. For a man who was one of the defining heroes ...

The Backpages Interview: Johnny Marr

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, September 2001

Rock's eternal sideman steps into the spotlight with The Healers – and talks to Barney Hoskyns about life as an ex-Smith. ...

The Smiths: No Time Like The First

Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, June 2004

Britain in the early '80s: New Romantics, pencil 'taches and Phil Collins. Then came The Smiths. The tale of their first ever gigs by Johnny ...

Morrissey

Interview by Adrian Deevoy, GQ, October 2005

The former Smiths frontman has had "20 very odd years": from indie outsider to LA's least typical expat, via court battles and enjoying self-imposed exile. ...