Album of the day (#2580): Louder Than Bombs by The Smiths - Music

albummaster
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Location: Spain
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Today's album of the day

Louder Than Bombs by The Smiths (View album | Buy this album)
Compilation

Year: 1987.
Country:

Overall rank: 509
Average rating: 82/100 (from 436 votes).

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Tracks:
1. Is It Really So Strange?
2. Sheila Take A Bow
3. Shoplifters Of The World Unite
4. Sweet & Tender Hooligan
5. Half A Person
6. London
7. Panic
8. Girl Afraid
9. Shakespeare's Sister
10. William, It Was Really Nothing
11. You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby
12. Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now
13. Ask
14. Golden Lights
15. Oscillate Wildly
16. These Things Take Time
17. Rubber Ring
18. Back To The Old House
19. Hand In Glove
20. Stretch Out & Wait
21. Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want
22. This Night Has Opened My Eyes
23. Unloveable
24. Asleep

About album of the day: The BestEverAlbums.com album of the day is the album appearing most prominently in member charts in the previous 24 hours. If an album, or artist, has previously been selected within a x day period, the next highest album is picked instead (and so on) to ensure a bit of variety. A full history of album of the day can be viewed here.

HoldenM
To Pedantically Split Infinitives

Gender: Male
Age: 29

Compared to the other big compilation from The Smiths, Louder Than Bombs is crazy overrated. What it lacks in cohesion, it makes up for by being a near-perfect collection of songs.

Track picks
4. Sweet & Tender Hooligan
5. Half A Person
10. William, It Was Really Nothing
12. Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now
13. Ask
24. Asleep
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CharlieBarley

Gender: Male
Age: 48
Location: Mount Olympus

The album that got me into the Smiths. I had a taped copy, on cassette, and I used to cycle to College and to my part-time job, and I played it all the time, on my Walkman. There are so many good tracks. Its a really special album. I now own a vinyl copy of it.

Yann

Gender: Male
Location: France

Stover75 wrote:

The album that got me into the Smiths. I had a taped copy, on cassette, and I used to cycle to College and to my part-time job, and I played it all the time, on my Walkman. There are so many good tracks. Its a really special album. I now own a vinyl copy of it.

Me too, my first Smiths album. Great band for a european teenager. Now I find Morrissey's voice monotonous. Or is it the notes themselves ?

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

Albummaster strikes again? Think

Curious timing Cool

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RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

AfterHours, if you don't mind I'll quote you and put this here. Too well written not to?

Quote:

The Smiths are black comedy and very theatrical. Their humor is also very British. Their songs generally run the gamut between Chaplin-esque comedy & sweet folly/romance (and probably literary figure(s) I'm not so familiar with) with dark undertones to them about the ultimate futility of life. Their "emotional" songs (such as I Know It's Over and There's a Light that Never Goes Out) aren't meant to be taken entirely seriously, but as partially serious/partially satirical of the "woe is me" persona we'd now call "emo". They're black comedies about the never-ending folly and futility of life/romance. Their pop songs tend to have a classicist/baroque-like perfection to them, perfectly wound like clockwork, each element progressing in a unified and effortless legato of verse-chorus-verse, wherein the chorus section seems to progress very naturally from the verse (as opposed to a more sudden, erupting cadence). The jangly guitar work tends to have an endless coloration and melodic framework and teasing or lyrical (or sometimes haunting/suspenseful) sense that is swirling among or around the singer as if a vibrant, lyrical representation of the momentum of his ideas/poetry/comedy, brightly/darkly staging or igniting the theater/scene. Hilariously, his lyrics often have amusing puns, asides, and references to the current UK, old English life and poets, etc.

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

sethmadsen wrote:

AfterHours, if you don't mind I'll quote you and put this here. Too well written not to?

Quote:

The Smiths are black comedy and very theatrical. Their humor is also very British. Their songs generally run the gamut between Chaplin-esque comedy & sweet folly/romance (and probably literary figure(s) I'm not so familiar with) with dark undertones to them about the ultimate futility of life. Their "emotional" songs (such as I Know It's Over and There's a Light that Never Goes Out) aren't meant to be taken entirely seriously, but as partially serious/partially satirical of the "woe is me" persona we'd now call "emo". They're black comedies about the never-ending folly and futility of life/romance. Their pop songs tend to have a classicist/baroque-like perfection to them, perfectly wound like clockwork, each element progressing in a unified and effortless legato of verse-chorus-verse, wherein the chorus section seems to progress very naturally from the verse (as opposed to a more sudden, erupting cadence). The jangly guitar work tends to have an endless coloration and melodic framework and teasing or lyrical (or sometimes haunting/suspenseful) sense that is swirling among or around the singer as if a vibrant, lyrical representation of the momentum of his ideas/poetry/comedy, brightly/darkly staging or igniting the theater/scene. Hilariously, his lyrics often have amusing puns, asides, and references to the current UK, old English life and poets, etc.

Sure, fine with me Smile

Not intended as an extensive or detailed evaluation though -- just key, general bullet points that tend to show up in much of their best work, most prominently on The Queen is Dead.
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Yann

Gender: Male
Location: France

sethmadsen wrote:

AfterHours, if you don't mind I'll quote you and put this here. Too well written not to?

Yes, I much appreciate Afterhours rich prose too!
About the Smiths, and as a rapper (I don't remember who, perhaps the guy from Outcast) who liked them once noticed: it's like poet with somehow a (very good) band in the back. So the problem (if it is one) may come from the mix: the vocals a bit too much ahead, so that it does not blend with the music enough ? (although on Strangeways, its a bit less so)

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

Yann wrote:

as a rapper (I don't remember who, perhaps the guy from Outcast) who liked them once noticed: it's like poet with somehow a (very good) band in the back.