Track Listing

1. Reel Around The Fountain
2. You've Got Everything Now
3. Miserable Lie
4. Pretty Girls Make Graves
5. The Hand That Rocks The Cradle
6. This Charming Man
7. Still Ill
8. Hand In Glove
9. What Difference Does It Make?
10. I Don't Owe You Anything
11. Suffer Little Children

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11332 in Music
• Released on: 1990-10-25
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.com essential recording
With their debut album, the Smiths launched an all-too-brief, but profound career that, largely owing to their outspoken lead singer, would be enshrouded in controversy and cultlike devotion. Lyrically, Steven Patrick Morrissey waxed haute poetic about homosexuality ("Hand in Glove") and child murders ("Suffer Little Children"). Musically, this album kicked a hole through the lip-glossed synth-pop that dominated the early-'80s music scene. Still cloaked in the lingering influences of New Romantic new wave and Clash-like punk, this album, like most great rock debuts, represents the group at its most raw and stark. But the core elements of the Smiths' sound, rooted in Morrissey's subtly off-key, morose crooning and nearly freeform lyrical arrangements floating over guitarist Johnny Marr's plucky, concise guitar riffs, are well-established here. The rhythm section displayed a similar relationship: Andy Rourke's mobile bass lines seemed almost to disregard any supportive undertones they could have lent to Mike Joyce's straight-ahead, no nonsense drum patterns. All the tugging and pulling worked brilliantly, cementing the sound that made the Smiths a landmark band of the 1980s. --Beth Bessmer

Customer Reviews

"I'm not the man you think I am"
Anyone who still doubts the raw, cathartic power of the Smiths should listen to this album. Specifically, they should listen to "Pretty Girls Make Graves." They should listen to Johnny Marr's rattled, lopsided guitar chords, to the menacing squirm of the bass line, to that Merseybeat-via-Ramones drum performance. But most of all, they should listen to Morrissey. They should take in every dip and curve of his voice, to the spooked sophistication of his falsetto, the ghostly rumble of the opening verse. His performance is a masterpiece of emotional release, a steady rush of wit and desperation. Like Frank Sinatra and Johnny Rotten before him, Morrissey knows how to extract real meaning from his lyrics, how to stretch and tease and twist language, how to express emotion through sheer sound. Of course, it doesn't hurt that the words are great, too. The lyrics are pure shattered poetry, full of perfectly placed images and rhymes and cadences. In a few tortured verses, Morrissey presents a harrowing portrait of adolescent sexual frustration, evoking the associated self-doubt and passive aggression with gut wrenching poignancy. The last few lines ("I could've been wild and I could've been free/ But nature played this trick on me/ She wants it now/ And she will not wait/ But she's too rough and I'm too delicate/ Then on the sand/ Another man/ He takes her hand/ A smile/ Lights up her stupid face, and well it would/ I've lost my faith in womanhood") are among the most painfully honest and brutally cathartic lyrics ever composed. The song is an absolute masterpiece, and it isn't even the best track on this album.

That honor belongs to "This Charming Man." There's not much I can say about it (unless you want me to reallllly start rambling, and nobody wants that) except that it's one of the most perfect pop songs in the history of mankind. If it doesn't make your spine tingle, you don't have a spine.

And then there are the other nine. "Reel Around The Fountain" is one of the few Morrissey songs to deal explicitly with sex, and it tackles the subject beautifully: It's a languid, ambiguous musical haze, with lyrics that betray a mind both innocent and poetically filthy ("I dreamt about you last night/ And I fell out of bed twice/ You can pin and mount me/ Like a butterfly"). "Miserable Lie" and "Still Ill" are scorching portraits of youthful disaffection, and "The Hand That Rocks The Cradle" is both gorgeous and creepy. "Hand In Glove" and "What Difference Does It Make" are (along with "This Charming Man") the album's resident singles, and they're among the best of the 1980s. "Suffer Little Children" closes the album on a beautiful, apocalyptic note. Beautiful and apocalyptic. That's a good summary of the whole record, actually. Get it.

IMHO, This is one of the best records of the 80's
I had the pleasure of seeing the Smith's in 1984, shortly after their self titled debut. Still being a teen, I didn't fully appreciate this record. At the time, my favorite bands tended to be from more popular sounds - primarily the last throngs of new wave such as the Missing Persons, X, Police, Oingo Boing, etc. While I enjoyed the record, I didn't grasp its brillance & simplicity. This record was so different in its day, there was really nothing like it.

Furthermore, I didn't fathom their show as being the pinnacle, despite attending many concerts & festivals on two continents during that period, searching for the latest and greatest alternative music. I challenge you to name more than a handful of bands who was making better altnerative music than the Smiths during the 80's.

This record is a must for serious alternative music fans. In my opinion, its the best Smith's record by a long shot. It is also one of the cornerstones for the foundation of the modern alternative movement. As I listen to this record now, it sounds even more honest and genuine than it did 20 years ago. It took a lot of guts to release this album, as it was so different for its time, so intraspective. I've owned other Smith albums, but the others come across as so much more commercial. I suppose the uncompromising nature of this record is what amazes me.

THE album that changed my life!
1984. The year I was supposed to graduate from high school but I did not. I had to make up a phys-ed class worth 1/16th of a credit. All because I got an "F" because I told the drunk and vile phys-ed teacher to F***off. I was in-the-closet in high-school, suicidal, lonely, and this phys-ed teacher made it clear that he hated fags. Back then teachers - any teacher - could get away with anti-gay remarks.

This album, with its unabashedly homo-erotic cover art and covertly gay references - was what saved me not only that year but became the essential soundtrack for the rest of my life. It has become the album I come back to always -- more than any other Smiths or Morrissey work. I use to think the other later works from the Smiths and Morrissey were my "favorite" but over time it is this album that I find is the most sharply-focused and has the most "soul".

The Village People, David Bowie, Boy George, and others toyed with and were coy about sexuality, androgyny, and homosexuality - but to me The Smiths and this album in particular was the first real honest, and unabashedly direct about being homosexual. Gay life whether it was laid out in romantic longings and sentiments, or pure outright lust, were given equal (i.e., to "straight" love) and forthright treatment for the first time in my musical experience. The directness of the music, the way the instruments were played, and the production were a perfect match.
If you can distill Morrissey's and the Smiths sound, this work would be 95% proof. Others may say the production is so-so but I disagree. The sound is crisp, the drums and cymbals are tight, the entire album appears to have been played with such an alacrity - no other Smiths or Morrisey work seems to have such a directness about it.

Put on a really good set of headphones and listen to this album, there is no muddiness at all on this work. You hear the guitars, bass, drums, and voice - all distinct yet oh-so-drop-dead-gorgeously intertwined. The music is played so head-on that you get a sense that there is no sense or room for pretense. There is something almost classically baroque about the over-all structure of the songs and melodies that I find gives this album a "classical" and enduring feel to it. The later Smiths/Morrissey works tend to have a more theatrical or orchestral feel to them that while beautiful and grand seems to somehow rely too much on electronic drapery ("How Soon Is Now" being a lead example) you go back and listen those songs and then go back this album, their most seminal work in my humble opinion.

Now I LOVE all of The Smiths/Morrisey's work but their debut album to me is lyrically, musically, rhythmically, vocally, politically, socially, romantically, sexually, and spiritually, their most honest, direct, and purest to who they are/were. I'm not a rock critic but to me this album never ceases to amaze me that every time I listen to it, I always think what a little miracle this album really is - dare I say it is one of the most brilliant and miraculous musical points in rock history.