Quantum Reviews: "The Queen is Dead" By the Smiths
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Greetings! This is the first of hopefully many weekly reviews ranging from music to movies, games to books that I will post on my facebook page, my myspace page, and my ultimate-guitar page (only music reviews will go to the later for obvious reasons). My goal is simple, to get noticed!!! I want nothing more than to be a music critic and I hope that someone will read my review, enjoy it, and then pass it on to someone else, and they can pass it on until it winds up in the laps of someone from SPiN or NME and I get a big fat pay cheque and can start doing lines of blow off the back of $50,000 dollar a night prostitutes and... I forgot where I was going with that... Anyhow I will do one review a week, probably on a Monday or Tuesday, well with that said, I hope you enjoy my review this week of the Smiths' critically acclaimed album "The Queen is Dead".
I had never heard a Smiths' album or even a Smiths' song until I purchased this album because it was this album that everyone said is a "must own". In fact "The Queen is Dead" frequently tops Best Alternative Albums and was named "Most Important Album of the '80's" by SPiN magazine. This combined with Five stared ratings by both Rolling Stone and NME made it the most logical choice to start off with and it was met with a resounding "meh".
Judging from most people I've talked to in the past about Morrissey and the Smith's it seems like you either love or hate them, something I fully understand and sympathize with now. As I said earlier I've never heard a Smiths' song before and "The Queen is Dead" is the fourth entry into their catalogue so maybe there's something in the other three albums that I'm missing. The only thing I knew going into listening to "The Queen is Dead" is that Morrissey is some kind of reincarnation of Oscar Wilde as far as wit goes. To his credit he is a very witty writer and the song "Frankly, Mr. Shankly" nearly had me in tears of laughter. That song being the only song on that album that didn't seem to be about loneliness actually brightened my spirit so for that, the album does succeed and begins to slightly earn it's keep. However the gold star I gave it for the song "Frankly, Mr. Shankly" is nearly immediately taken off with the nearly six minute track "I Know it's Over". This is one thing that progressive bands do that annoy me, the drag songs out to the point where I want to break out a bottle of champagne to celebrate finishing it in it's entirety. Maybe it's because at a young age I was raised on catchy three to four minute radio friendly rock songs that I just don't possess the brain capacity to comprehend it's awesomeness when I see it. Or maybe perhaps it's because my head is shoved so far up my own ass that I can actually hear it for what it is, shit. (Note: This doesn't apply to all Prog rock/metal bands, some of them like "The Devin Townsend Band and Tool do a good job at at least making their longer songs rock from beginning to end.)
Anyhow getting back to the lyrics of "The Queen is Dead" which is probably the saving point and reason for it's perfect scores and place in Alternative Rock history. Yes I will admit that Morrissey is a very good writer, he portrays loneliness in an interesting and witty way, but the problem is that's all he really knows. Every song on this album was about loneliness in one way or another except for "Frankly, Mr. Shankly". However just when you think that Morrissey has found something else to write about, he goes back to his mournful boring self. Now I just want to clarify one thing, Morrissey's loneliness isn't a moaning, wining, in the vain of Dashboard Confessional or Panic! At the Disco (Who I can easily see as being GREATLY influenced by Morrissey.) Morrissey's writing is similar to the loneliness you experience after you remember the happy moments of someone you lost, even though it hurts to think about it, you still like to think about them because of the joy it brings you, if that really makes any sense at all, loneliness is a complicated thing to describe properly.
Morrissey's writing is complimented by Johnny Marr's interesting and very '80's sounding music. His use of major chords and snyths adds a poppy, radio friendly sound that masks the lyrics unless you pay extra close attention when listening to the songs (this is excluded for the song "There is a Light that Never Goes Out" because it just sounds sad no matter what.) The use of a pitch-shifter in the songs "The Queen is Dead(Take Me Back to Dear Old Blightly) creates a weird feeling that perplexed me instead of intriguing me. Luckily it was used sparingly in the two songs that it's in and after awhile I didn't really notice it. The album contains more complex music arrangements that are properly used and fit well with the lyrics, however the songs themselves I found to be stagnant and boring.
With my review drawing to an end I'm finding it hard whether or not I would recommend it. If you've listened to the other three Smiths' albums or any of Morrissey's solo and found the enjoyable then by all means I would say that getting "The Queen is Dead" is not the worst thing you could buy. However if you've never heard of The Smith's or Morrissey or have no interest in '80's alternative rock then I don't see "The Queen is Dead" giving you any epiphanies. I've been an alternative rock fan most of my life and this album opened no doors into a brave new world of music. The only thing it did was give me reason to doubt perfect reviews, not that I needed more proof to do that. However if you enjoy today's emo music and you're interested in where all your new forever miserable singers got their inspiration from, this is a great album to start with. If you're not interested in emo music or it's routes but still want at least one recommended song it would have to be the songs "Frankly, Mr. Shankly" and "There is a Light That Never Goes Out".
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