The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead (1986)

I've come to reflexively distrust any album that I'm about to listen to if it was made in the 1980s. Like I've said before, something happened to rock music that made almost all of it ridiculous. Hair metal was a complete joke and punk and heavy metal were too busy being extreme and off-putting to create interesting music. Then there's The Smiths. According the Wikipedia, which is always correct, The Smiths play "alternative" rock. Reading up on "alternative" rock, the original genre idea in the 80s was underground rock bands outside the mainstream. So it's sorta like "indie" music- at one point it might have had a real definition, but now it just means any band who plays exactly the type of song any other band in that genre plays.

The Smiths' brand of "alternative" sounds very similar to lots of other bands out of the 80s. Heavy reverb and echo while still sounding relatively sharp, and some wispy-sounding guy with a British accent on lead vocals. Somehow no matter the song, even if it contains a hopping tempo and is generally upbeat, it always winds up feeling really maudlin. That could just be my anti-80s bias seeping out, but I don't know.

I think of that Simpsons episode where Homer takes Bart and Lisa to Hallapalooza. Lisa says Smashing Pumpkins' depressing music is really getting to the crowd, and Bart remarks that depressing teenagers is like shooting fish in a barrel. Maybe the alternative scene of the mid 80's just hit upon that idea I've been talking about lately- to many people generic "sad" music gets labeled as beautiful and deep, even if it's really boring and lifeless.

The Smiths show a bit of life later in the album when they shift from 5 or 6 minute tracks that extend uninteresting instrumentals for way too long to shorter sweeter acoustic based songs. But it's not really that interesting, except for... Did I hear this lyric right? Did he really sing, "Poo comes rolling down the banister" in the first verse of "Vicar in A Tutu"? Well, they had one interesting thing to say on this album.

At least they didn't go nuts with synthesizers. 2 stars.

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