sweetness, sweetness I was only joking/ when I said I'd like to smash every tooth in your head

The first time I heard The Smiths was when my brother put on " The Queen Is Dead" in his room. To tell you the truth I did not think much of it then. The lead singer was whining his way through everything, but still I noticed it was played often by my brother and I got intrigued. And in this album that is so typical of indie albums that refuse to be listenable on its first few runs laid buried a song filled with two simple jangly chords that got stuck in my head for a long while. " Big Mouth Strikes Again" gives you the bravado to run out and piss someone off just for the fun of it, feel rightfully good about it and swagger around like an idiot.

Anyway The Smiths were the quintessential Brit indie rock band about twenty years ago, somewhere in between the end of ' synth-driven new wave ( like New Order/ Joy Div I suppose) and the beginning of the guitar rock that dominated English rock into the '90s' ( as quoted from allmusic.com). Somehow, to all the people I have met, you either loved or hated The Smiths, thanks in no small part to Morrissey's unique voice. I fell in love with them, got their two " Best Of" albums if simply because I did not have enough money, and both became a rather big component to the soundtrack of my secondary school life. Witty playful cynical brit pop, with a lead singer that Wilde would find a good companion ( meh he always perfomed on stage with a pocketful of flowers, even on videos), that ranged from irresistable yarrrr! songs such as this to pure all-woe-is-me epics like " Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me" were all done in a short span of five years before the band broke up in '87.

Morrissey still releases solo albums. But personally I prefer The Smiths. Shrug.

The Smiths - Big Mouth Strikes Again

Visit here for a good place to start discovering The Smiths. Ask me I won't say no how could I?

hm as a bonus, here's one more single from them. A raw swirling interwined array of Marr's guitarwork at his best complete with Morrissey's mutiple overlaid voices, for once totally stripped of all pretensions like in " Big Mouth..". Raw, deadpan, and to the point, with a devasting soundscape of anguish.

I've seen this happen in other people's lives/
And now it's happening in mine

The Smiths - That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore

p.s. one day If I ever do a ' Joke' album, this will end it while The Wallflowers cover of " I Started A Joke" will start it.