When James started (when they were doing stuff like Stowaway and What For?) they were a great little band. Hymn from a Village is one of the great tunes of my Mancunian youth!! Yes, Tim Booth is an idiot and yes, by the time the band were playing big venues they had nothing left to say but . . . back in the day, James were alright.
James is one of my favorite bands, like Smiths Pulp and Cure.
Jeff Buckley! what a great singer!
I think Neil Hannon is inspired/influenced by him. I also like The Divine Comedy a lot , especially Casanova and Fin de Ciecle.
well i think the smiths appealed to a certain type of adolescent boy who was just cresting the hormonal tidal wave (rather thin chestedly) at the time ... there was morrisey all androgynous, pale and arty showing his ethereal bones on the telly ... just when those skinny lads were awash with testosterone ... morissey spoke for a generation of willy twiddlers who were miserable cos nobody fancied them ...
I think that is bollocks.
I spent the better part of my adolescence listening to Husker Du and Black Flag and Minutemen. The Smiths were just the only UK band doing anything that made you sit up and listen (or not turn the channel over). Plus they really wound people up. Plus the radio stations hated them. Plus Morrissey was a really amusing lyricist.
Look at me getting all defensive.
I tell you why i dislike them so much... at their height, i was living in spain, having a fantastic time... the smiths, epitomised everything about dreary grey dull old miserable england.. Id be on the dancefloor having a brilliant time (cure, yes) and then the smiths would come on, and id feel dead miserable.
Listening to the Smiths made me feel like a bankrupt with a bill for three grand in my drawer.
'ow do?
Have you ever seen that Woody Allen film Zelig?
When Woody Allen's character keeps popping up in photos of significant moments in history?
Does that remind you of Ralphus O'Dartfiend?
Why only this week Ralphum tells us that he saw George Best play for Fulham and he also saw the Roses at Spike Island.
Did Rulf help Hendrix to roll his joints at Woodstock?
Was the Magna Carter signed with Relf's biro?
Exactly how many arrows did he stop at Wounded Knee?
We have a right to know.
Have you ever suspected anybody of embellishing etc and etc...
Maybe that's the thing. If you were here, you needed bands like Joy Division and The Smiths and The Specials to make sense of - Thatcher, I suppose, and the UK under her. I remember the day Shoplifters of the World Unite came out and - it felt genuinely - shocking: here was somebody SAYING SOMETHING!!
What happened after The Smiths split was sad. Poor Joyce and Rourke getting ripped off by Morrissey and Marr for royalties. When they were together they had an all for one attitude but that all changed. Morrissey turned into a bit of a joke in my book with severe politics as well. He is now a California vegtable. As for Marr, he is still looking for the right band. Mike Joyce runs a fruit stall in Brick Lane.
Reduced circumstances all round I say.
Ralphie
Joy Division were MUCH earlier - and they really did change the face of music.
The smiths, did not. They probably were at the root of a significant amount of suicides tho.
bless ... its ok tho no need to be defensive they were influential on a particular type of boy at the time is all i am saying (i only know this cos boyfriend was/is one and i adore HIM) ... i am not against the smiths ... i adore them too ... i was a student at the time they were first starting and saw them doing numerous student gigs ... they were charismatic and the tunes were good ... i have been several feet away from morissey who had a gigantic bunch of irises in his back pocket ....some of the lyrics still come back to me ... (altho i have alll but replaced them with repetitive lines from simon armitage) ...
a recent telly doc on morissey rather upset my dearly beloved ... the skinny pale icon is now a chubby old chump driving a posh car and living in some hot and trendy city in the states ...
It was gladioli wasnt it titzy? the choice of flower of a dubious person at the best of times i always think.
Now Robert Smith of the Cure... there's a man I admire... his lipstick collection for a start.
I have a theory, which I may have knicked from somewhere. The reason why people do or don't like a particular band are far more complicated than just whether they liek the tune or not.
There are about four reasons why people buy a particular record.
1) They like the tune
2) They are buying it as a reminder of a certain time, place feeling. The music is attached to something in the person's life. Witness summer novelty records brought back from Spain.
3) Peer pressure / critical opinion. They are convinced that they should like it.
4) Lifestyle choice. People like me like music like this so I must buy this music.
At anyone time a choice to consume a certain song, album, artist or genre is a mixture of these four impulses.
I can completely get what Liana is saying about The Smiths, taking these things above into account. There is no objective measure of good and bad when it comes to music.
Stu
Just been around for a while thats all.
Saw Marvin's last ever gig in Britain as well. I also pulled the curtain down on Tommy Cooper when he died of a heart attack on live telly, (I was a theatre technician in those days).
Zelig my @!#$!
Zeitigiest, maybe.
Ralphie
I think Joy Division may have caused as many suicides as the Smiths. If either band could be said to have caused suicides.
And frr the record - I think Joy Division were carrying something on (something started by the Velvet Underground). I think the Smiths actually started something - literate pop music (for want of a more articulate phrase). You can see The Smiths' influence in bands as diverse as Lionrock and REM (both MC Buzz B and Stipe would say Morrissey has influenced them HUGELY).
I live about half a mile from Strawberry Studios where Unknown Pleasures was recorded btw.
Smiths didnt start anything. they wuz rubbish so shut up peter.
Mark, i like your theory.. but i didnt bring home any novelty records from my year in spain. i bought home a novelty nose, all red and thready, but no novelty records.
Christ.
This thread's galloping along like a Napalm Death song.
This proves a theory of mine.
If you put any number of people in their thirties in a room they will eventually talk about either a) The Smiths, b) The Clangers or c) whatever happened to Spangles.
Please feel free to join me in the year 2003 whenever you are ready.
Nah Stu I'm 39.
I started the Cuban Missle crisis as well.
The Smiths, never saw them live.
Paul Weller was in our coffee bar the other day though. His son Nathan's was dancing with his school. I had a word with him of course. Paul famously hated the Smiths and I think Morrissey fancied Paul, anyway Morrissey's version of 'That's Entertainment' sucks.
Ralphie
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