Youre in luck, I have actually and everyone says she looks exactly like me but with long hair. She's just got married but I'll still ask her.
You do that, I just hope you look quite effeminate otherwise I'll be taking a trip down memory lane when going with birds that looked like blokes was the accepted norm. It's a squaddie thing. And favourite LP is The Queen is Dead.
All of The Smiths' albums are near perfect, bar Meat Is Murder (not a massive fan, a few of the songs such as This Joke Isn't Funny Anymore, Barbarism Begins At Home and Headmaster Ritual are great but overall I don't like it as much). Can't choose which is the best LP as it interchanges between the other 3 studio albums and Hatful of Hollow. Strangeways seems to be a very underrated album but is probably the best on a lyrical and technical level, and Paint A Vulgar Picture is a beautifully ironic song considering the number of Smiths reissues. Always had a massive fondness for the debut, Reel Around The Fountain and Suffer Little Children are fantastic start and end songs, and that mid-album run of This Charming Man, Still Ill, Hand In Glove and What Difference Does It Make? is great. The Queen Is Dead is an album to lose yourself in; it has depth, focus and some great tunes. It's easy to see why the album is held in such high esteem and why, a decade later, it became a key influence for all things Britpop and why people such as Noel Gallagher cited it as a major influence. Personal fave Smiths song atm is probably either I Started Something I Couldn't Finish or You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby, but again that changes pretty often. Not a fan of Moz. His solo stuff is crap imo. I like Marr's stuff though. ps. Agro....
My name actually is William, by the way. Beautiful coincidence really. Though is it really so strange? But by all means, you can stop me if you think youve heard that one before.
Think Morrissey’s solo career peaked with Your Arsenal then artistically declined after Vauxhall & I. In the late ‘90s, barely no **** wanted to know him (bar his devoted fans) around that time. The Smiths, were largely seen as unimportant too – to young people in general – unlike now – also was quite common for him to be slagged off in the 90s – the ‘racism’ allegations/the Bowie tour and countless new musicians ready to say he was irrelevant. Despite a couple of borderline decent ish albums after Vauxhall, it was the Irish Blood/English Heart album (can’t remember its proper name) where I really lost interest and pretty much everything I’ve heard from then and since I’ve held in different degrees of contempt. I cannot think of a single weak Smiths’ song (even the James cover and the other covers) - haven’t listened to them for years though (apart from in my head). Apart from the music, one of the greatest things The Smiths provided me with (as I was just a child from those ugly new houses) was a pathway to other great stuff I might not have heard, read or seen. Still had to work for it though, no internet back then.
The Queen Is Dead does have some of their very best work on there, such as the sublime and mis-spelt Cemetry Gates, but it's the whacky, music hall songs that I don't warm to. Im thinking primarily of Frankly Mr Shankly and Some girls are bigger than others. For me they detract from the rest of the genius. My favourite song is probably Last Night I dreamt that somebody loved me. If one song somes up everything they ever stood for with desperate yet hopeful lyrics and a swooning musical score then this is it.
Lets all take a moment to just appreciate that Hull isn't in the top 50, nevermind the top 10 and it isn't getting bad press.......for once
Look let's cut to the chase: - back then if you were going out on a Saturday night, you wouldn't put miserable Mozz on while you were getting ready. There was better stuff in the charts, the dance music scene was thriving, the indie/alternative scene was vibrant, you name it - it pissed on the 'staying in' ethos of the Smiths. Altered Images, Level 42, Lloyd Cole, Alexander O'Neal, New Order, Grandmaster Flash, Rockers Revenge, even Simple Minds pre Live Aid era. In later years, in more reflective moments, one learned to savour the arpeggios of Marr and the finely-wrought phrases of Morrissey, but back then you ended up with a bespectacled obese indie munter at Spiders if you confessed to liking the Smiths.
I have never ever understood the idea that The Smiths and particularly Morrissey were / are miserable or depressing. If you think that you're not listening properly.
If I'd have realised that confessing to liking the Smiths would have got me off with a bespectacled obese indie munter, I'd have shoved a hearing aid in me back pocket and carried a gladioli years ago. Now you tell me.