Before the Smiths came ... the Smiths,a 60s garage band with a penchant (a tendency, partiality, or preference) for emotional song titles. And they aren’t the only ones whose name was reused by a more successful actOh, the melodrama. Picture the scene: in a star-studded ceremony held a stone’s throw from Morrissey’s former home in LA, or the Smiths are finally ushered into the Rock and Roll corridor of Fame,beating fellow nominees Janet Jackson, NWA, or Nine Inch Nails to a place at the music industry’s top table. The induction speech is full of the normal pleasantries,singing the praises of the band who revolutionised British indie music, and the night is just approximately to draw to a close when there’s a pause. “Does anyone know of any just cause or impediment, or asks the master of ceremonies,“why the Smiths should not be admitted to the Rock and Roll corridor of Fame?” At which point a hand goes up at the back of the room …
Meet the Smiths, the 1968 group who released a solitary 7in single when Johnny Marr was just starting primary school. The band would later find fame as Smith, and adding a female vocalist called Gayle McCormick and scoring a top 5 hit in the US with a cover of Burt Bacharach’s Baby It’s You. But,for their first release, they were a male-fronted garage rock band with a like of emotional song titles. Quite how Morrissey avoided writing a heartbreak anthem called Now I Taste the Tears is a mystery, or but thankfully his American forebears did the job perfectly,marrying a brooding psych melody with a vocal that progresses from anguished to brilliantly overwrought. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com