The Smiths
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The Smiths
The Smiths were an English rock band formed in Manchester in 1982. They comprised the singer Morrissey, the guitarist Johnny Marr, the bassist Andy Rourke and the drummer Mike Joyce. They are regarded as one of the most important acts to emerge from the 1980s British independent music scene. The Smiths signed to the independent label Rough Trade Records in 1983 and released their first album, ''The Smiths'', in 1984. They based their songs on the songwriting partnership of Morrissey and Marr. Their focus on a guitar, bass, and drum sound and a fusion of 1960s rock and post-punk was a rejection of the synth-pop sound that was predominant at the time. Several Smiths singles reached the top 20 of the UK Singles Chart, and all their studio albums reached the top five of the UK Albums Chart, including the number-one album ''Meat Is Murder'' (1985). They achieved mainstream success in Europe with ''The Queen Is Dead'' (1986) and ''Strangeways, Here We Come'' (1987), both of which en ...
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Stretford
Stretford is a market town in Trafford, Greater Manchester, England. It is situated on flat ground between the River Mersey and the Manchester Ship Canal, south of Manchester city centre, south of Salford and north-east of Altrincham. Stretford borders Chorlton-cum-Hardy to the east, Moss Side and Whalley Range to the south-east, Hulme to the north-east, Urmston to the west, Salford to the north, and Sale to the south. The Bridgewater Canal bisects the town. Within the boundaries of the historic county of Lancashire, Stretford was an agricultural village in the 19th century; it was known locally as ''Porkhampton'', due to the large number of pigs produced for the Manchester market. It was also an extensive market-gardening area, producing more than of vegetables each week for sale in Manchester by 1845. The arrival of the Manchester Ship Canal in 1894, and the subsequent development of the Trafford Park industrial estate, accelerated the industrialisation that had begu ...
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Andy Rourke
Andrew Michael Rourke (born 17 January 1964) is an English musician, best known as the bassist of the Smiths. He is known for his melodic approach to bass playing. Career Rourke's father was Irish while his mother was English. He received an acoustic guitar from his parents when he was seven years old. At the age of 11 he befriended the young John Maher (soon to be Johnny Marr) with whom he shared an interest in music. The pair spent lunch breaks in school jamming and playing on their guitars. When Marr and Rourke formed a band, he invited Rourke (still then a guitarist) to try on bass, which he fell in love with and has stuck with ever since. Rourke left school when he was 15. He passed through a series of menial jobs and played guitar and bass in various rock bands, as well as in the short-lived funk band Freak Party, with his schoolfriend Johnny Marr. Marr later teamed up with Morrissey to form the Smiths. Rourke joined the band after its first gig, and remained through m ...
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Independent Music
Independent music (also commonly known as indie music or simply indie) is music that is produced independently from commercial record labels or their subsidiaries, a process that may include an autonomous, do-it-yourself approach to recording and publishing. The term ''indie'' is sometimes used to describe a genre (such as indie rock and indie pop), and as a genre term, "indie" may or may not include music that is independently produced, and many independent music artists do not fall into a single, defined musical style or genre and create self-published music that can be categorized into diverse genres. The term 'indie' or 'independent music' can be traced back to as early as the 1920s after it was first used to reference independent film companies but was later used as a term to classify an independent band or record producer. Record labels Independent labels have a long history of promoting developments in popular music, stretching back to the post-war period in the United ...
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Patti Smith
Patricia Lee Smith (born December 30, 1946) is an American singer, songwriter, poet, painter and author who became an influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album '' Horses''. Called the "punk poet laureate", Smith fused rock and poetry in her work. Her most widely known song is " Because the Night", which was co-written with Bruce Springsteen. It reached number 13 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart in 1978 and number five in the UK. In 2005, Smith was named a Commander of the ''Ordre des Arts et des Lettres'' by the French Ministry of Culture. In 2007, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On November 17, 2010, Smith won the National Book Award for her memoir ''Just Kids''. The book fulfilled a promise she had made to her former long-time partner Robert Mapplethorpe. She placed 47th in ''Rolling Stone'' magazine's list of 100 Greatest Artists published in December 2010 and was also a recipient of the 2011 Polar ...
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Steven Morrissey
Steven Patrick Morrissey (; born 22 May 1959), known professionally as Morrissey, is an English singer and songwriter. He came to prominence as the frontman and lyricist of rock band the Smiths, who were active from 1982 to 1987. Since then, he has pursued a successful solo career. Morrissey's music is characterised by his baritone voice and distinctive lyrics with recurring themes of emotional isolation, sexual longing, self-deprecating and dark humour, and anti-establishment stances. Born to working-class Irish immigrants in Davyhulme, Lancashire, Morrissey grew up in nearby Manchester. As a child, he developed a love of literature, kitchen sink realism, and 1960s pop music. In the late 1970s, he fronted punk rock band the Nosebleeds with little success before beginning a career in music journalism and writing several books on music and film in the early 1980s. He formed the Smiths with Johnny Marr in 1982 and the band soon attracted national recognition for their epony ...
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The Smiths Logo
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with pronouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of pronoun ''thee'') when followed by a v ...
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Rank (album)
''Rank'' is the only standalone official live album by English band the Smiths. It was released a year after the band’s breakup in September 1988 by their British record company Rough Trade, and reached No. 2 in the British charts. In the United States, the album was released on Sire Records and made No. 77. Background ''Rank'' was released as a contractual obligation. It was recorded almost two years earlier on 23 October 1986 at National Ballroom in Kilburn, London, and is a fourteen-track distillation (of 21 songs) by singer Morrissey from the complete concert recording that had earlier been transmitted by BBC Radio 1. The album rode high on the Smiths nostalgia and the success of Morrissey's debut solo album, ''Viva Hate'', earlier the same year. The songs omitted from the recording of the Kilburn show are: "I Want the One I Can't Have", "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out", "Frankly, Mr. Shankly", "Never Had No One Ever", "Meat Is Murder", and "How Soon Is Now?" Also ...
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European Albums Chart
The European Top 100 Albums chart was the European adaptation of the ''Billboard'' 200 albums chart. It ran from March 1984 until December 2010. Also commonly referred to as Eurochart Top 100 Albums, the chart showcased the sales of an act in 19 European countries based on IFPI data. The European Top 100 combined album sales (both retail and digital) of new and older albums. The methodology was different from the US ''Billboard'' 200, where albums would only be allowed to chart if they weren't 18 months old. If an album older than 18 months had enough sales to enter the 200 chart after having already dropped out of the 100th position, it would chart on The ''U.S. Billboard'' Catalog Albums. Later ''Billboard'' reviewed the criteria and decided the older albums would also be allowed to chart in the 200, as it should show what's being sold. The chart update and issue dating followed the rules of the ''Billboard'' 200: sales tracking week began on Monday and ended on Sunday. A new ...
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Strangeways, Here We Come
''Strangeways, Here We Come'' is the fourth and final studio album by English rock band the Smiths. It was released on 28 September 1987 by Rough Trade Records, several months after the group had disbanded. All of the songs were composed by Johnny Marr, with lyrics written and sung by Morrissey. ''Rolling Stone'' said the record "stands as one of their best and most varied". ''Slant Magazine'' listed the album at No. 69 on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980s", writing that "Whether or not ''Strangeways, Here We Come'' ended the Smiths' brief career with their best album has been the subject of considerable debate for nearly a quarter century, but it definitively stands as the band's most lush, richest work." The album reached number two on the UK Albums Chart, staying in the chart for 17 weeks.David Roberts ''British Hit Singles and Albums'', Guinness World Records Limited The album also became an international success, peaking at number 16 in the European Albums Chart; from ...
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The Queen Is Dead
''The Queen Is Dead'' is the third studio album by English rock band the Smiths. Released on 16 June 1986 in the United Kingdom by Rough Trade Records, and on 23 June 1986 in the US by Sire Records, it spent 22 weeks on the UK Albums Chart, peaking at number two. It also peaked at number 70 on the US ''Billboard'' Top Pop Albums chart, and was certified Gold by the RIAA in late 1990. The album was produced by frontman Morrissey and guitarist Johnny Marr, working predominantly with engineer Stephen Street, who had engineered the band's previous album ''Meat Is Murder'' (1985). Marr wrote the music for several songs that appeared on ''The Queen Is Dead'' while the Smiths toured Britain in early 1985, working out arrangements with bassist Andy Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce during soundchecks.Kent, Nick. "Isolation". ''Mojo Classic: Morrissey and the Story of Manchester''. 2006 The title of the album is from Hubert Selby Jr.'s 1964 novel ''Last Exit to Brooklyn''. The cover art ...
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Meat Is Murder
''Meat Is Murder'' is the second studio album by English rock band the Smiths, released on 11 February 1985 by Rough Trade Records. It became the band's only studio album to reach number one on the UK Albums Chart, and stayed on the chart for 13 weeks. The album was an international success: it spent 11 weeks in the European Top 100 Albums chart, peaking at number 29. It also reached number 110 on the US ''Billboard'' 200, in the United States. Writing and recording After the band's 1984 debut studio album, lead vocalist Morrissey and guitarist Johnny Marr produced the album themselves, assisted only by engineer Stephen Street. They had first met Stephen Street on the session for "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" and requested his contact number. Officially, the record's production is credited to "The Smiths". To build the album's soundscape, Morrissey provided Marr and Street with his personal copies of BBC sound effects records from which to source samples.Goddard, S, 2013 ...
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UK Albums Chart
The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts Company (OCC) on Fridays (previously Sundays). It is broadcast on BBC Radio 1 (top 5) and found on the OCC website as a Top 100 or on UKChartsPlus as a Top 200, with positions continuing until all sales have been tracked in data only available to industry insiders. However, even though number 100 was classed as a hit album (as in the case of The Guinness Book of British Hit Albums) in the 1980s until January 1989, since the compilations were removed this definition was changed to Top 75 with follow-up books such as The Virgin Book of British Hit Albums book only including this data. As of 2021, the OCC still only tracks how many UK Top 75s album hits and how many weeks in Top 75 albums chart each artist has achieved. To qualify for the Offi ...
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