8 Smiths' albums ranking

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Anonymous

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1. The Queen Is Dead
2. The World Won’t Listen
3. Hatful Of Hollow
4. Strangeways, Here We Come
5. Louder Than Bombs
6. Meat Is Murder
7. The Smiths
8. Rank
 
1. Meat Is Murder (U.K. track listing)
2. Rank
3. Hatful of Hollow
4. Louder Than Bombs
5. The Queen Is Dead
6. The Smiths
7. Strangeways, Here We Come

I never owned The World Won't Listen. It seemed redundant of Louder Than Bombs and The Queen Is Dead.
 
1. Meat Is Murder (U.K. track listing)
2. Rank
3. Hatful of Hollow
4. Louder Than Bombs
5. The Queen Is Dead
6. The Smiths
7. Strangeways, Here We Come

I never owned The World Won't Listen. It seemed redundant of Louder Than Bombs and The Queen Is Dead.

It’s an album of classic A-sides + B-sides.
 
It’s an album of classic A-sides + B-sides.

Yes, but I had all those songs by virtue of owning Louder Than Bombs and The Queen Is Dead. I think the only exception was "Money Changes Everything," of which I had a live version on a cassette copy of a bootleg owned by a friend. I think it was recorded at a Los Angeles show and had Marilyn Monroe on the cover. "I hope security don't ruin your night but I'm sure they'll do their best."

There has been, throughout Morrissey's career, an impulse to "re-issue, re-package, re-package." The one I can appreciate the most is Hatful of Hollow because the production values on the first album are somewhat off. But even better than that one was another cassette copy I had (from the same friend) of (I think) either an earlier recording session or a compilation of demos, but it was most of the songs from The Smiths plus "Handsome Devil," "These Things Take Time," "Wonderful Woman," &c., and they all had a fire and a raw intensity. It was what the first album should've been. I'm sad to have lost it. I don't have any cassettes from my youth anymore except for R.E.M.'s Chronic Town EP.
 
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1. Strangeways
2. Louder than Bombs
3. Meat Is Murder
4. The Smiths
5. The Queen Is Dead
6. Hatful of Hollow
7. Rank

This is tough. I love the top five listed.

Never owned The World Won’t Listen
 
1 strangeways here we come
2 the queen is dead
3 the smiths
4 hatful of hollow
5 meat is murder
6 the world won’t listen
7 louder than bombs
8 rank
 
1 The queen is dead
2 Hatful of hollow
3 Meat is murder
4 Strangeways here we come
5 The smiths
6 Louder than bombs
7 The world won't listen
8 Rank
 
I'll just rank albums and not compilations...

1. Meat is murder (TQID may be *better* but MIM is my #1)
2. TQID
3. Hatfull of hollow (breaking my own rules, agree with @Aubrey McFate - it's what the 1st album should've been)
4. Strangeways
5. The Smiths
6. Rank

I consider Louder Than Bombs & The World Won't Listen to be about even.
 
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1) Hatful of Hollow
2) Louder Than Bombs
3) The Smiths
4) The World Won't Listen
5) The Queen Is Dead
6) Rank
7) Meat Is Murder
8) Strangeways, Here We Come
 
1) The Queen Is Dead
2) Strangeways, Here We Come
3) Louder Than Bombs
4) Hatful of Hollow
5) Meat Is Murder
6) The World Won't Listen
7) The Smiths
8) Rank
 
1. The Smiths
2. Meat is Murder
3. The World Won't Listen
4. Strangeways Here We Come
5. The Queen is Dead... pfft

I don't Rank Rank. It's a live album.
 
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Yes, but I had all those songs by virtue of owning Louder Than Bombs and The Queen Is Dead.
In case you aren't aware, the version of 'Stretch Out and Wait' on 'The World Won't Listen' is completely different (and massively superior) to the one on 'Louder Than Bombs'.
 
In case you aren't aware, the version of 'Stretch Out and Wait' on 'The World Won't Listen' is completely different (and massively superior) to the one on 'Louder Than Bombs'.

I thought I was aware, but isn't the only serious difference vocally? "All the lies that you made up," "On the high-rise estate, &c. Aren't they both acoustic versions? I think the best versions of that song are the live performances on electric guitars. The same is true for "I Know It's Over," which is why I put Rank at number two on my list. The electric version is far superior to the soft, limp album version, especially on the long coda. Morrissey moaning incoherently, Craig Gannon chiming away on the Rickenbacker, and Johnny Marr hammering that glorious, dolorous guitar line into the ground for minutes on end. The live version would be among my very favorite Smiths songs, whereas the studio version would be somewhere in the middle of the list.
 
LEADERBOARD

1/ The Queen Is Dead - 54
2/ Hatful Of Hollow / Meat Is Murder - 48
4/ Strangeways, Here We Come - 46
5/ The Smiths - 40
6/ Louder Than Bombs - 37.5
7/ The World Won't Listen - 29.5
8/ Rank - 21
 
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