Louder Than Bombs

Product Information

The catalog wouldn’t have looked better—it wouldn’t have sounded better, because another reason why the Smiths sound so timeless is because some of their recordings are relatively amateur. They weren’t trying to record to the standards of the time. They weren’t trying to say, ‘What do we need to do to get on the radio? Oh, we need synthesizers and big booming reverb drums.’ So I see that the amateurness of all of this actually plays into why the Smiths lasted. Could their career have been more successful had they taken their time with albums and not made daft career decisions? Yes, but I’m not sure they would have been as exciting and I’m not sure we would have been as excited by them all these years later.”

Stephen Street – additional drum machine programming on "London", sampling on "Rubber Ring", [18] sound effects on "Asleep" [19] Goddard, S, 2013. Songs That Saved Your Life - The Art of The Smiths 1982–87. 2nd ed. U.K.: Titan Books. P. 169. Craig Gannon – rhythm guitar on "Half a Person", "London", "Panic", "You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby", "Ask" and "Golden Lights", lead guitar on outro of "London", [14] mandolin on "Golden Lights" [15] Goddard, S, 2013. Songs That Saved Your Life - The Art of The Smiths 1982–87. 2nd ed. U.K.: Titan Books.Larkin, Colin (2007). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (4thed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195313734. Goddard, S, 2009. Mozipedia: The Encyclopaedia of Morrissey and the Smiths. 1st ed. India: Ebury Press. P. 227.

But such diverse influences and personalities proved to be a difficult balance; soon there was something even greater than tension and creative differences driving the Smiths apart. Despite enjoying a rabid cult fan base in the United States and their massive popularity in the U.K., the band’s label Sire/Reprise wasn’t properly promoting the Smiths to get them onto the Billboard charts, let alone the cover of Rolling Stone.

Contributions

It wasn’t the first or last time Delaney served as an inspiration for the Smiths. She’d previously graced the sleeve for the band’s “Girlfriend in a Coma” 7-inch, and Morrissey used the plot to A Taste of Honey for the song “This Night Has Opened My Eyes,” which was recorded exclusively for a 1983 John Peel session, initially featured on the group’s first singles compilation Hatful of Hollow (1984), and one of the true highlights of Louder Than Bombs. And to think this is supposed to just be a collection of unreleased duds and B-sides? I mean what duds, and also if this were just B-sides why the hell are so many of their all-star singles here? It perplexes me still to understand how this compilation came to be, less still do I care when it's as fantastic as this. But The Smiths undeniably ushered in a brave new era for the singles compilation in ’87 by doubling the length of their contemporaries’ works. Goddard, S, 2013. Songs That Saved Your Life - The Art of The Smiths 1982–87. 2nd ed. U.K.: Titan Books. P. 222. Goddard, S, 2009. Mozipedia: The Encyclopaedia of Morrissey and the Smiths. 1st ed. India: Ebury Press. P. 149.

Louder Than Bombs: The Smiths in Ireland, Nov '84 airs on RTÉ Radio 1 on Saturday 19 August at 2pm and will also be available online. John Porter – slide guitar on "Sheila Take a Bow", sound effects on "Ask", [16] drum machine and bass guitar on "Golden Lights" [17] For my money, The Smiths are the greatest singles band ever. So, the fact that this is a collection of previously released songs (and b-sides at that) and not a proper album means very little to me. The important thing is that these are really strong songs and there's a lot of them.Sire released Louder Than Bombs as a cassette and double-vinyl set on 31 March 1987 (a CD edition would follow in May). It was reviewed with gusto by the US music press (Spin magazine wrote, “This well-sequenced double album collection of new recordings and single sides previously unavailable on a US LP is the ultimate Smiths statement as it compiles most of their peak moments”), whose endorsements helped the album earn a gold certification.

Goddard, S, 2013. Songs That Saved Your Life - The Art of The Smiths 1982–87. 2nd ed. U.K.: Titan Books. P. 171. The second instalment of Documentary on One will air on Saturday 26 August at 2pm on RTÉ Radio 1 and "will look at polyamory, the practice where a couple encourages each other to form romantic attachments with other people". Cavanagh, D, 1993. Irreproachable: The Smiths: the very best of British?. Q Magazine, 1 December 1993. Morrissey, meanwhile, dove headfirst into his solo career with the release of Viva Hate in ’88, the first in a long succession of recordings under his own name that continues to bear fruits to this very day. Joyce and Rourke would link up with Sinead O’Connor just in time for work to begin on her seminal second LP I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, while Joyce also played drums on Julian Cope’s 1991 masterpiece Peggy Suicide.

and yet, this is my most listened release. sure it's missing some of their absolute best material but as I've mentioned previously, no Smiths album is wholly complete, except for Complete, but in terms of an album format, I find that one rather... impractical, considering it's literally everything they ever wrote smashed together without reverence to cohesion, brevity, or purpose. Johnny Marr – guitars, piano, harmonica, slide guitar on "Panic", [11] mandolin on "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want" and "Golden Lights",