SMITHS, THE

one of the most popular and critically acclaimed English bands of the 1980s. The original members were Morrissey (original name Steven Patrick Morrissey; b. May 22, 1959, Manchester, Eng.), Johnny Marr (original name John Maher; b. Oct. 31, 1963, Manchester), Andy Rourke (b. 1963, Manchester), and Mike Joyce (b. June 1, 1963). Prime exponents of British alternative rock, the Smiths were based around the unlikely partnership of singer-lyricist Morrissey (a reclusive bookworm inspired as much by Oscar Wilde as by his glam-rock heroes the New York Dolls) and budding guitar hero Marr. With drummer Joyce and bassist Rourke completing the lineup, the band burst on the and quickly won a cult following with sessions recorded for British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) radio, live shows, and the plangent folk-punk of their debut single, Hand in Glove. Signed to the prominent independent label Rough Trade, the Smiths scored several U.K. hits, notably This Charming Man and What Difference Does It Make? Morrissey's flamboyant stage presence, forlorn croon, and compellingly conflicted persona (loudly proclaimed celibacy offset by coy hints of closeted homosexuality) made him a peculiar heartthrob, and songs such as Still Ill sealed his role as spokesman for disaffected youth. But Morrissey's woe-is-me posture inspired some hostile critics to dismiss the Smiths as miserabilists. After their brilliant eponymous debut and the sparkling radio-session collection Hatful of Hollow (both released in 1984), the Smiths released Meat Is Murder (1985), an uneven album ranging from the ponderous title track's vegan rage to the poignant Well I Wonder. The group's marked shift from the personal to the political, combined with Morrissey's carefully fashioned outsider image, made the Smiths into champions for those alienated by Tory materialism and disgusted by its pop music reflection (glossy, lyrically inane funk and soul). The Smiths' non-rhythm-and-blues, whiter-than-white fusion of 1960s rock and postpunk was a repudiation of contemporary dance pop, a stance emblazoned in the hit single Panic, with its controversial chorus, Burn down the disco / Hang the blessed DJ. After 1986's The Queen Is Dead, their most perfect balance of private angst and public anger, the Smithsfrustrated at the failure of their singles to hit the Top Tenabandoned Rough Trade for the marketing muscle of the major label EMI (in the United States they remained with Sire Records). Shortly before the release of their last album for Rough Trade, Strangeways, Here We Come (1987), the group broke up unexpectedly. Morrissey's solo career started promisingly with 1988's Viva Hate (on which guitar virtuoso Vini Reilly proved a capable Marr surrogate); however, on subsequent singles and Kill Uncle (1991), Morrissey, backed by an undistinguished rockabilly band, dwindled into tuneless self-parody. His muse rallied with the glam-rock-influenced Your Arsenal (1992) and the delicate Vauxhall and I (1994). These albums, and the less impressive Southpaw Grammar (1995) and Maladjusted (1997), testified to a growing homoerotic obsession with criminals, skinheads, and boxers, a change paralleled by a shift in the singer's image from wilting wallflower to would-be thug sporting sideburns and gold bracelets. Despite Morrissey's aesthetic fluctuations during the 1990s, the cult of this true pop original endured. Simon C.W. Reynolds Additional reading Nick Kent, Morrissey, the Majesty of Melancholia, and the Light that Never Goes Out in Smiths-dom, in his The Dark Stuff (1994), pp. 202211, examines Morrissey's unhappy childhood and persecuted adolescence in Manchester, the seedbed for the singer's pursuit of fame as a type of revenge. The essay by Simon Reynolds, Morrissey, in his Blissed Out: The Raptures of Rock (1990), pp.1529, is based on an interview and defends the singer's glamorization of failure, neurasthenia, and unrequited love as a rebellion against the 1980s culture of health and efficiency and compulsory happiness. Jon Savage, Morrissey: The Escape Artist, in his Time Travel: Pop, Media, and Sexuality, 197696 (1996), pp. 257264, compares Morrissey to the hero of Billy Liar, the 1960s novel and film about a doomed dreamer who never leaves his northern England hometown, and analyzes the singer's love-hate relationship with Manchester and his increasing isolation from contemporary pop culture on the eve of the 1990s. Michael Bracewell, England Is Mine: Pop Life in Albion from Wilde to Goldie (1997), celebrates Morrissey, often criticized for his parochial nostalgia for a lost 1960s Britain, as the last of a dying breed of quintessentially English pop aesthetes. Representative Works: The Smiths Morrissey