The Smiths / YMMV - TV Tropes

Americans Hate Tingle: Though they had a substantial cult that continues to this day, The Smiths were never as huge in America as they were in their native England. The American underground was already preoccupied with another jangly guitar outfit (who themselves initially struggled to break the U.K. market).
Anvilicious:
- The title track from Meat Is Murder, to the point where it's alienated more than a few people from listening to the album or even the band as a whole. Fans who are more sympathetic to Morrissey's animal rights stance might argue that "some anvils need to be dropped."
- "Suffer Little Children" appears to blame the entire city of Manchester for the Moors murders.
Awesome Music:
- Albums: The Queen Is Dead and Strangeways Here We Come, both debated between critics, fans, and Morrissey and Marr as their peak.
- Songs: "How Soon Is Now?", "The Headmaster Ritual", "The Queen Is Dead", "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore", "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out", "This Charming Man" and so many others.
Ensemble Dark Horse: There a quite a few songs that fans love, but which were never released as singles, including "The Queen Is Dead", "Paint a Vulgar Picture", and "The Headmaster Ritual".
- There are a host of lesser-known Smiths songs, often B-Sides, which fans like a lot, such as "Half a Person", "Rubber Ring", "You Just Haven't Earned It Yet Baby", "Unloveable" and "Stretch Out and Wait".
Epileptic Trees: Morrissey predicted the death of Princess Diana.
- Some of the connections Marrissey shippers come up with about song meanings can also verge on this.
Epic Riff: "How Soon Is Now?", "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now", "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want", among many others.
- The epic funk bass riff on "Barbarism Begins at Home".
- The opening of "Still Ill" is very nice.
- Most of "This Charming Man" is centered around one.
Fandom Rivalry:
- With The Cure, thanks in no small part to the feud that Morrissey had with Robert Smith back in the day.
- Another rivalry exists between Smiths fans and R.E.M. fans, on account of the fact that both bands were pioneering jangle-pop bands from the 80's, yet at the same time the two of them had radically different sounds from one another (R.E.M. specializing in arpeggio-based guitars and tangy, reedy vocals, and the Smiths specializing in riff-based guitars and ethereal, crooning vocals).
Fanon Discontinuity: Some fans ignore Morrissey's solo work, especially after his controversial statements in the '10s.
Fridge Brilliance:
- The phrase "Paint a Vulgar Picture" is from Oscar Wilde, who wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray... about a man who sells his soul for eternal youth.
- In "I Started Something I Couldn't Finish", he never actually says the full title of the song, just the first half - he starts it, but doesn't finish.
Friendly Fandoms: With 10,000 Maniacs, due to a similar Jangle Pop style and for fans who are sympathetic to Morrissey's animal rights stance, having a former lead singer (Natalie Merchant) who is also a vocal vegetarian activist.
Genius Bonus: The band developed a reputation of using quotes from various literary works (particularly Shelagh Delaney's plays and other "kitchen sink"-era works) for their lyrics that would fly over the average listener until someone else points them out. This led to the band being accused of plagiarism and "Cemetry Gates" being written in response.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The Smiths are still the most popular band on the East Side of Los Angeles, owing to regular airplay on KROQ-FM.
Growing the Beard: Their self-titled debut was well-received but noted as poorly produced. Meat is Murder had better production but also more filler and narm, not to mention that the album title and title track frequently receive criticism among certain circles for their alienating nature. The Queen is Dead had both good production and a consistently good tracklisting, and as such is considered by many to be their best. Their last album, Strangeways, Here We Come, while not achieving the status of its predecessor, is regarded by the band as their musical peak, has lovely production and several stellar songs.
Harsher in Hindsight:
- "Paint a Vulgar Picture" gets less amusing and more depressing with every best-of album. It'll hit rock bottom when Morrissey becomes the dead star himself.
- "Bigmouth Strikes Again" became a lot more awkward after the late 2010's, when Morrisey received heavy backlash from Smiths fans for making a number of highly controversial sociopolitical statements and actions during that time and acting very defensively about them.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- "Paint a Vulgar Picture" just gets funnier and funnier (or sadder and sadder) with every compilation.
- Johnny Marr changed his name to avoid confusion with John Maher, the Buzzcocks' drummer. Mike Joyce later became the Buzzcocks' drummer.
Ho Yay: Plenty of lyrics reference or allude to gay issues or gay culture, as well as Morrissey and Johnny's interactions during the band's tenure. (Moz being Ambiguously Gay doesn't hurt.)
- The gay subtext in the Smiths' output could be the subject of dissertations, while there's a small but strong community of Marrissey shippers online. In fairness, Morrissey did have a solo album named after a phrase in Polari.
- Stand-out gay Smiths Songs: Handsome Devil ("A boy in the bush is worth two in the hand"), These Things Take Time ("I'm spellbound, but a woman divides"), Pretty Girls Make Graves ("I'm not the man you think I am") and This Charming Man ("This man said "it's gruesome that someone so handsome should care"").
Memetic Mutation:
- Prior to Andy Rourke's passing, debates about whether The Smiths would ever reunite came off as this. Every time there was speculation about a reunion, since either Morrissey, Johnny Marr or both would just deny it all while saying several reasons as to why there wouldn't be a reunion, either annoying fans to no extend or making some laugh.
- A meme around the time of the anniversary of Meat Is Murder was a copy pasta, the formula being "a smiths reunion but with [x] as the new frontman to piss off Morrissey, who obviously didn't want to cooperate": Suggested singers included Robert Smith, David Cameron, and The Queen. There were in fact a number of Smiths memes on the relatively small Tumblr community, now mostly dead due to copyright claims by Paul Slattery, the most prominent probably being Milk Juice, MorrisseyMakingNoises.mp3, Moobissey and FlowerBoy55.
- Among anti-monarchists, the Title Track of The Queen Is Dead became popular to reference after the death of Elizabeth II in 2022, with many joking that the Smiths predicted the event or that, since the queen in question is now dead, the song is now a Trivially Obvious statement.
Most Wonderful Sound: Morrisey's voice in general is very pleasing and melodious. "How Soon Is Now" also has a unique guitar riff that's impossible to forget.
Narm:
- "Meat Is Murder", especially those synthesized animal death sounds and the cheesy pitch-manipulated backing vocals.
- The chorus of "The Headmaster Ritual", which consists solely of "NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NEE-YAY" repeated ad-nauseum.
  Vinny: Alright Morrisey, we get it. You make funny noises with your mouth.
- Part of the bridge of "A Rush and a Push and the Land Is Ours": RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRA!
- Some of "Reel Around the Fountain" comes across like this.
- The second half of "Barbarism Begins at Home" consists mainly of Morrisey's moaning of "LADILADA LADILADA NO NO NO".
Nightmare Fuel:
- The creepy laughter in the middle of "Suffer Little Children". The subject matter of the song doesn't help in the slightest.
- The title track of Meat is Murder is a pretty creepy and very disturbing song, featuring a dissonant intro with distorted guitars and muffled animal groans, which are also abruptly featured at the end. The track's lyrics are also disturbing, evoking the pain that animals suffer when they are being prepared to be eaten. As anvilicious as the song is, the content is pretty disturbing, especially for those who are vegans.
  Morrissey: Do you know how animals die?
Signature Song: Quite a few, including "How Soon Is Now?", "This Charming Man", "Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want" and "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" and especially "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out".
Sophomore Slump: Meat Is Murder, which — despite containing two of their best known songs, "How Soon Is Now?" (as a bonus track in US edition only) and "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore" and fan favorites "The Headmaster Ritual", "Barbarism Begins at Home" and "Nowhere Fast" — is still considered their least enjoyable record due to the amount of filler surrounding those five songs. As mentioned before, it's also seen as their most alienating album on the basis of the heavily-anvilicious title track. Still an excellent album and critically acclaimed.
Wangst: While some of their songs are definitely angst-ridden, this has been seriously exaggerated by people who miss the humor in Moz's lyrics. Electronic (Johnny's next band, a side-project of Bernard Sumner from fellow Manchester alternative rock band New Order) took some pot shots at this in their song "Getting Away With It".
The Woobie: The protagonist in "How Soon Is Now?", who seems to have some sort extremely introversion, possibly even a condition like Asperger's Syndrome, and is alone and miserable as a result. Particularily sad are the verses:
"There's a club if you'd like to go. you could find somebody who really loves you. So you go and you stand on your own, and you leave on your own, and you go home, and you cry and you want to die."
[...]
"When you say it's gonna happen now, when exactly do you mean? See I've already waited too long, and all my hope is gone."

YMMV / The Smiths

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