Ask. The Smiths. 1986. Rough Trade.

 After re-recording the best songs from their debut record for re-release on the singles compilation Hatful of Hollow the Smiths went on to become an almost perfectly accomplished musical unit. By the time of 1985’s Meat Is Murder Morrissey’s struggle with giving shape to a satisfactory vocal style had been resolved, and, though technically it was no match for Johnny Marr’s guitar virtuosity, it was the voice of generational romanticized dissatisfaction his dedicated followers wanted to hear. What followed was a flawless string of releases that remained unbroken until the group’s dissolution in 1987. Released just months following the outrageous success of The Queen Is Dead, Ask is so exultant in mood that it makes its LP predecessor sound claustrophobic in contrast. Descended from their brilliant singles This Charming Man and William, It Was Really Nothing, Ask is “mature” by comparison, meaning its lyric is more concise, less detailed, and even contains a pair of couplets that rank with the genius lyricist’s finest. On the Smiths’ debut record Morrissey sang from the perspective of romanticism as a sickness, which, if pushed to extremes, it will most certainly become. He also developed a taste for provocation which is what he’s probably most remembered for today.  Taken together, both positions left the artist on the defensive, wasting his creative energies on the sort of humorless rhetoric that he claims put him at the center of a contemporary debate on “cancel culture.” What he’s apparently incapable of understanding, having isolated himself in self-pity and self-absorption, is that justifiable cancellation based on reasons of gross artistic irrelevancy was the only way we could go about getting him to shut the fuck up. Taken from 1987 Sire Records double LP Louder Than Bombs.

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