So far off it’s comical? What you smoking? Squire’s biggest influence was Marr, not bands from the 60s, and all members of the two bands were playing in other bands together before they made it big (see here for an overview).
You honestly can’t detect The Smiths in e.g. “Bye Bye Badman”, “Elephant Stone” or “Where Angels Play”?
Re: the “Manchester sound”. Was there ever such a thing? What connects the sound of the Stone Roses with the sound of the Happy Mondays or Inspiral Carpets? I’ve never understood how everybody lumps these groups in together.
Right, and you can’t detect similarities between certain Rolling Stones and Beatles songs?
The Stone Roses were way too original in what they were doing to be called a ripoff of anybody. They essentially started the “Madchester” genre, which the Smiths aren’t even a part of.
I know–it’s a pretty bogus term. It linked together demonstrably neo-psychedelic bands like Ride who weren’t from Manchester with contemporaneous bands from Manchester who weren’t neo-psychedelic like Ned’s Atomic Dustbin or the Sundays.
And then you’d get longstanding bands like James sucked into the faux-category.
All I could say is that it was a very good time for anyone who liked English bands… period.
I agree that it was a very different vibe. But I think it is more of a Beatles/Stones thing (not to mention a difference of several years in actual time) than an antithesis. It’s the difference, perhaps, between late punk and something that wants to be quite different from punk…
That’s exactly what I was trying to say. I didn’t mean they hated each other, but a lot of people considered the Rolling Stones to be at the other end of a certain spectrum from the Beatles. Light vs. dark.
ETA: The Rolling Stones were promoted as the anti-Beatles.
Yeah, the Sundays have very little in common with those other bands.
However, if you (not Dorothea specifically) can’t hear the similarities in sound between this and this, then I’m not sure what to say. It only takes 30 seconds of each song to hear it.
Oh I agree, Labrador. And thanks for the link to “Step On” which I love and haven’t listened to in too long.
Did you know it’s actually a cover (and a cover done at the request of Elektra records no less)? Here is the original.
I think what you’re saying is that at its most coherent there was a Manchester sound and that its keynote wasn’t place but a fusion of 90s sampling and beats and 70s psychedelic influences. Would that be right?
I’d say that’s right, though I’m not a super fan of the genre. I think you’ve described it better than I would have.
I just remember being a kid in a small Southern US town who hadn’t heard much more than hair bands and terrible Top-40 when I first stumbled upon music like The Smiths, U2, REM, The Pogues, etc. A year or two later I heard the Stone Roses & was really impressed. All of this music is a walk down memory lane for me. Thankfully I still have all of it around & can listen to it via iTunes.
Hasn’t Morrissey always been a little prickly? Didn’t people used to throw flowers at him? Maybe he felt insulted. Shame he walked off, though.
I’ve always loved the Smiths’ sound, ever since someone gave me my first mix-tape of them in 1983. It’s the sound that holds up. Lugubrious lyrics and Morrissey’s diva persona are sort of an extra—silly bonus or silly annoyance, depending on your taste. Of course, now he’s more like grumpy, rumpled old Dad.
I’m going to pretend he stomped off, shaking his fist, muttering about you kids and yer bottle-throwing, why I’m gonna teach you to throw bottles. . . .
Hey–check out Ride if you never got into them back in the day. They aren’t as rockin’ as Happy Mondays but they have a great psychedelic sound. I could even point the way to a couple of singles to download–but not right now. I really need to pay attention to my work!
REM must have been a breath of fresh air for a kid in a small Southern town.
I’ve seen Morrissey a few times and he has always seemed to really give his all and enjoy performing.
At the first show of his I saw, he was on the second song of the encore and a fan jumped on stage and ran up to him to hug him. He was visibly upset by it and after the song ended he said goodnight. We were pretty positive he still had another song or two left in the encore (he hadn’t done “Everyday is like Sunday” yet, anyway) and it really appeared that the crazy fan caused a premature end to the encore set.
So, in England, it’s socially acceptable for the audience to throw garbage at the band while they’re performing?
And bands are, like, okay with that?
Been to lots of concerts in my time, never seen such a thing, hope I never do.
He may well be prickly and odd, I could care, I want to hear him sing, he certainly doesn’t deserve to be pelted with garbage and take on a head injury in order to perform.
FWIW, I saw the Happy Mondays in concert about a month ago (opening for the Psychedelic Furs,) and, not having previously known any of their work, thought they sounded a bit like the Stone Roses. I didn’t know that the Happy Mondays were a Manchester band until afterward, so it wasn’t a bias to automatically lump them together.
I’ve been to a fair number of gigs and only seen stuff thrown at one festival, and that was because of interminably long breaks between acts. The cans, etc. being thrown then had no chance of reaching the (empty) stage anyway.
At the height of punk or Oi it may have been a bit different for some bands.
Morrissey has always been a bit sensitive, both on-stage and off. I think that Johnny Marr got a bit fed up with all the drama, and that cut short the life of the greatest band ever (imho). I saw Morrissey a few times, and I recall that he did cut a concert short one time because of a fan that gave him a hug that was a bit rough. He seemed to crouch over in pain and never came back on stage. I was on the side of the stage and there’s no way that he was seriously hurt.
While I agree that The Smiths (amazing) lyrics focused on the depressing and absurd parts of life, anyone who fails to notice the obvious tongue-in-cheek humor in almost every Smiths song misses the point.
I doubt it. Running up and hugging Morrissey seems to be a thing at his shows. Saw him at the Atlanta Civic Center a few years back, and fans were running up onto the stage and hugging him all through the show. Morrissey didn’t seem to particularly welcome the hugs, but he didn’t stop the show either. Price of fame and all that.
