Smiths - Louder Than Bombs
|
List Price: Our Price: $6.67 You Save: $12.31 (65%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $3.21 (click here) Category: Music CD See more new music releases 
|
|---|
Canadian Music Store
Free Music Notes for Louder Than Bombs
Free Music Review: Cold War Nights
Hit: 5 Stars
This record is a haphazard compilation of singles, b-sides and BBC sessions. Sometimes the quality is shaky and the track order makes zero sense. Some of the songs kind of [stink]. I think it could go for the best pop record of all time. 'The Queen is Dead' usually gets the nod as best Smiths album just because it's the most focused, but this has more than twice as many songs on it, and every legit Smiths record for that matter. This is the disc with all the great non-LP singles on it, like the folky, breakneck "Shakespeare's Sister", lounge standard "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now", rock-snob anthem "Panic" ("Hang the blessed DJ/Because the music he constantly plays/It says nothing to me about my life") and the quintessential Smiths song "Ask", filled to the brim with awkwardness, ambiguous sexuality, cold war dread and Johnny Marr's undeniable guitar magic.
But you could just go out and buy 'Singles' to get those. The real reason to buy 'Louder Than Bombs' is for the rarer tracks, which glow with personality and life. "This Night Has Opened My Eyes" *sounds* like the grey murky river that Morrissey describes in the lyric, in the song that cops the most from cover star Shelagh Delaney's wickedly funny and tragic play 'A Taste of Honey'. "Rubber Ring" is the most unique song in the Smiths' catalogue and maybe in all of pop music... it's a song about growing out of sad music. Who else but Morrissey could pen a lyric like "And when you're dancing and laughing and finally living/Hear my voice in your head and think of me kindly"? "Stretch Out and Wait" nails (sorry) the strangeness and longing of teenage sexuality. "Is It Really So Strange?" is an oddly poppy choice to kick off such a dark album, but it's still a fine song documenting a stalker's journey to meet his fixation. "Half a Person" is easily one of the Smiths' finest, a song of sick loneliness and desperation that manages to sound hopeful somehow. The placement of "Unloveable" and "Asleep" at the end make the case that perhaps the track order was not, in fact, decided upon by howler monkeys.
There are a few songs that sound somewhat dated today. Most of what makes the Smiths great is that, despite so many bands being influenced by them, they sound as fresh today as ever (especially to someone on this side of the Atlantic), but sometimes they come off a bit too much like 80's relics. Not often, but occasionally, say, on the uncharacteristically loud "London", the long, slow "Girl Afraid" or "These Things Take Time". The Twinkle cover 'Golden Lights' and instrumental 'Oscillate Wildly' (clever title, eh?) often get bad raps, but I think they place nicely off each other and break the album down the middle very well.
The messiness of the track order feels schizophrenic at times, but considering this is an music made for lonely teens, that's oddly appropriate. Not an album that's easy to listen to from front to back, but that's why God invented programmable CD players. Morrissey and Marr play off each other less like ice and fire than like a Ritalin and Prozac milkshake. Drink up.
Free Music Review: Is it Really so Strange that This is Great?
Hit: 5 Stars
Louder than bombs is one of the best arranged albums ever and in total a very enjoyable listening experience. Morrissey and Marr together made an incredible songwriting team and "Louder than Bombs" showcases some of their best material. This is an essential album of the Smiths and one of the necessary recordings for any complete '80's brit-pop collection. I bought this album just last year and wonder why I had waited so long. Don't make the mistake I did: get this one soon.
Starting out with the poppy "Is it Really so Strange" and "Sheila Take a Bow" the album moves quickly into more morose and emotive music that the smiths are so well known for. While "Shoplifters of the World" is a great song, it takes a few listens to become get under your skin. The next highlight is "Half a Person" which is a favorite of mine. It is sad and sweet and will play on in your head forcing you back to this CD again and again. This is one of those songs that you think about often.
The next few songs are all decent and of course "Panic" (Hang the DJ) is memorable but my next favorite is "You Just Haven't Earned it yet Baby". This song is very well written and in spite of its total lack of lyrical substance it has an energy that more than makes up for its poetical deficiency. Another interesting arrangement is how this track is followed up by "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now". This track is too one of the best on the album. After this there are a few nice tracks but the last two tracks really sum up the album mixing happiness and misery. "Hand in Glove" is of course one of the top 5 Smiths tracks and it being followed by "Stretch out and Wait" provides the listener with the pathos needed to appreciate the former song.
Yes I love this album, it has all of the essential ingredients for a great album. While Morrissey still has some creative force, I believe it is his work with the Smiths that he is best remembered for. This isn't a period piece: The album is still very playable and younger audiences can appreciate it. I was 13 when this album came out and I was a fan of the band then. Now when I play this for my younger friends they appreciate it as well. This is one essential album and is not one that will sit around on you shelf. A definite buy...
-- Ted Murena
Free Music Review: Lyrics Speak Louder Than Bombs
Hit: 5 Stars
"Louder Than Bombs" is a Smiths compilation of sorts, a collection of non-album singles, B-sides and several tracks from the Smiths' first compilation "Hatful of Hollow". Many of these tracks you can't get anywhere else. Well, you can get them on "The World Won't Listen", but that's a very similar compilation to this one.
It's a good value collection, and a fine introduction to the band, I think. There are 24 tracks, recorded between 1984-1987, of all different styles and moods. All have fantastic guitar playing by Johnny Marr, while Andy Rourke's bass and Mike Joyce's guitar keep things catchy too. Morrissey's lyrics though, are what makes this record, and the Smiths, really special, I think. He can be witty at times, he can be warm, he can be sympathetic and he can be despairing, often all in the same song. He comes up with some great little phrases in his songs. As for subject matters, he covers all sorts of things, just as Johnny Marr covers all sorts of moods. "Shoplifters of the World Unite" lends an ear to the commercially compulsive, "This Night Has Opened My Eyes" sees a mother abandon a child, "Girl Afraid" touches on the pushy girl/passive guy relationship, and "You Just Haven't Earned It Yet Baby" (which I reckon really should have gone on to be a hit single) sums up the pain of struggling and striving, whether in attempts to find love or attempts to be famous. It's one of my favourites of the album and the band, as is "Rubber Ring", where Morrissey urges the listener not to "forget the songs that made you cry, and the ones that saved your life" and to spare a happy thought for him after such songs have helped you through tough times. If anyone else had been singing it, it might have come across as a bit arrogant, but the Smiths wrote some powerful songs, and Morrissey knew it! There's also an instrumental by Johnny Marr ("Oscillate Wildly") and a very strange, but typically Morrissey, cover song (Twinkle's "Golden Lights").
The booklet is fairly simple, but it comes with the lyrics to all the songs, which is very nice to have for a band like the Smiths.
Overall, a great introduction to the band, a great addition to Smiths/Morrissey collection, and a great bunch of songs. Recommended.
Free Music Review: A glorious crate-cleaning excersize.
Hit: 5 Stars
Spanning the Smiths' entire career, Louder Than Bombs is an enormous collection of non-LP singles (every single one that didn't appear on a U.S. album, as a matter of fact), b-sides, rarities, alternate mixes, and other odds and ends. However, don't think of this as a simple scraped together cash-in: The Smiths were simply too good for that kind of thing. Indeed, the best of these songs are every bit as good as the highlights of the group's proper albums. There's the chiming, propulsive "Is It Really So Strange," with its towering melody and lyrics that are by turns funny, beguiling, and vulnerable (and since this is Morrissey we're talking about, it goes without saying that they're stunningly poetic). "Half A Person" is a moody masterpiece with ponderous acoustic guitars chiming beneath brittle vocals. There's the hypnotic sensuality of "Stretch Out And Wait," and the quintessentially Smiths-ian catharsis of "These Things Take Time." You also get the haunting plea of "Back To The Old House" and the brief desolation of "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want." Also included is the cavernous Brit-punk surge of "London" and the sneering "You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby." "Sweet And Tender Hooligan" is bitterly funny social commentary, and "Girl Afraid" plays like witheringly smart daytime drama, with a shimmering guitar line thrown in to boot. There's a snazzy piano driven instrumental called "Oscillate Wildly," and paean to immortality by the name of "Rubber Ring." "This Night Has Opened My Eyes" is a tense, smokey classic that shows off Morrissey's penchant for storytelling. We've also got an alternate mix of the classic "Hand In Glove." It's not particularly different from the original, but hey, it's another excuse to listen to "Hand In Glove." The seven non LP singles are all fantastic as well- The anthemic "Sheila Take A Bow," the shuffling chime of "Ask," the harrowing "Panic," the storming post-punk breakdown "Shakespeare's Sister," the cheerfully glum "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now," the twisted imagery and cavernous production of "William, It Was Really Nothing," the tension of "Shoplifters Of The World Unite," well- it's all just fantastic. Get it.Free Music Review: How do you describe the perfect album.
Hit: 5 Stars
It sounds cheesy, doesn't it, stating LTB is the quintescential Smiths album. I remember listening to the Beatles over and OVER and OVER again and my mother telling me that they were the perfect band, that no one else would be able to take their place. I hated her for that. It felt like she had stolen something necessary for growing up. Can't describe the feeling, kind of a jealousy that festered.
So, in rebellion, I listened to Debbie Gibson and other pop sycophants and symbols of the time, finally deciding that George Micheal was as fine a point of where music of the 80s would have to leave its mark. My on-again, off-again girlfriend at the moment convinced me one fine, fall day to take a listen to the LTB tape she constantly carried in her back pocket. Three days later, she was shacking up with a greaser to whom I loathed, but who had a car, leaving me with my moody depression, piles of crisp golden and orange leaves and two more years of high school, and a well used Smiths Louder Than Bombs long playing tape.
Morrisey's amazing voice and lyrical talent, coupled with Johnny Marr's amazing guitar feeds, Andy Rourke's back beat and Mike Joyce keeping the rhthym really fit the mood I was in. Each song reminded me of different things; mostly Shakespearean, long train rides, James Dean, and cool, windy, rainy days in which one tends to curl up with a small book of Keats or Yeats and enjoys being alone. Each song seemed crafted, not produced. Very real and raw. Immensely wonderful.
Yeah, I know, three letters. G - A - Y. Still, I loved the Smiths then, and every band I listen to and love now, such as Deathcab for Cutie, Dandy Worhols, the Doves, Jets Overhead, Coldplay, all seem molded by this little band as well. The Smiths were never huge by the Beatle's standards, although Morrissey continues to have a cult following as does Johnny Marr. It's fall again, the cool air has the aroma of rain, and Dead Poets Society becomes my favorite movie again. The tape has long ago fallen to the ravages of play and time, but I have a well worn CD that I still cherish.