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the legacy of the smiths
John Fitzgerald on the impact of those deliberately anti-pop popsters of
the 1980s: Morrissey and The Smiths.
Not a great deal impresses of England was crucial to the band’s identity.
my students, certainly in terms Pop music at the time seemed to be slipping
of my fairly mundane personal away from young people. Punk was a long time
life. That said, where I was on gone – even though it had been only five years.
the evening of the 23rd October Punk made it possible for any group of young
1986 has fascinated some of my people to get together and form a band and do
more enlightened Film Studies something creative; there were no Simon Cowell-
students over the past few like rules on performance, appearance or dress.
years. The National Ballroom However, by 1982 there seemed to be a shift back
in Kilburn, north London was to more manufactured groups with an emphasis
the venue; and one of the most on style rather than substance.
influential and interesting The rise of the music promo was also key in
British bands of the 1980s was this reversal; the music was increasingly seen as
the draw. Thinking back now, the accompaniment for lavish, expensive pop
over twenty years later, the gig videos. The dominant artists in the charts at the
still feels like yesterday. It just time were bands such as Wham!, Duran Duran,
so happened that on that dark Culture Club and Spandau Ballet , most of whom
autumn evening the concert were New Romantics, a movement characterised
was recorded and that I would by outrageous clothes, colourful make-up and
appear (okay, as a member of a hedonistic outlook on life. By choosing the
the crowd) on the resulting plainest, most unassuming name in the world,
album Rank. The band was The The Smiths were already marking themselves
Smiths and for the alienated, out as an alternative. Yet there was a drive and
disconnected, lonely or just ambition which ensured that The Smiths would
plain different teenagers of soon be in the singles and album charts and in
the 1980s, they were the most their own idiosyncratic way would invade the
important people on the planet. national consciousness. This difference to the
Talking now with my students it mainstream was enhanced by a charismatic lead
seems the power of their music singer and his young songwriting partner, who
still engages today’s teenagers just as it did with just happened to be one of the greatest guitarists
me when I first heard them on the John Peel of his generation: Steven Morrissey and Johnny
Show almost quarter of a century ago. Marr.
Britain in the 80s: the context Those charming men
Britain was a very different place in the The 1980s threw up a number of pop stars
early 1980s, and this context was to prove recognisable by a one word name. Madonna,
vitally important in the way that The Smiths Prince and Kylie spring to mind, but in Morrissey,
developed. High unemployment, the aftermath one of life’s true misfits entered the fray, as if
of the Falklands War, industrial unrest and the he’d sneaked in around the back of the Top of
continuing rise of the right-wing Conservative the Pops studio without anyone really noticing.
Government led by Margaret Thatcher were the However, despite his own self-confessed shyness,
backdrop to the band’s early years. The north of Morrissey was actually very hard to ignore.
England was particularly badly hit by the decline The first time that I clapped my eyes on
in manufacturing, with massive job losses and him was on Top of the Pops in winter of 1983,
lack of investment, and it was felt that this part performing The Smiths second single ‘This
of the country had been abandoned by the Tory Charming Man’. He didn’t look like a ‘conventional’
Government. The Smiths came from Manchester pop star, but he did stand out. He had an
and this identification with the city and the north enormous quiff and was wearing a woman’s
english and media centre | February 2008 | MediaMagazine 19
MM23S&G13.02.08.indd 19 14/2/08 12:30:49
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