Easy, Smiths fans and Morrissey acolytes, you can sheathe those daggers.  I’m not going to court vitriol by penning a cheap tirade claiming The Smiths as “overrated” or by lambasting the hordes of Moz followers for their miserable, mopey dispositions.  It’s been done to death and truth be told, it would be dishonest of me in the first place.  I happen to believe that the Smiths were arguably the finest band of the 1980s, and for me to renounce them would be to negate literally years of my childhood spent obsessing over every note of their music.  What I would like to address here is the conundrum I find myself in when someone asks what my favorite Smiths record is, or which album one should start with if exploring the band’s discography for the first time.  A few months ago there was a listmaking exercise floating around the blogosphere where writers named a favorite album for each year they’ve been alive, and I was puzzled by the inclusion of so many Smiths records that occupied various slots of the ‘80s.  The reason is an intangible quality that is rarely discussed in analyses of pop music album structure and content, yet is undeniably critical to a record’s effectiveness and how it’s assimilated by the masses.  I’m talking about song sequencing.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: in their six years of existence, The Smiths never pretended to be anything other than a singles band.  The four official studio albums and three compilations released while the group was together were merely vehicles for their impeccable run of singles at the time, and to view full-lengths like Meat Is Murder (1985) or Strangeways, Here We Come (1987) solely as cohesive artistic statements is naïve at best and at worst, a serious disservice to everything Morrissey and Marr’s vision was about.  I have a theory that the reason why the band split in the fall of ’87 wasn’t because of Marr’s frustration with the band’s direction or the endless curse of piss-poor management that plagued the group since their inception, but rather that no one ever sat them down and said, “Ok, gentlemen, these are the songs you should choose and this is the order in which they should be.”  I’m half-joking, of course, but in my perfect-world scenario, the following is how I would have altered the fabric of history by suggesting these changes and modifications to The Smiths’ four studio releases, assuming that I wasn’t, you know, like nine years old at the time of the band’s heyday. (Or: Playing God [R.I.P. Stylus] with The Smiths’ Catalogue, aka Sacrilege.)

I don’t even know where to start with the self-titled debut.  The argument of, “They were still a young band just gaining their footing,” can only carry so much weight here.  Putting aside the dry and unbalanced mix from producer John Porter, The Smiths (1984) is easily the most poorly-sequenced item in the group’s oeuvre.  So many phenomenal songs could have kicked off the album: first single “Hand in Glove,” the brooding and majestic “What Difference Does It Make,” or “This Charming Man,” which holds my vote as the finest single of The Smiths’ career, featuring a five-second introductory lead by Marr that’s one of the greatest things I’ve ever heard anyone play on guitar.  But not only did the band chose the six-minute, mid-tempo dirge “Reel Around the Fountain” as their announcement to the world (a song which, granted, I absolutely fawn over), but they followed it up with the two worst songs on the record, one of them (“Miserable Lie”) qualifying as the worst four and a half minutes the band committed to tape (“Golden Lights” notwithstanding).  It isn’t until halfway through the record that The Smiths begins to pick up steam, although the placement of “Still Ill” between “This Charming Man” and “Hand in Glove” never quite gels.  And even as closer “Suffer Little Children” begins to fade, the sins of the first half are still fresh in the memory.  My suggestion?  Eliminate “Miserable Lie” altogether and arrange the selections thusly:

1. This Charming Man
2. You’ve Got Everything Now
3. What Difference Does It Make?
4. The Hand That Rocks the Cradle
5. Still Ill
6. Hand in Glove
7. Pretty Girls Make Graves
8. Reel Around the Fountain
9. I Don’t Owe You Anything
10. Suffer Little Children

“I Don’t Owe You Anything” – The Smiths 4:05 (The Smiths, Rough Trade 1984)

The Smiths’ follow-up, Meat Is Murder (1985) is a vast improvement over the debut and a bit of an anomaly in the band’s discography, as the one single culled from the record, “That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore,” fared poorly on the charts (“How Soon Is Now” was added onto the US versions of the record); it’s the most “album-like” of the group’s studio releases.  Despite being my least favorite item in The Smiths’ catalog, I actually don’t have any issues with the sequencing here; any record that opens with something as sonically dense and uncompromising as “The Headmaster Ritual” gains immediate favor in my book.  My issue with Meat Is Murder is the inclusion of three lackluster songs – the trivial rockabilly romp “Rusholme Ruffians,” utter afterthought “What She Said,” and the disdainful, miserable, barrel-scraping title track (I’ve always loathed this song, even when I was a practicing vegetarian) – that could have easily been replaced by three singles that proceeded the album’s release: “Shakespeare’s Sister,” the iconic “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now,” and “William It Was Really Nothing.”  One can only imagine the possibilities of an album where the hypnotic and propulsive “Barbarism Begins at Home” is the final layer of icing on the cake:

1. The Headmaster Ritual
2. William, It Was Really Nothing
3. I Want the One I Can’t Have
4. Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now
5. That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore
6. How Soon Is Now?
7. Nowhere Fast
8. Well I Wonder
9. Shakespeare’s Sister
10. Barbarism Begins at Home

”Barbarism Begins at Home” – The Smiths 6:58 (Meat Is Murder, Rough Trade 1985)

Ah, The Queen Is Dead (1986).  The Smiths’ undeniable masterpiece, their singular, defining statement that solidifies their place in the pantheon of pop music.  Naturally, I call bullshit.  There are moments of perfection here – the psychedelic density of the opening title track, the achingly gorgeous “There Is a Light that Never Goes Out,” Andy Rourke’s bass work on pretty much everything – but the entire first half of the record takes an enormous stumble that it never fully recovers from, beginning with “Frankly, Mr. Shankly.”  “I Know It’s Over” dangerously borders of self-parody and fails at the epic heights it attempts to attain, but even worse is “Never Had No One Ever,” which is so similar in mood, tempo, and even pulse (6/8) to its predecessor that it’s genuinely shocking that no one pointed out this lapse in judgment when the band was sequencing the record.  And sorry, but the literary pap of “Cemetry Gates” has always annoyed me.  Side two immediately seems more promising with the one-two punch of “Bigmouth Strikes Again” and “The Boy with the Thorn in His Side,” but the album’s momentum is hiccupped again with the quizzical “Vicar in a Tutu.”  “There Is a Light” could very well be the greatest song Morrissey and Marr ever penned and is not only quintessential Smiths, but the strongest contender for Best Album Closer in their catalogue.  Instead, the band tacks on “Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others,” the very definition of a b-side if I’ve ever heard one, to bring the album to its conclusion.  Huh? The lack of singles recorded prior to the album’s release prevents the ‘supplemental singles’ method I utilized on “Meat Is Murder,” so I’m afraid that this is the best I can do:

1. The Queen Is Dead (Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty)
2. Frankly, Mr. Shankly
3. The Boy with the Thorn in His Side
4. Cemetry Gates
5. Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others
6. Bigmouth Strikes Again
7. Never Had No One Ever
8. Vicar in a Tutu
9. I Know It’s Over
10. There Is a Light That Never Goes Out

“Bigmouth Strikes Again” – The Smiths 3:15 (The Queen Is Dead, Rough Trade 1986)

Which brings us to The Smiths’ swan song, Strangeways Here We Come (1987), a flawed but nonetheless compelling album that’s generally regarded as most fans’ least favorite entry in the discography.  The chief problem with Strangeways is that its second half pales in such comparison to the first that the band should have lopped it off altogether, designated it as an EP, and simply called it a day.  Instead, the listener is treated to “Unhappy Birthday,” which sounds like an outtake from Morrissey’s tepid Kill Uncle (1991), the never-ending record company rant “Paint a Vulgar Picture,” and the almost embarrassing Moz confession “I Won’t Share You.”  The first six songs are exceptional and some of the best of the band’s career, but are sequenced so haphazardly that Strangeways begins to take on the guise of a post-disbandment compilation of outtakes and b-sides – and why on earth did they choose to open side two with “Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loves Me”?  Even substituting the last four tracks with singles still involves a lot of surgery here:

1. A Rush and a Push and the Land Is Ours
2. I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish
3. Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before
4. Ask
5. Death of a Disco Dancer
6. Panic
7. Girlfriend in a Coma
8. Shoplifters of the World Unite
9. Shelia Take a Bow
10. Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me

“Death of a Disco Dancer” – The Smiths 5:26 (Strangeways, Here We Come, Rough Trade 1987)

Ultimately, of course, this is an exercise in futility for the diehards, but for the rest of us, a little juggling and switching can make quite a difference in enjoying The Smiths’ catalog.  So what would I judge to be the quintessential Smiths album and ideal primer?  My answer would be a resounding, blasphemous Singles (1995).  Oh, the horror!

I’ve found that in my few years’ worth of experience in listening, writing, and reading about music, there are always going to be a handful of bands or artists that possess a curiously elusive quality in regards to the unwavering devotion of their fanbases. Bands that during the course of a conversation will provoke a raised-eyebrow statement of, “Oh, sure, Band X, they’re okay, but… they’re your All Time Favorite group?” I can understand, say, someone’s fervor towards a juggernaut like U2: they have dozens of successful singles, sold millions of records around the world, and have stuck with the same anthemic, fist-in-the-air, hook-filled formula for three decades now. Not really my cup of tea, but I could easily envision someone building a shrine to the group in a corner of their living room. I’m talking about bands like Echo and The Bunnymen. New Order. Hell, Radiohead, for that matter. (I’ll save The Sex Pistols for another time.) All groups who have had their moments, to be sure, but when the landscape of their discographies is viewed from a distance, those not blinded by their own rabid fandom would see maybe a peak or two, but far too many valleys – and in some cases, miles of barren wasteland. For me, Faith No More fall into this category.

Few collectives since the birth of rock ‘n roll have inspired such a cultish throng of hyper-obsessive acolytes (or Pattolytes, if you will) like Faith No More. Hopefully they’ll have reached this part of the post to read my disclaimer instead of immediately scrolling down to the comments section to expound a litany of obscenities and threats directed solely at my personal well-being: I like Faith No More. Shit, I used to love the band. I still get goosebumps from Mike Bordin’s drumming (see here). Bass players don’t get much more solid than Billy Gould. Roddy Bottum still holds one of the best monikers in rock music (say it out loud, and insert a “fuckin’” in there for maximum effect). But as I get older, the more I question the soundness of my rampant enthusiasm for the group during my musical coming-of-age back in the ‘90s. A cursory examination of Faith No More’s six full-length studio records over the course of their roughly a decade-and-a-half existence reveals the following: a phenomenal “classic” record, a decent but lesser “breakthrough” album, two barely passable and seriously flawed attempts in genre-hopping, and two rank, steaming piles of drivel that are essentially unlistenable to these ears. Not exactly an All Star-worthy batting average. Does this sound like a group who deserve the massive truckloads of reverence and acclaim that’s still heaped upon them to this day, ten years after their disbandment?

The core of Faith No More – bassist Billy Gould, drummer Mike “Puffy” Bordin, keyboardist Roddy Bottum, and guitarist Jim Martin – was formed in San Francisco in the mid-‘80s. After a revolving door of singers (most infamously Courtney Love) the band inexplicably settled on Chuck Mosely, a walking trainwreck of a vocalist who was one part surfer burnout, one part pseudo-rapper, and about ten parts drug-binge hangover. During these formative years the group’s sound was basically a heavier kind of party-hardy funk, anchored by Bordin’s thunderous drums and Gould’s popping bass, and punctuated by Martin’s thin, buzzing guitar and Bottum’s simple string-pad flourishes. It wasn’t exactly an original or complex formula, but it was about the only thing that worked with Mosely’s semi-retarded barks acting as vocals. Other than the title track, debut We Care a Lot (1985) is entirely forgettable, an insipid, throwaway mess of lightweight, one-note-riffing funk-metal. Follow-up Introduce Yourself (1987) benefited from slightly stronger songwriting and a fuller production, but Mosely’s obnoxious, ham-fisted presence is unavoidable; there’s just no getting around the guy. The band got more mileage out of “We Care a Lot,” reprising it for a single the following year, an anthem that would have forever rendered Faith No More to “one-hit novelty” had the members decided to fold and return to their day jobs. Fortunately, Mosely’s days with the group were numbered, and the frontman was sacked shortly after the record release party for the album due to his erratic behavior and excessive drug and alcohol use.

“Anne’s Song” – Faith No More 4:34 (Introduce Yourself, Slash 1987)

So two weeks prior to recording The Real Thing (1989), the band recruited a young Mike Patton to handle vocal duties, recommended by Martin after heard a demo of Patton’s other band, Mr. Bungle. Light years ahead of Mosely, Patton was unquestionably, almost shockingly talented, a vocal chameleon of sorts whose contorted whines, tough-guy roars, and clipped rapping was a perfect match for Faith No More’s new direction, with hooks and intensity in equal measure, livened by a beefed-up production from Matt Wallace to boot. This was the age where an edgy video could propel a band into the stratosphere, and it worked for Faith No More in spades – love it or hate it, everyone remembers the video for “Epic.” Lesser album cuts like the title track and “Zombie Eaters” revealed a depth and focus to the songwriting that had been previously absent from the band’s material, while second single “Falling to Pieces” and “Underwater Love” retained some of the playfulness that characterized their earlier work. To help rein the modern kneejerk criticisms of The Real Thing as “dated,” it’s important to remember that prior to its release, not many bands were combining funk, metal, and hip hop as effectively, for better or worse (accusations of the regrettable birth of the nu-metal that plagued the ’90s aren’t entirely unfounded). Granted, I could happily go the rest of my life without hearing “Edge of the World” or “Woodpecker from Mars” again, but as far as breakthrough albums go, The Real Thing delivers for the most part.

“Zombie Eaters” – Faith No More 5:58 (The Real Thing, Slash 1989)

With The Real Thing’s worldwide sales just shy of four million units, the pressure was on the group to produce a worthy follow-up. Yet no one knew what the hell to make of Angel Dust (1992) when it was released in the summer of ’92. Any buoyant whimsy left over from the previous album was gone, replaced by a darker, warped, almost oppressive atmosphere that confounded critics and alienated fans wanting another “Epic.” The band’s desire to experiment and avoid the carbon-copy follow-up resulted in one of the finest records of the decade, accented by the fact that Faith No More had finally discovered a unique sound that was entirely, sublimely their own. Patton, especially, went from a spandex-clad kid with a funny haircut to a vocal revelation seemingly overnight, jump-cutting from a piercing shriek to a baritone croon in the blink of an eye with breathless dexterity. Angel Dust managed the feat of each track sounding completely unlike the others without the album losing any sense of coherency as a whole: the full-throttle assault of “Caffeine,” the nightmarish sludge metal of “Jizzlobber,” the country-fried trailer-park drama of “RV,” the pulsating funk of “Everything’s Ruined.” Then there are the cuts that defy description, like “A Small Victory” and “Malpractice”; even the inferior tracks like “Crack Hitler” trumped anything the group had recorded to date. Within a few months of its release, it slowly became apparent that Faith No More had unleashed a masterpiece upon the public. The band toured the hell out of the album, working the European summer festival circuit and appearing at outdoor arenas with the likes of Metallica, Soundgarden, and Guns N’ Roses.

“Kindergarten” – Faith No More 4:31 (Angel Dust, Slash 1992)

(As an aside and bonus, here’s the movement from Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8 (1960) that was sampled in “Malpractice” [though the band actually used The Kronos Quartet’s version].)

“String Quartet No. 8 – II. Allegro molto” – Dmitri Shostakovich 2:44 (Manhattan String Quartet: String Quartets 3 and 8, Centaur 1986)

Then the problems started. After releasing a Commodores cover as a single (“Easy”), Martin, who for many was the “look” of Faith No More and had publicly expressed his displeasure at the outcome of Angel Dust (he had very little input in the compositional process), was fired under less-than-amicable circumstances. The search for a new guitarist began, with the group welcoming (somewhat reluctantly) Trey Spruance of Mr. Bungle into the fold. King for a Day… Fool for a Lifetime (1995) was written mostly by Gould, Bordin, and Patton – Bottum’s signature keyboards are curiously absent from most of the material (he was reportedly battling drug addiction at the time of the recording). Spruance, one of the most brilliant and mind-warpingly original guitarists of his generation, is sadly relegated to little more than distorted power chords here; it’s genuinely difficult to believe that it’s his playing on the album. Whether he was just out for a paycheck or had a total lack of enthusiasm for the songs is anyone’s guess, but the sound ultimately suffers for it, and one can’t help but long for the color of Bottum’s keys. Lead single “Digging the Grave” was nothing spectacular, suffering from a stripped-down blandness that characterized much of the record. “What a Day,” “Ugly in the Morning,” and “Cuckoo for Caca” are Faith No More-by-numbers, and even some of the riskier songs, like the midnight lounge-soul of “Evidence” and the country twang of “Take This Bottle,” don’t survive more than a few listens. The tracks that work best are the ones that are the least self-conscious, like “Just a Man”’s dub-meets-Gospel-ballad, the collision of showtune funk with a lively brass section on “Star A.D.,” and the atmospheric prog of album centerpiece “King for a Day.” Spruance departed before touring was scheduled to begin to finish work on Mr. Bungle’s magnum opus Disco Volante (1995), and Faith No More was yet again without a guitarist. The band promoted roadie Dean Menta to the guitar slot for the tour and parted ways with him shortly afterward.

“King for a Day” – Faith No More 6:35 (King for a Day… Fool for a Lifetime, Slash 1995)

There are a few items of note at this juncture in the band’s career. For one, their popularity on either side of the Atlantic had see-sawed, with a new legion European listeners following the group’s every move while their prominence in the States had waned. Side projects also began to dominate the lives of each member, with Bordin finding lucrative side work manning the skins for Ozzy, Bottum concentrating on his Imperial Teen, and Patton venturing further into the esoteric abyss with Bungle and solo work for John Zorn’s Tzadik label. Under these circumstances, it’s a miracle that Album of the Year (1997) turned out as well as it did, although the response from the public was generally lackluster. Jon Hudson of Systems Collapse filled in for the role of guitarist for a dozen selections that more or less followed in the anything-goes mold of King for a Day, ranging from some of the group’s finest work (the stunning “Stripsearch”) to miserable, uninspired dirges (“Paths of Glory”). A funereal air of finality – but not quite closure – hangs over the record like a fog, and anyone who had been following the group’s trajectory since the beginning of the decade couldn’t deny their own suspicions that the half-hearted attempt of Album of the Year was a clear signal for an impending breakup. Sure enough, Gould announced the split in the spring of the following year, but by that point, only the diehards were lamenting Faith No More’s disbandment.

“Stripsearch” – Faith No More 4:29 (Album of the Year, Slash 1997)

I’ll admit that much of Faith No More’s material has aged well with time, albeit somewhat peculiarly – Album of the Year becomes exponentially less of the disaster I made it out to be upon its release with each passing year, and there was a point in the late ‘90s when I couldn’t even sit through one song from The Real Thing. With an oeuvre this uneven – let’s not forget those earlier Mosely-fronted outings, much as we’d all like to – and given the patchy, hit-or-miss nature of the group’s later work, I posit my original case: is Faith No More really worthy of Hall of Fame status? I’m certainly up for hearing arguments in their defense.