My Top 10 Albums of the 80s: (8) The Queen Is Dead - The Smiths

[This is the third in a series of ten posts. The list'll be revealed as entries are written.]

Internal tensions have often been known to push bands to unprecedented peaks, yet rarely has a group's musical identity rested so squarely upon the contrast between its most visible members as it did with the Smiths. Lead guitarist Johnny Marr was one of England's most accomplished studio masters, an expert at weaving dense layers of guitars into music of striking depth; frontman Morrissey was a militant vegetarian whose outspoken politics were upstaged only by his dubious (purportedly nonexistent) sexuality and endlessly dour outlook on the value of life. Over a span of five prolific years, the Smiths released four studio albums and a bevy of non-album singles. Though the latter group includes an impressive number of the best songs of the decade, the band never produced a work of more consistent quality than its third studio LP, The Queen Is Dead. By the time of its 1986 release, Marr had come to control a range as diverse as that of Jimmy Page, and was as adept at conjuring sunny pastoral scenes ("Cemetery Gates") as crafting the brooding soundscapes that had become the band's signature (with the epic title track rivaling even "How Soon Is Now" in bombastic sweep). Morrissey, too, had refined every aspect of his persona, and they're all on display: never again would he be as morose as on "I Know It's Over," as defensive as on "Bigmouth Strikes Again," or as genuinely funny as on "Frankly, Mr. Shankly" (which presumably holds the distinction of being the only lyric ever to rhyme the phrase "flatulent pain in the ass"). Despite the apparent jockeying for position of the two leads, more than anything, The Queen Is Dead marks the high water mark of collaboration between them. The Smiths had always been at their best when using the beauty of Marr's compositions as counterpoint to Morrissey's melodrama, and they employed the contrast to perfection on both the aforementioned "Cemetery Gates" and "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out," the best song of their career. The group ultimately would disband when long-standing differences between Morrissey and Marr - personal and musical - could no longer be reconciled. In retrospect, The Queen Is Dead is a remarkable document of a group that may well have understood it did not have much time left: it speaks to a period in which they were likely, if only so briefly, the greatest band in the world.