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The Smiths is the self-titled debut studio album by English rock band the Smiths, released on 20 February 1984 by Rough Trade Records. After the original production by Troy Tate was felt to be inadequate, John Porter re-recorded the album in London, Manchester and Stockport during breaks in the band's UK tour during September 1983.
The music critic Garry Mulholland included it in his list of the 261 greatest albums since 1976 in Fear of Music: "The Smiths made safe their early legend with a debut album about child abuse. The production was flat and dour, yet it succeeded in conjuring yet another Manchester-in-song, distinctly different from that of Ian Curtis and Mark E. Smith. But everything about The Smiths ran contrary to mid-80s pop, from Joe Dallesandro on the cover to the restrained jangling of the songs, but mainly through Moz's [Morrissey's nickname] dramatised disgust at sex, which here exists to ruin true love at best, and to ruin an entire young life at worst."
Slant Magazine listed the album at 51 on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980s" saying "There's no reason why a mordant, sexually frustrated disciple of Oscar Wilde who loved punk but crooned like a malfunctioning Sinatra should've teamed up with a fabulously inventive guitarist whose influences were so diffuse that it could be hard to hear them at all and formed one of the greatest songwriting duos of the '80s." PopMatters included the album on their list of "12 Essential Alternative Rock Albums from the 1980s" saying: "Morrissey's career are fully accounted for on The Smiths, where they are rendered all the more piercing by Johnny Marr's delicate guitar-picking and John Porter's stark production".
In 1989, the album was ranked number 22 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s. In 2003, the album was #481 on that magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
TRACKLIST:
A1 Reel Around The Fountain
A2 You've Got Everything Now
A3 Miserable Lie
A4 Pretty Girls Make Graves
A5 The Hand That Rocks The Cradle
B1 Still Ill
B2 Hand In Glove
B3 What Difference Does It Make?
B4 I Don't Owe You Anything
B5 Suffer Little Children
