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The Smiths Meat Is Murder Average Rating: 
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| Customer Reviews 1-5 of 60 | NEXT >> |
2008-12-31I disagree with those who concider this one of their "middling" albums. Every song on the album is pretty strong. I can do without the title song--"Heifer whines could be human cries...." Tracks 1 through 5, played in sucesion, are as strong as anything the Smiths ever did and flow really well. "How Soon Is Now" is a great, if overplayed, song. "Nowhere Fast" and "Well I Wonder" are also great songs. Anyways, this album with their last 2 studio albums, "The Queen is Dead," and "Strangeways, Here We Come" cemented the Smiths as one of the greatest bands of their time. Add in, their singles collections and they were amazing.
2008-05-04The Smiths only released a handful of albums, but most of them are masterpeices or near masterpeices. This is their 2nd best behind The Queen is Dead. It has arguably their most famous single, How Soon Is Now?. Many have made fun of St. Morrissey because of his "tawdry whining", but who would disagree with the chorus here that "I am human and I need to be loved!"? Only an arrogant, nihilistic punk who prides himself on feeling nothing. Many are just afraid of someone like Morrissey, who really lays it all out and dares you to touch his soul. I've stated in other Smiths reviews that his lyrics are much wittier than most people give him credit for.
There are other briliant gems here. I love the song What She Said with its briliant, incisive lyrics. While I do adore How Soon Is Now, my favorite track here has to be Barbarism Begins at Home. There's only a small lyric by Morrissey, but it's one of Marr's most memorable melodies. And dispite my propensity for devouring meat, I do like the song Meat is Murder. It's actualy quite haunting dispite its preachy lyrics, one of the few Morrissey lyrics that I can honestly call preachy. But this is a minor point with a band that I like more as I grow older. Teen angst? No! Human angst, yes.
2007-11-30It may be something of a middle child in the Smiths' discography (coming, as it did, between their briliant self-titled debut and the monumental classic that is The Queen Is Dead), but the group's sophmore release is still an excelllent album. Stylistically, it shows the group branching out slightly from the moody jangling indie-pop of their debut, beefing up their sound with light experimental elements, as well as the ocassional touch of funk. The core sound is still the same, though- the songs are built around Johnny Marr's intricate, understated, and hypnotic guitar constuctions, as well as the tounge-in-cheek depression, sarcastic poetry, and haunting vocals of lead singer Steven Patrick Morrissey.
The best songs here easily rival their other classics. "That Joke isnt Funny Anymore" is one of the Smiths' most haunting songs, with a spine-tingling vocal creating slowly mounting tension while guitars and drums churn apocalyptically in the background. "Rusholme Ruffians" is a prosaic gem, with gorgeous slice-of-life lyrics that are by turns hilarious and heartbreaking twisting their way over a rumbling rockabilly backing. There's also the wailing guitar feedback and bizarrely grim character study of "What She Said," and the nerve-shaking punk funk of "Barbarism Begins At Home." "The Headmaster Ritual" has lyrics that are only so-so (a half-hearted attempt at social commentary that, frankly, falls flat on its face), but it compensates with a great guitar line. "I Want the One I Can't Have" is a wistful pop gem, albiet a minor one. "Nowhere Fast" gets by on a shuffling rhythm and great lines like "When I'm lying in my bed/ I Think about life and I think about death/ And neither one parituclarily appeals to me."
There is a noticable drop in quality toward the end of the album- the last four tracks just don't pack the punch that the first six (or five, if you have the Brittish LP) do. The title track is parituclarily disappointing. Morrissey's lyrics, while undoubtedly graphic, come off as preachy more than anything else, while Marr's melody is only so-so. "Well I Wonder" isnt quite as desolately beautiful as the band wanted, although Morrissey's falsetto sounds nice.
So, a very good album from a band that has done much better. Smiths fans should get this.
2007-04-11In todays day & age of artists releasing albums with the frequency of precidential elections, it seems almost inconceivable that a smash-hit debut could be followed one-year later by another equally-impressive album. But that's exactly what The Smiths did in early 1985 with Meat Is Murder. "How Soon Is Now?" and "That Joke isnt Funny Anymore" are the two main standouts, however "Rusholme Ruffians", "Nowhere Fast", and "I Want The One I Can't Have" rival anything off the band's self-titled release. Morrissey continues his heady and socially-concious songwriting, while Johnny Marr takes his guitar-playing up a few notches - which is ultimately showcased on "How Soon..." (the rhythm guitar-track was conveinently sampled on Soho's 1990 hit "Hippie Chick", and one could make a case that Marr stole the main bent-chord from Jimmy Page's riff on Led Zeppelin's "The Rain Song"). Even Andy Rourke gets into the act with his funky bass line contribution on "Barbarism Begins At Home". No weak spots on this gem, which will surely spark your intrest from start to finish. If not, you don't know what's good for you.
2007-03-12The Smiths' second album of new material is essesital listening for an unlikely reason: it contains some the band's most mediocre songs. Now, "mediocre" is a relative term of course, concidering that we are talking about the greatest band to emerge in the last quarter-centruy, i.e., since The Jam broke up in '82. It isnt that Morrissey's voice sounds bad (how could it?), or that Johnny Marr's guitar playing is less than tasteful. It's just that somehow the words and the music just aren't as great as one would expect.
Most of the tracks on this album are not parituclarily well-known ones. However, "How Soon Is Now?" pops up in the middle of the American issue. This is one of the band's best-known and best-loved songs. It is not, however, one my personel favorites, if for no other reason than it is over six-and-a-half minutes long. For a group whose music is informed by classic pop ideals, The Smiths sure have a tendancy to let their songs run a bit too long. This is especially to the detriment of the closing tracks. The nearly 7-minute "Barbarism Begins at Home" is quite good, as is the title track (even if it is a bit, dare I say, ham-fisted), but they just go on forever, and therefore lose some of their impact in the proccess.
Other than "How Soon Is Now?", the only song that will be familiar to neophyte Smiths fans is the excelllent single "That Joke isnt Funny Anymore", which includes the fathomlessly clever line "It was dark as I drove the point home". Not surprizingly, The Smiths are more succesful with shorter songs. "What She Said", "Nowhere Fast", and "Well I Wonder" are the album's best songs. "I Want the One I Can't Have", on the other hand, expresses what was even by this point in his carreer a pretty trite Morrissey sentiment. And I still haven't mentioned the opening tracks, "The Headmaster Ritual" and "Rusholme Ruffians". Sadly, there isnt really much to say about them, appart from that they sound a bit juvenile and uninspired. (Although the "Marie's the Name of His Latest Flame" riff on the latter is a nice touch).
Given the excitement that had built up around The Smiths by 1985, it is not surprizing that Meat Is Murder entered the UK album chart at #1. Fans were certainly justified in their expectations for the album, and were right to rush out and by it. Unfortunately, the material on the album proved to be disappointing by any standards. Fortunately, it was not enough to bring down the band's hopes, as they re-emerged in the finest form of their carreer with their next release. While Meat is Murder is not essesital in the all-embracing sense of the term, it is worth hearing for that very reason. After all, every great band has at least one album that demonstrates what they sound like at their not-so-great. In the case of The Smiths, that album is Meat Is Murder.
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| Editorial Review |
If you like "Meat Is Murder", you might also like ...
|
The Queen Is Dead |
The Smiths |
Strangeways, Here We Come |
Louder Than Bombs |
Hatful of Hollow |
