The Best Box Sets of All Time (1): The Complete Smiths
When I presented the “Complete” box to Johnny Marr for signing during an interview, he took the pen – and initially didn’t sign, but rather tapped it on the cover motif with the four British women that Jürgen Vollmer photographed at a fair in the 1960s . Marr passed each of the women with the pen – “please imprint!” Then he opened the booklet that accompanied the set and pointed to a photo of the Smiths: “Do you see the similarity? These ladies – they look just like us! That’s who we are – in an alternative past!” Morrissey chose both images because of their similarity.
Marr played his Rickenbacker
It is well known that the Smiths singer would like to live in the past. He loves the Swinging Sixties as well as the Nouvelle Vague and dedicated a song to Oscar Wilde. Marr played his Rickenbacker – it’s amazing that perhaps the most important British band of the 1980s didn’t want to sell us the sound of the future.
The Best Box Sets of All Time (1): The Complete Smiths
The Smiths released their studio albums within a narrow time frame, from 1984 to 1987, but very effectively, one in each year: “The Smiths”, “Meat Is Murder”, “The Queen Is Dead” and “Strangeways, Here We Come”. With 110 songs on eight vinyl discs, the “Complete” box not only includes these four works, but also the compilations and alternative version sets “Louder than Bombs”, “The World Won’t Listen” and “Hatful of Hollow”.
“Panic” is “The Queen Is Dead” material, “William, It Was Really Nothing” belongs on “The Smiths”
They can be described as studio albums because the singles on them provide clues in sound and narrative as to which of the actual studio albums they would have listened to – but Morrissey and Marr chose not to include them because they were following the parallel singles-only release strategy of the 1960s and made a reference to the Beatles. “Panic” is “The Queen Is Dead” material, “William, It Was Really Nothing” belongs on “The Smiths”.
The highlight of the collection is the London live recording “Rank,” which featured the Smiths on their 1986 tour as a quintet with second guitarist Craig Gannon. Morrissey didn’t like that and saw the Smiths as a second Rolling Stones; But this relieved Marr, who appeared on albums with up to four guitars per song. “Sacrilegious!” said the singer, who saw the band as loners on their instruments and did not want any duplication. The anti-anthem “The Queen Is Dead” only unfolds its destructive potential in this fatter stage version.
All 25 single releases as 7-inch replicas
“Complete Smiths” doesn’t offer “Complete Smiths”: 18 B-sides and outtakes are missing, including the three collaborations with the 1967 Eurovision winner Sandie Shaw, which particularly features the Smiths’ debut single “Hand In Glove” in a surprisingly aggressive new setting usurps.
After all, and unfortunately the product policy has changed to this day, just so we can spend more money: “Complete” contains all LPs and CDs in just one set, so you don’t have to spend your wallet twice for the entire work – once for the vinyl, once for the CDs – plunder. Plus, even nicer: all 25 single releases as 7-inch replicas.
You can even put the massive box set in the display case unused and wrapped in foil: a download code – which reissues still have this today? – offers all 110 songs digitally. I’m one of those buyers who preferred to keep their boxes wrapped. But then Johnny Marr wouldn’t have been able to leave an autograph on “Complete.” And didn’t tell me the secret of the Smiths’ doppelgangers in the booklet.