THE SMITHS
The Queen Is Dead
It was a square peg amid the shred scene and almost sank Johnny Marr, but the Smiths’ majestic third album ended up as the jewel in their crown
BY HENRY YATES
“The Eighties shredders were a joke,” said Johnny Marr, seen here in with a Fender Strat early 1987
DONNA SANTISI/REDFERNS
IT WAS THE summer of 1985, and Johnny Marr was a man out of time. Three years earlier, while still a teenager, the guitarist had co-founded the Smiths in Manchester, England, with vocalist Morrissey (bassist Andy Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce completed the lineup). But the crystalline chime of his Rickenbacker 330 was still a lone voice in the era of sweep-picked flash. “The Eighties shredders were a joke,” Marr told this writer in 2009. “That’s guitar playing as an Olympic sport. If you’re into decent music, it’s just offensive.”
What, then, did Marr deem ‘decent music’? In their early career, the Smiths had covered more ground than their indie-jangle elevator pitch would suggest, roaming from the swampy tremolo judder of “How Soon Is Now?” to the airtight Chic-inspired funk of “Barbarism Begins at Home” and the ringing doublestops of “This Charming Man” (a track Marr always denied was influenced by African highlife, but it sure sounds like it).