"Mope rock" is one of those annoying terms rock critics toss into reviews and The Smiths are usually blamed as the alleged genre's progenitor. If the accusation is true, it must be added that The Smiths had a much wider scope than the depression of emotional letdown-even if they explored that field as well as anyone in rock.
The new double-disc career overview is excellent listening, even without the singles and rarities. Singer-writer Morrissey's acutely exquisite sensibility suggests Oscar Wilde more than any role model of the rock era. His empathetic, accusatory and expressive voice, accompanied by the glum folk-rock strum of guitarist Johnny Marr, framed his mostly downbeat but often waggish songs about, well, emotional letdown, but also oblique social commentary and not so oblique scolds ("Meat is Murder" more than suggests Morrissey's dietary regimen).
After The Smiths disbanded in 1987, Morrissey carried on with albums virtually indistinguishable from his recordings with the group. Listening to The Sound of The Smiths comes the realization that unlike so many other trendy British acts of the era, Morrissey's music hasn't dated along with yesterday's hairstyles.
Remember when bands cared about albums as an art form? Instead of
slapping together a dozen tracks because, hey, they'll just end up on
everyone's iPod shuffle anyway, musicians considered how their songs
might congeal as a whole or form some sort of dram
Elvis Costello's frequent collaborator T-Bone Burnett produced Secret, Profane & Sugarcane,
an Americana-inflected album working with country and folk traditions
for images of sawdust floors set to mandolin and fiddle. Costello
intended one s
You wouldn’t expect to find T-bone and sirloin dinners at a place with stool seating and a location next to a shop hawking cell phones and cigarettes. But one of the city’s most evocatively named eateries, ZaZa Steak & Lemonade (4919 W. Capito
The enduring fantasy of older men is that a gorgeous
young woman will fall in love with them, find them sexually arousing
and long to imbibe their wisdom while sitting at their feet. That
fantasy is the spring driving Woody Allen's often-hilarious f
Away We Go, a droll comedy-cum-drama by director Sam Mendes (American Beauty),
perceptively explores the lives of more-or-less ordinary 30-somethings
lost in a world without much meaning. Verona (Maya Rudolph) and Bu
