The Smiths: Meat is Murder CD Track Listing

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The Smiths Meat is Murder (1985)
Originally Released February 1985\nCD Edition Released 1987 ??\n\nAMG EXPERT REVIEW: With their second proper album Meat Is Murder, the Smiths begin to branch out and diversify, while refining the jangling guitar pop of their debut. In other words, it catches the group at a crossroads, unsure quite how to proceed. Taking the epic, layered "How Soon Is Now?" as a starting point (the single, which is darker and more dance-oriented than the remainder of the album, was haphazardly inserted into the middle of the album for its American release), the group crafts more sweeping, mid-tempo numbers, whether it's the melancholy "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore" or the failed, self-absorbed protest of the title track. While the production is more detailed than before, the Smiths are at their best when they stick to their strengths -- "The Headmaster Ritual" and "I Want the One I Can't Have" are fine elaborations of the formula they laid out on the debut, while "Rusholme Ruffians" is an infectious stab at rockabilly. However, the rest of Meat Is Murder is muddled, repeating lyrical and musical ideas of before without significantly expanding them or offering enough hooks or melodies to make it the equal of The Smiths or Hatful of Hollow. -- Stephen Thomas Erlewine\n\nAmazon.com Editorial Review\nSinger Morrissey's brittle wit and guitarist Johnny Marr's incisive guitar helped make the Smiths create both an entranced cult following and pop music of the highest order. The U.S. edition of the band's second album includes the bonus single "How Soon Is Now?" and while it's a welcome addition, the rest of the tracks stand ably on their own. The militant vegetarianism is heavy-handed, but the sly humor of "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore" and "I Want the One I Can't Have" present proof of the band's scope, as do the anthemic "The Headmaster Ritual" and "Rusholme Ruffians." --Rob O'Connor \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nReally great record, September 16, 2004 \nBy Joshua L Wright "book and music fan" (Royal Oak, MI United States)\nAs another reviewer said, the Smiths are an acquired taste, but once you acquire it it never quite leaves you. I'm much older (and fatter) than when I first met Moz and Marr but they still occupy a big place in my heart. I think their depth and versatility stand them head and shoulders above their contemporaries like REM, U2 and the Lemonheads. \n\nMeat is Murder is a great record. It is less overproduced than the first release ("less overproduced" is the best one can hope for from a Smiths album), and band actually sounds like the rock outfit it is, as opposed to the britpop band it was portrayed as on the first release. We even see glimses of the self parody Morissey engages in on Strangeaways Here We Come in songs like "What She Said". \n\nRushholme Ruffians is maybe my favorite Smiths song period and there are only two songs here that I would say are bad. "I Want the One I Can't Have" is a mishmash of cute lines Morrissey seems to have jotted down in his notebook and thrown together in a song to fill out the first half of the album. And then there is the much maligned title track. I actually think the song is musically strong and sets a great creepy kind of mood. But this mood collapses before it even begins, when frenzied mooing breaks through the intro. Moz comes across like a 14 year old who has just read a PETA pamphlet and tells us the smell of turkey roasting in the oven is the unholy stench of murder. I just can't help collapsing into giggles whenever I hear this track or think about it. \n\nAll silliness aside this is a masterpiece and essential for any Smiths or 80's post-new wave fan. Buy it or get a crack on the head! \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nThe Blueprint For A Successful Follow-Up Album, April 11, 2007 \nBy Jay Dee Dubya (Dearborn, MI United States)\nIn today's day & age of artists releasing albums with the frequency of presidential 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 Isn't 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-conscious songwriting, while Johnny Marr takes his guitar-playing up a few notches - which is ultimately showcased on "How Soon..." (the rhythm guitar-track was conveniently 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 interest from start to finish. If not, you don't know what's good for you. \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nOften Seen As Their Weakest Album, April 11, 2003 \nBy Nick Fell (Somewhere in the North of England)\n"The Queen Is Dead" is the Smiths album that receives the most praise, perhaps rightfully so, and "Meat Is Murder" is the album which tends to be seen as their weakest (when the NME writers recently compiled their list of the 100 Best Albums of All Time this was the only Smiths album that did not make the list). However, it is still an excellent achievement with only the final two songs letting it down somewhat as they go on far too long unnecessarily repeating themselves over and over. It is easily their rockiest album overall as "The Headmaster Ritual," "I Want The One I Can't Have," "What She Said" and others show, yet it also contains two of the most incredibly beautiful songs they ever did in "Well I Wonder" and "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore" (the latter being my all-time favorite Smiths song). \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nThe Smiths Do it Again..., October 14, 2002 \nBy The Groove (Boston, MA)\nOn the second proper LP from the Smiths, Morrissey makes no attempt to conceal his disdain for carnivores on the chilling title track. Dramatic and over-the-top, it takes vegetarianism to fanatic heights. Once you've read the lyrics, you'll be sorry you ever made that drive-through at McDonald's. Elsewhere, Morrissey and Marr create strokes of brilliance on "Meat is Murder." Here, the singer glides through unrequited love ("I Want the One I Can't Have"), isolation ("How Soon is Now," which appears on the American version), and child abuse ("Barbarism Begins at Home"). Nobody does self-pity like Morrissey. Sample lyric: "when I lay in bed at night/ I think about death and I think about life/ and neither one/ particularly appeals to me." And Johnny Marr's melodies are always strong and on-point, adding urgency to Morrissey's thoughtful and eloquent lyrics. Morrissey cries, "That joke isn't funny anymore." But we're not laughing. "Meat is Murder" is a blazingly good album that's just one of the few entries in the band's stellar catalog of brilliant British pop. \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nPark the car by the side of the road...., September 30, 2000 \nBy "johnthirdearl" (Lynnwood, WA United States)\nHistorically, the greatest songwriters in rock (Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Elvis Costello) have never articulated any original or remarkable thoughts within their lyrics. The most a successful rock lyricist can hope to accomplish, is to accurately mirror the status quo by encapsulating how and why certain segments of society feel. Not to write meaningless, relativistic "phonetic poetry" like Brian Eno. Not to claim that the difference between things there (the projects) and here is such that the taking of responsibility there and here should be on different principles, like most knuckle-dragging hip-hop "artists" try to do. That music not only says nothing about "my" life, but nothing about life in general (except that its absurd). It's like Camus with a drum-machine. \nWhen Morrissey first emerged from the UK's New Romantic scene in the early 1980s, he and the Smiths immediately stood out from the crowd. Hitherto, he was the first lyricist to speak out for tens of thousands of disaffected, alienated adolescents, who had been waiting impatiently for such a spokesman as the flamboyant Mancunian. Unlike unbearably bleak successors Kurt Cobain and Richey Edwards, there was an occasional optimistic light at the end of the tunnel within Morrissey's lyrics. \n\n"Meat is Murder" is full of somber, melodic tunes that cast a autobiographical light on Morrissey. The first song "The Headmaster Ritual," is a petulant diatribe aimed at the abusive faculty of St. Marys, a Catholic school he attended until he was 16. Track five, "That Joke isn't Funny Anymore," is my personal favorite; a song which Morrissey claimed in an interview was about the treatment he received by the music press. Then there's "How Soon is Now," a song that the Smiths are identified with here by most people here in the US, nothwithstanding the fact that it was never released as a single for the Smiths in the UK. \n\nA definite must-have for any Smiths fan and a smart first-purchase for those looking to get acquainted with the band's best work. \n\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nBeef: Savour the Flavour of Murder. (TM), October 30, 1998 \nBy G. Moses "theonlytruegeo" (Men...Of...The...Sea!)\nThis isn't the Smiths' best album, but it's pretty good. It's main weakness, I feel, is that Morrissey's decided he needs to address specific social issues, losing to a certain degree the amiguity and richness his lyrics possessed in the past. The best tracks--What She Said and That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore--are the ones that stay farthest away from that, although Nowhere Fast is undeniably good. Okay, so Rusholme Ruffians and The Headmaster Ritual Aren't Bad, and even Barbarism Begins At Home has something to be said for it. But I absolutely HAVE to dock the album as a whole a star, just for the title track, which may have been intended to make a powerful statement, but just comes across as being very, very silly. Oh well. \n\n\nHalf.com Details \nProducer: John Porter, The Smiths \n\nAlbum Notes\nThe Smiths: Morrissey (vocals); Johnny Marr (guitar, piano); Andy Rourke (bass); Mike Joyce (drums).\n\nRecorded at Amazon Studios, Liverpool and Ridge Farm, Surrey, England.\n\nMEAT IS MURDER found the Smiths further honing their craft, tightening and brightening their sound. Unlikely heroes at home in the UK, and starting to break through the cracks in the States, they latched inextricably onto a generation of youth on a global scale with this album, making vegetarians and animal-rights activists out of more than a few of their overcoat-wearing devotees. The most straight-ahead of the Smiths' albums in terms of production, MEAT IS MURDER is a rootsy effort, driven largely by Johnny Marr's lush acoustic guitar arrangements.\n\nThe album, however, is far from folky. While the frenetic pace and dolorous lyric "Rusholm Ruffians" and the gentle, haunting "Well I Wonder" have acoustic backbones, the blistering fury of "What She Said" and the cascading echoes of "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore" are purely electric, and are exactly the reason behind the reverence with which Marr found himself being graced from here on. Morrissey takes a humorous stab at royalty (not his last by any means) over the quick shuffle of "Nowhere Fast." The album closes on an intense, epic note with the dramatic, compelling title track, a graphic anthem for the cause celebre of vegetarianism.\n\nIndustry Reviews\n4 Stars - Excellent - ...[MEAT IS MURDER is] a great second album...\nQ (12/01/1993)\n\nRanked #47 among The 50 Greatest Albums Of The '80s.\nNME (09/25/1993)\n\nRanked #9 in CMJ's Top 20 Most-Played Albums of 1985\nCMJ (01/05/2004)\n\n\nROLLING STONE REVIEW\nLead singer and wordsmith Stephen Morrissey (who goes by his surname professionally) is a man on a mission, a forlorn and brooding crusader with an arsenal of personal axes to grind. Drawing on British literary and cinematic tradition (he cites influences ranging from Thomas Hardy and Oscar Wilde to Saturday Night and Sunday Morning), Morrissey speaks out for protection of the innocent, railing against human cruelty in all its guises. Three of the songs on Meat Is Murder deal with saving our children -- from the educational system ("The Headmaster Ritual"), from brutalizing homes ("Barbarism Begins at Home"), from one another ("Rusholme Ruffians"). The title track, "Meat Is Murder," with its simulated bovine cries and buzz-saw guitars, takes vegetarianism to new heights of hysterical carniphobia.\n\nA man of deadly serious sensitivity, Morrissey recognizes emotional as well as physical brutality, assailing the cynicism that laughs at loneliness ("That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore"). Despite feeling trapped in an unfeeling world, Morrissey can still declare, "My faith in love is still devout," with a sincerity so deadpan as to be completely believable.\n\nThough he waves the standard for romance and sexual liberation, Morrissey has a curiously puritanical concept of love. He's conscious of thwarted passion and inappropriate response, yet remains oddly distant from his own self-absorption. The simple pleasures of others make him uncomfortable, as if these activities were the cause of his own grand existential suffering. Morrissey's uptight romanticism wears the black mantle of a new Inquisition.\n\nIn contrast to Morrissey's censorious lyrical attitudes is the expansive musical vision of guitarist and tunesmith Johnny Marr. When these two are brought into alignment, the results transcend and transform Morrissey's concerns. The brightest example is the shimmering twelve-inch "How Soon Is Now?" (included as a bonus on U.S. copies of Meat Is Murder). Marr's version of the Bo Diddley beat and his somber, reptilian guitars propel Morrissey's heartfelt plea -- "I am human, and I need to be loved, just like everybody else does" -- into the realm of universal compassion and postcool poetry. At this point, his needs seem real, his concerns nonjudgmental, and his otherwise pious persona truly sympathetic. (RS 448 -- May 23, 1985) -- TIM HOLMES
This rock cd contains 10 tracks and runs 46min 37sec.
Freedb: 720aeb0a
Buy: from Amazon.com

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The Smiths: Meat is Murder CD Track Listing

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