Continuing a countdown of my favorite albums of 1986…

#2 – The Queen is Dead – The Smiths

If you’d told me The Smiths’ The Queen is Dead wouldn’t be my #1 album of the year it came out, I would have called you crazy. And yet, that’s where we stand, with one of my all-time favorite albums serving as salutatorian.

I’ve sung this album’s praises so much on the blog that all ten of its tracks have already been featured, requiring me to post a live version today. But I’ll scribble down a few more words of praise.

The Queen is Dead is the third of The Smiths’ four studio albums, and the most successful release of their oh-so-brief four-year career. It was produced by Morrissey and Johnny Marr, whose collaboration was in peak form. This album contains some of Marr’s most infectious music and Morrissey’s most insightful and witty lyrics.

The album’s best-known track, ‘There is a Light That Never Goes Out,’ wasn’t released as a single until five years after the band broke up, to promote a greatest hits package. That’s a great song, but literally every cut here is great.

Best of all are the twin melancholy epics ‘I Know It’s Over’ and ‘Never Had No Over Ever,’ nestled together in the middle of side one. Those tracks are bookended by the buoyant and hilarious ‘Frankly Mr. Shankly’ and ‘Cemetry Gates,’ offering a great encapsulation of the album’s varied moods.

Another candidate for the album’s best song is ‘The Boy with the Thorn in His Side,’ today’s SOTD. It’s been read as both a plea for professional recognition and a song about gay love, and named by Morrissey as his favorite Smiths song. Who am I to argue?