The Smiths
Singles (Reprise)
by Marc Hirsh
The Smiths
Singles (Reprise)
by Marc Hirsh
originally published in the Public News, August 2, 1995
This album shouldn't exist. There are plenty of other Smiths compilations out there, most of them better. You've got your live Rank, your early singles collection Hatful of Hollow, your two-volume Best collection.
As far as I can tell, the appearance of Singles is directly connected to the appearance of the World Of Morrissey best-of. Hear me out. IRS Records bombards Great Britain with rereleases of old R.E.M. material every time the Athens band puts out another new album for Warner Bros. Check out the import bin if you don't believe me. I'm guessing Reprise hopes to achieve the same sort of free publicity by going nuts with the Smiths catalog for each new Morrissey album. Sure, there are problems with this theory (not least of which being that Morrissey himself is still on Reprise), but I stick to it.
Ignoring the fact that the Smiths were never a big singles band in the U.S., the collection also neglects chronology completely, mixing up the songs so that the listener doesn't get any sense of the band's progress (is that the point?). B-sides are missing, which implies that this is a "greatest hits" album, which it isn't.
The fact that all but one of these songs is available on Best I and II, coupled with the absence of crucial tracks like "Stop Me If You Think That You've Heard This One Before" (an American single, if I remember correctly) and "The Headmaster Ritual," makes this collection redundant or worthless, depending on your mood. The most pointless album with the best songs I've heard in a long time.