Is The Queen Is Dead The Greatest LP The Smiths Ever Made?

This past weekend I got to see my oldest and longest standing friend. He is my “brotha from another motha!“…that’s a long standing joke between us with a few dimensions, by the way! We laughed a lot. We ate some good Italian food at Brio in Las Vegas. We did some drinking and had an incredibly good time going through some of our current and all time favorite albums together. Between the two us we could fill an entire skyscraper with our music libraries and wide spanning musical taste! Needless to say, we had an amazing time together. Too bad our time together was so short though.

The Smiths naturally always make it into our conversations. You see The Smiths are one of the bands that heavily influenced us during our youth. Our youth filled memories had quite a lot of The Smiths as a soundtrack and therefore not a band we could ever forget. The truth is, I don’t recall a single time when the subject of Morrisey, Johnny Marr, Andy Rourke, Mike Joyce or The Smiths haven’t entered into a least one of our conversations.

That said, I was taken a back to discover that my good friend doesn’t list The Queen Is Dead as one the greatest Smiths albums. We brought up recordings like Louder Than Bombs, but that is a greatest hits/compilation of sorts. So, doesn’t count! He never quite gave me his choice though. Still, the prospect of it not being their best has caused me wonder if not The Queen Is Dead then which album then would be considered a better choice.

Exhibit A:

Track Listing

1. “The Queen Is Dead”
2. “Frankly, Mr. Shankly”
3. “I Know It’s Over”
4. “Never Had No One Ever”
5. “Cemetry Gates”
6. “Bigmouth Strikes Again”
7. “The Boy with the Thorn in His Side”
8. “Vicar in a Tutu”
9. “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out”
10. “Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others”

Leave your comments below and let me know what you think. This mind wants to know!