The Queen Is Dead is the third
studio album of The Smiths. It
was released on June 16, 1986
by their U.K. record company,
Rough Trade Records, and
reached No. 2 in the British
charts. Their U.S. record
company released the album on
June 23, 1986. The album
reached No. 70 on the
Billboard 200.

After releasing their
Se
more

The Queen Is Dead is the third
studio album of The Smiths. It
was released on June 16, 1986
by their U.K. record company,
Rough Trade Records, and
reached No. 2 in the British
charts. Their U.S. record
company released the album on
June 23, 1986. The album
reached No. 70 on the
Billboard 200.

After releasing their
September 1985 single, 'The
Boy with the Thorn in His
Side' (which is included on
The Queen Is Dead in an
updated, slightly re-mixed
version), The Smiths turned to
recording their third album.
Pressure was high on the band
to produce an album that met
the high expectations within
the press and the fan base.
Johnny Marr worked day and
night in the studio recording
and producing the music. The
band wanted to release the
album as soon as possible, but
relations with their record
company, Rough Trade, were not
at their best at the time. In
early 1986, all communications
broke down and the album's
release was indefinitely
postponed.

The Queen Is Dead, produced by
Morrissey and Marr with
Stephen Street engineering,
finally emerged half a year
late, in June 1986, and was
previewed by the May single
release of 'Bigmouth Strikes
Again', strictly speaking the
only single taken from the
album. Many encouraged the
band to release 'There Is a
Light That Never Goes Out' as
a single, but Johnny Marr is
said to have wanted an
explosive, searing single,
along the lines of The Rolling
Stones' 'Jumpin' Jack Flash',
to announce that The Smiths
had returned from hiatus. It
did not fare as well as
expected, stalling at No. 26
on the British charts.

The album is popularly
regarded as The Smiths' best
album. With its unique blend
of musical styles (including
jangle pop, British Invasion,
rockabilly and punk rock), it
quickly became a British
sensation and established The
Smiths as one of the biggest
bands of its era. Both
Morrissey and Marr disagree,
however, citing its 1987
successor (and unexpectedly
final Smiths LP), Strangeways,
Here We Come, as their peak.

The tribute album, The Smiths
is dead (Small Records, 1996)
was compiled by the French art
criticism magazine Les
Inrockuptibles to celebrate
The Queen Is Dead's 10th
anniversary.

In 1997 The Queen Is Dead was
named the 15th greatest album
of all time in a 'Music of the
Millennium' poll conducted by
HMV, Channel 4, The Guardian
and Classic FM. In 2003, the
album was ranked number 216 on
Rolling Stone magazine's list
of the 500 greatest albums of
all time. In 2005 Channel 4
viewers placed it at number
20, and in 2006 Q magazine
readers placed it at number
12. In 2000 Q placed it at
number 27 in its list of the
100 Greatest British Albums
Ever; in 2004, a similar list
by The Observer Music
Magazine's critics placed it
at number 37, behind the
band's eponymous debut which
was 21st. It was ranked 5 in
Spin's '100 Greatest Albums,
1985-2005' (2005). The German
newspaper WAZ placed it at
number 1. In June 2006, 20
years after its original
release, NME dedicated almost
a whole issue to the album.
Much More Music placed it at
24 on Listed's Top 40 Album of
the Past 25 Years. In 2006 NME
placed the album second in a
list of greatest British
albums, behind The Stone
Roses.

The song 'There Is a Light
That Never Goes Out', widely
seen as the epitome of The
Smiths' style, was a contender
for lead single off the album,
but was passed over in favour
of 'Bigmouth Strikes Again'.
(Later in 1986 it was released
as a 7'-only single in
France.) It received a belated
release in 1992, when it
became one of WEA's singles in
a programme to promote Smiths
re-releases (see the entry on
...Best II). It made a final
attempt to crack the charts in
2005, when Morrissey released
a live version in support of
his Live at Earls Court album,
recorded during the You Are
the Quarry tour, where the
song was the set closer.

'Cemetry Gates' was
Morrissey's direct response to
critics who had cried foul
over his use of texts written
by some of his favorite
authors, notably Shelagh
Delaney and Elizabeth Smart.
Oscar Wilde, who was also
accused of plagiarism, figures
as a patron saint of
Morrissey's in the song's
lyrics. A Wilde quote, 'Talent
borrows, genius steals', was
etched in the vinyl run-out
grooves of the first single
off the album, 'Bigmouth
Strikes Again'.

'The Queen Is Dead', which
leads off the album, starts
with a soundbite from Bryan
Forbes' 1962 British film The
L-Shaped Room. Another
instance of Morrissey's
fascination with Sixties
British cinema, the film,
which featured performances by
Cicely Courtneidge and Pat
Phoenix (who had already
appeared as a cover star on
the 1985 single 'Shakespeare's
Sister'), contains a poignant
scene in which a group of
homesick Britons living in
France sing 'Take Me Back To
Dear Old Blighty'. The song
was also notable for a
memorable expressionistic
music video directed by Derek
Jarman.

Category People & Blogs

Tags Rock, the, smiths, cemetry, gates, queen, is, dead, morrisey, johnny, marr, manchester