Is there a Morrissey fan who dislikes The Smiths or vice versa?

[Maurice E]

Dear lord, if ever a subject has been done to death!
For all you need to know about solo and Smiths songs, look at the results of the biggest ever Moz/Smiths poll covering all 234 songs.
http://forums.morrissey-solo.com/showthread.php?p=772612

The basic facts are:
Average quality of a Smiths song is considerably higher than the average quality of a solo song.
However, because there have been so many more solo songs, lots of them make the top 100 (45 to be precise) and 4 make the top 10. If you ignore the Morrissey solo songs, you are missing out on tons of brilliant songs.
Rather tellingly, however, only one solitary song from the ROTT era made the top 100.

The Smiths compositions had an incredibly high quality threshold that simply isn't matched by Moz solo (especially the post Vauxhall years).
He can still come out with brilliant songs but they are a relative rarity.
Here's hoping the Years of Refusal sessions yield more brilliant songs (worthy of the top 100) than Ringleader of the Tomatoes, eh?

 

[Ben Budd]

Well, Journalists Who Lie is really quite rubbish.

Last time I dance with YOU at the S&G....

 

[withmyheadonthebar]

Last time I dance with YOU at the S&G....

Given the current state of my finances, that's probably more true than you'd imagine!

 

[Ben Budd]

I'm too cool anyway. Mwah!

 

[the judge]

I never listen to the Smiths casually, only Morrissey. It's because I listened to the Smiths to death as a teenager (and because, they are, actually, rubbish).

do you really think they're rubbish? i've listened to the smiths a lot two years ago and then stopped before disliking them. but i sometimes play the queen is dead and meat is murder and they're as good as ever (well, the good tracks).

 

[Raised on prisoner's aid]

I used to hate listening to Morrissey's solo work, since ALL I listened to before was The Smiths, mainly because of the sub-average backing music to many of Moz's solo stuff- I mean, who can even come close to what Marr wrote?

But then, more recently I figured I should at least give a couple of Moz albums a good listen, and now I'm hooked !

 

[jilla]

um...I would have to say taht though there were some well put together smiths songs i find for several reasons i am a much much bigger fan of morrissey's solo stuff, and in fact i really thought that things were changing on the album "strangeways here we come"

1. Morrissey out and out is a better singer now then he was in early smiths, I love watching the videos and the identity he created and that he was a living sign for many things that the new romantics at the time were not....but he wasn't a good singer, and the songs, though i love Marr were not of the engineered quality and skill level i think morrissey's solo are at now. The sound, its not bam...its something else

2. not to talk about being queer again...well actually i'll approach it like this, as a minority i feel that listening to morrissey's current stuff gives me a sense that he's got a better handle on who he is, he seems more confident and has a different dynamic...for me its seeing a sort of transfermation, its interesting when people in the media grow up in the media and i just feel like though i can totally totally relate to songs like "still ill" and "i want the one i can't have" he seems more like someone i can aspire to change like he did, to be a little bit more brazen you know

so there you go. I'm not the biggest smiths fan.

 

[Raised on prisoner's aid]

I actually think his lyrics w/ The Smiths were more personal, and intriguing. I preferred that I think.

 

[kerestinaz]

Well, I know a person who says that really hates Morrissey. And I think this one hates the solo stuff more than The Smiths And hates Morrissey's look on The Smiths more than the solo one. Confuse!