The Smiths "Bigmouth Strikes Again" Review

FOOT IN MOUTH 

THE SMITHS: Bigmouth Strikes Again (Rough Trade)
SANDIE SHAW: Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken? (Polydor)
HIS LATEST FLAME: Somebody's Gonna Get Hurt (Go! Discs)

The agony of dreaming you're Sandie Shaw and waking up as the Big Sound Authority! His Latest Flame's debut, Nick Lowe-produced and a huff 'n' puff attempt at 'Georgie Girl' classicism, falters on a female vocal of remarkable horridness. The none-too-special-anyway song would’ve at least had a sporting chance in the larynx of ....

Sandie Shaw, but she'd probably be too busy playing footsie with retiring and retired pop king Stephen Patrick Morrissey. We can dispense with her A-side, an airbrushed plod through the cringingly literate nonsense of one Lloyd Cole, and get to the grist, the astonishing flip 'Stephen (You Don't Eat Meat)'. A referential, reverential, not to say downright crawling thing ("you dressed me in your glad rags / you in your gladioli''), it ought to be hilarious, but it's done with such care and attention that it's actually quite plausible, moving even. And, wide-eyed ones, it's also a pretty decent approximation of a Smithsong, which is as well because...

'Bigmouth Strikes Again' barely manages that. There, I've said it; the new, long-awaited Smiths single is as disappointing as baked beans for Christmas dinner, Worrying too. OK, so the Marr parts are all present and correct, but does the light of Sandie's life still expect us to swallow it whole? "And now I know how Joan Of Arc felt," he oscillates mildly. On this evidence, Joan Collins seems more likely.

And how about "flames rose to a Roman nose and a hearing aid started to melt"? It's got to be a lower school competition, surely. Y'know, "write a Smiths lyric and Morrissey'll record it", surely. No?

Add to all this the fact that the underside's an instrumental with bits of 'How Soon Is Now' repeated into submission and the truth is unavoidable; the new Smiths single is the sound of laurels being heavily sat upon. What's the new LP called? 'The Queen Is Dead'? Long live . . .

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