Atmosphere for Young Smiths Fans

[Aziza]

[Lazy Dyke]

[Disco_dancer_in_a_coma]

I was a teenager in the late 80's, it wasn't uncommon for the less "top 40" of us to know and love The Smiths. But you know, in Houma, Louisiana, Smiths fans were fairly few and far between. I was introduced to them in 1986, and they were not yet popular in America at all then. In fact, they didn't get any radio play in the states until Strangeways... AFTER they'd split up!

They played in New Orleans in 1986. I have a bootleg of the concert. My college boyfriend was there (he was a few years older than I was--my parents would have never let me go to a concert in NOLA in 1986), and I will be eternally jealous that I missed that show.

And there's no accounting for taste. My Debbie Gibson CD was right next to Strangeways in my CD rack. And I also love Jimmy Buffett. I suppose I'm eclectic or something.

[Qvist]

[rorschach]

[helmoz]

i like your description of "fear of music" - there have been far too many times i have been to a party or a club where they play exactly the same playlist every time and refuse to take requests that are even slightly different in case they frighten the punters with something unfamiliar. also, whenever older people have dinner parties they always seem to play something really bland in the background which can be easily ignored and talked over ("wallpaper music" as jeremy clarkson calls it).

[WordsAsOldAsSin]

[lettucefetish]

i wish i could find people who knew them- nobody's ever heard of them!
I've tried to get my friends into them and failed...I think some kids at school might like them, but only the ones that are like really really music collecteringy, like they say they like three hundred bands just cos it goes with their label. One of my friends told me it was 'depressing' music!!

[Pashernate_Lover]

I don't find it depressing, I find it rather uplifting. I remember being a university freshman (wow-- was it THAT long ago??) and walking around at night with my portable cd player and headphones through the foresty bits of my campus under the moon and stars listening to Hatful of Hollow whenever I got depressed and needed a real pick-me-up. Magical.

[Nymphetamine]

I was one of the first people I knew to get into The Smiths, there was one chap before me who had been listening to them a year or so before me, but he never to my knowledge branded them his favourite band. He did tell me about them, he recommended them to me, but at the time I was into my Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, Papa Roach and Disturbed phase, not too mention Metallica, Pantera and ZZ Top. I was very americanised thanks to Kerrang TV and Kerrang Magazine.

I was a misfit at school, the quirky child who never reached his full potential in anything, who wasn't popular and often mocked, who refused to stand out from the crowd. The Smiths intrigued me and I remember listening to them for the first time. I listened to This Charming Man and thought it was "rubbish", it sounded too pop like and was all coy and cutesy, it wasn't like the NU Metal and Heavy Metal genre I was used to listening to. I remember listening to The Boy with a Thorn in his Side and I could relate to the lyrics and it wasn't until I listened to Unhappy Birthday that I got it. I remember sitting in my room on my pc with this playing through headphones and I had it on loop for hours during the evening and I could relate to the bitterness and pain from rejection within the song and it started from there. My love of The Smiths was born, my idolisation of Morrissey was born. In the coming months, I stopped listening to Linkin Park and Papa Roach and in the coming years become more interested in British music, The Beatles, The Cure, The Stone Roses, David Bowie, Joy Division, Oasis, Pulp and Blur etc.

I never received a harsh time for liking The Smiths from friends and people I met, but my family suggested I seek counselling when they heard me playing Asleep and Unlovable at 2am in the morning while revising for a mock English test. I guess The Smiths are no longer controversial, society has changed completely since 1982, so much so that Morrissey came under fire for saying a few years ago in the NME where they tried the failed hatchet job on Morrissey painting him out to be a member of the British National Party.

I get more stick for being a Cure and Joy Division enthusiast. I remember wanting a tattoo of a segment of The Cure's infamous song "Pictures of You", it reads:

"If only I'd thought of the right words
I could have held on to your heart
If only I'd thought of the right words
I wouldn't be breaking apart.

It would have been a highly personal tattoo, but I decided against it. Everyone has a tattoo and I just couldn't possibly conform.

[neilno1]

I'm 17 discovered Morrissey and the smiths on I think 20th February last year when Moz was on Friday night with Johnathon Ross. Interestingly first he played 'im throwing my arms around paris' which i thought was crap, and still think ain't that great. But for some reason I persevered, and thank god I did. All I'd previously heard about Morrissey was really through my Dad who said he was a moaning depressing winging puff. On the basis I don't know why I felt I had to hear his next number but thank fuck I did. He played this charming man with the fuller heavier sound he has been recently and not exaggerating it changed my life.

I am now constantly listening to the Smiths and Morrissey, haven't really listened to anything since to be honest, and am totally transfixed by the lyrics and ideals. On the subject of a stigma against smiths fans it is true. I make it a point of principle of making sure that everyone knows I love the smiths, perhaps through the hope I'll meet someone else who does. But anyone who has heard of them my age just goes, 'oh you go and slit your wrists and kill yourself'. Which is obviously bollocks and a bit annoying but who cares what people think, isn't that the point of the smiths hey,

'and if the people stare, then the people stare'

Viva Moz!

[robsince1991]

dunno weather this is relivent but im 18 years old, live in sheffield and am a huge smiths fan. when i first got into them i thought it was strange and something only i would listen within to in my age group apart from very few others. this is not the case however as i quickly met loads of other people in sheffield the same age as me (allot of them girls) who have a similare obsession with the band. there is allot of possible reasons for this but still i think its really intresting there is abit of a fan base of young people even 20 years on. and ive never been shy or reluctant to admit being a fan of the smiths to anyone my own age. most adults however roll there eyes and say something along the lines of "well hes abit deppressing isent he" obviously reffering to morrissey lol.

[DAVIE]

Well on Morrissey solo, there's lots of us young kids! But if you meet your Dad's friend and say you like The Smiths or any 80s band they'll say. Well you never lived in that era and you weren't there! Or your way too young to know The Smiths. But the thing is, we have more research on them now than they did in the 1980s.