The Smiths “Strangeways, Here We Come” released 30 years ago on yesterday’s date, September 28th (I think. Most sources say the 28th but a couple list Sept. 22nd and another the 29th). Strangeways was The Smiths’ final studio album release and both Morrissey and Johnny Marr state they feel it was their best. It went gold in the UK within days of its release, hitting #2 on the album charts; it made it to #55 on the US charts. While still very much full of The Smiths sound, there is a bit less jangly guitar, a few more nods to outright rock (especially the excellent “I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish,” the second single release from the album which reached #23 in the UK). Morrissey plays piano on “Death of a Disco Dancer,” another departure from all of their other recordings. However, many of the tracks are very typical Smiths, especially “Girlfriend In a Coma,” which has a lightly bouncing and delightful melody behind Morrissey’s darkly humorous lyrics (“Girlfriend” was the first single released, hitting #13 in the UK) and while “Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before” has a deeper and more pronounced bassline than many Smiths songs, it is still a bit jangly and has Morrissey-level depression (“I was delayed, I was way-laid/An emergency stop /I smelt the last ten seconds of life/I crashed down on the crossbar/And the pain was enough to make a shy, bald, Buddhist reflect/And plan a mass murder/Who said I’d lied to her?”).

Johnny Marr quit The Smiths not long before the release of Strangeways (quickly followed by Morrissey’s announcement of a solo career) and it’s easy to project a requiem quality onto many of the songs. “Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me” has the tempo of a funeral dirge, complete with dramatic strings. Loss and death permeates “I Won’t Share You” and “Death at One’s Elbow” (though the latter is accompanied by a rather gleeful harmonica) and bitterness about endings drips from Morrissey on “Unhappy Birthday.”