Daveportivo's Cultural Evaluation Facility

So before we reveal our respected number one's lets remind you of the top ten. We're going to start with the albums and here we go.

"Oh Charles Don't You Ever Crave To Appear On The Front Of The Daily Mail, Dressed In Your Mother's Bridal Veil", when it comes to statements of intent and tracks that encapsulate the entire ethos of a band in one glorious pop song, no album opener is finer than The Queen Is Dead (Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty). It's a track that had it all, and thundering rhythem, glorious flourishes of guitar and of course Morrissey at the pinnacle of his powers. Morrissey is not only in fine voice, but he is dishing out these delicious witty jabs, that are so deep and cutting that they set him apart from any other song writer in musical history. The juaxtaposition on this record is utterly irrestiable. The Queen Is Dead track sees the Smiths reverse their usual roles, the guitars and drums kick hard, the message of the track is serious and dark, a bold and anti-monarchy statement combined with a some brooding introspection, yet in the midst of all this swirl visercal rage comes such sheer hilarity. It's ridiculous, and it's not a punk rocker decrying George Bush and making a cock joke, this is humour of the highest order, it's utterly delicious, it's self deprecating, it conjures ridiculous imagery. This is the record when Morrissey was a rock god, a pop star, a political activist, a poet, an operatic diva, a stand up comedian and best of all and honest to god artist.

We'll start with the comedy because Morrissey is on brilliant form, his turn of phrase is perfect from the first line ("Her very lowness with her head in a sling"). The highlight of the albums opener comes when Morrissey croons of breaking into Buckingham Palace;

It's barmy, it's off the wall, it's destinctly British and it's completely unique. When we look back at music's great lyricist, it will always be said that Morrissey is without a peer. There are other greats, but Morrissey is incomparible he's in a class of his own, he's like a huge one man melodrama, playing each and every part, going from the sublime, to the ridiculous. I struggle to think of another lyricist who can be so funny and yet so cutting and so affecting all in the same instance. You can see the Smiths influence to this very day, they pretty much created the entire cultural underpinning of Emo and of course it only takes a cursory examination of a Lily Allen record to see that the art of juaxtaposition is still going strong. Of course I said I'd start with the comedy and could there be a record more joyous and more comedic that Frankly Mr. Shankly, a track so charming, it completely disarms you on first listen and it's more serious undertones grab you subconsciously. It's a work of pop art, it combines timeless truisms ("This job pays my way and it corrodes my sould") and ludicrious lyrics that can't help but make you smile ("You are a flatculant pain in the arse"). Of course Morrissey is at his best when he does both at once, in possible my favourite lyric of all time; "I want to live and I want to love, I want to catch something that I might be ashamed of".

The Queen Is Dead is an emotional rollercoster, it takes you from hilarious highs to utter heartbreaking lows. From the laugh out loud thrills of Frankly Mr. Shankly we head to the tragedy of I Know It's Over. A song of such great resonance, It expresses such powerful emotive themes that we've all felt at one time or another, it's about loneliness and heart ache.

It's full of tragic eternally quotable lines;

"Loud loutish lover treat her kindly, though she needs you more than she loves you"

It's a brutal wrenching song, it feels like an opera, it's starts slowly and sombrely before building and building into a glorious widescreen full blown epic conclusion. It's huge, it's mamoth, it's almost uncontainable, but at it's heart it's a touching and emotive masterpiece of tender emotive song writing. It is part of a trio of tracks whose emotional power is only matched by their knowing pomposity. Never Had No One Ever follows, and this track is without the joy, it's hard, it bludgens, it's an unrelenting emotional beatdown as Morrissey insists again and again "I'm Alone, I'm Alone, I'm Alone", it's a bold track, it has a ghostly arrangement with a huanting whistle that blows towards the end, it's harsh and chilling, it's like a suicide note come to life, but in the form of a Shakespearean stage play. Then of course there's the third of the albums emotional epics, a song that hardly needs introduction, and you should damn well know it's name before I type it. The track I'm refering to is of course the devine There Is A Light That Never Goes Out. This is the undisputed pinnacle, it has power, it has punch, and it's biggest emotional punchline is interlinked with a maccabre peice of humour;

The Queen Is Dead is the ultimate in black humour, no record even comes close. The fact that you can have a track so beautiful, so powerful and so god damn brilliant as There Is A Light... and then follow it with Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others. A track of whismy and of throwaway humour, it's light, it's frothy, it's inescapibly infectious and yet it closes the album. Is it one last big joke orchestrated on us, the paying costumer? We are taken on this heartwrenching thrill ride culminating in the perfect moment of There Is A Light... and then they end with a two minute jape. It's as ballsy a move as I've ever seen; imagine if at the end of Gone With The Wind if after saying "Frankly I don't give a damn" if they'd thrown in a fart gag. It's ridiculous, it's the last thing they should have done, yet it's absolutely perfect.

It's always hard to single out tracks on a record of this quality to talk about but the one track that is deserving of extra special attention is Cemetry Gates. It's quite simply the wittiest song ever written. It's a delightful romp, with a lovely sunny guitar line, while Morrissey shows of his brilliant turn of phrase. It's joyous and maccabre, a walk through a cemetry on a "dreaded sunny day", they skip along and "gravely reading stones", before falling out over a quote which one of the protaganist tried to proclaim as their own work when of course it wasn't. It's seems a bizzare topic for a novel let alone a song but it works to a tee. Each and every line is enthralling, as Morrissey croons "if you must write prose or poems the words you use should be your own, don't plagarise or take on loan". The whole scene is ridiculous, but it's so querky and it's some how believable, walking through a grave yard and becoming engrossed in a pretentious debate, no wonder the Smiths are the prenenial students favourites. Cemetry Gates encapsulates the album as a whole it deals with deadly serious themes of death and the meaning of life but it gets lost in futility and comedy. It speaks to the futility of human life, we have our big hopes, dreams and ambitions but somehow we always get side tracked, corrupted and plans change. The Smiths laugh out our and their own pomposity, at the hopelessness of it all. Life can be hopeless, tragic and brutal if you let it, but instead take it lightly, treat it as one big joke a flight of fancy. After all as Oscar Wilde once says "Life Is Far Too Important To Be Taken Seriously".

The real key to the track are the wits who get named dropped "Oh Keates and Yates are on your side, but you lose, for the love of Wilde is on mine". It's a great line, but the point is more subtly, when we think of the Smiths as musicians and albums, it ranks not along side Doolittle and Thriller, instead The Queen Is Dead sits alongside The Importance Of Being Earnest and Twelfth Knight. It's a great work of melodrama and wit, Morrissey's peers are not Lennon and Cobain but Wilde and Yates. The Queen Is Dead is a work of art, it's utter tragic whismy, and that is why it is the best album of the eighties and possible of all time. It's transcendant, it's sets itself apart, it breaks as many rules as it writes. Morrissey's does have the love of Wilde on his side, Morrissey is his twenty first century heir, and The Queen Is Dead is his masterpiece. It is everything and nothing, it is the most important emotional affecting album you will ever hear, and yet it isn't, it's a silly goof, fully of jokes and flights of fancy. The Queen Is Dead is The Importance Of Being Earnest it's as hugely deep and incredibly shallow, it's beautiful and it's hideous, tragedy and joy, it's all of these things all at once, and yet it's none of the above. The Queen Is Dead is like nothing else, it is a truely unique work, and it most certainly is the greatest of album of the eighties by the decades greatest artists. So remember next time you list the great artists it goes Oscar Wilde, Mark Rothko, Stanley Kubrick, Tom Ford, Woody Allen, Stephen Morrissey & Johnny Marr.

So of course after having the tragic predictable number one in the album list, I had to throw a little bit of a curve ball in the singles list. It's not really that much of a stretch however, as Take On Me is still an unstoppable anthem to this very day. It's the ultimate in eighties synth pop. While I'd be hard pressed to ague against anyone who'd suggest Love Will Tear Us Apart is the greater song, it most certainly is. It has greater resonance, emotive power, it has great swathes of tragedy and dispear and it's endlessly danceable but that's not what the eighties were all about. When we think back to eighties pop culture now, two words spring to mind; fun and cheese. A brutal heart wrenching slice of death disco wouldn't suffice, the true greatest song of the eighties, has to be huge, commercial, silly, and utterly irrepressible. Take On Me is all of those things, it's utterly glorious, every inch of it is pop perfection.

It's one of those tracks that will forever be engrained in our collective consciousness. I could go up to every single person I know and start singing this song and I garentee they'd start singing along, try doing that with Joy Division I dare you. This truely is a case of everythings in it's right place, the way the drums pound in and then that epic keyboard line, followed by the gloriously syruppy eighties vocals leading to that ridiculously high chorus that everyone at one time in their life has tried and hideously failed to belt out. It's an utter gem, it's almost too well regarded to call it cheese, it's just an epic, and no matter how many horrible cash in covers are churned out the original has never been phased. It's one of those tracks that forces you to drop your facade and just enjoy at one time or another. It's sheer unrelenting joy, not to be taken too seriously.

Of course how could I conclude without mentioning that video. If I have to describe it to you, then I seriously question why your reading this blog, have you been devoid of pop culture for the last twenty years? It remains my all time favourite video. There are those that are better, more artistic, funnier, but this is a video that ticks all the boxes, it's charming and it's utterly captivating. Hell even twenty years later it's still being parodied just watch Family Guy (actually don't its horrible lately) or go on youtube have a browse, this is a piece of music television history that will never die. This track is eternal, forever young, it's incredibly dated, yet it never ages, what could be more eighties than that?