The Queen is Dead by The Smiths was released 25 years ago today. It is my favorite album of all time and has not been challenged over the intervening two-and-a-half decades. No other record has come close.
I didn’t get the tape on its first day of release. It was difficult to find out-of-the-mainstream music in Buffalo unless you made a special trip to Home of the Hits on Elmwood. Being 15 years old, cash-poor, and without a driver license, I didn’t get albums when they were first released.
I certainly knew of its existence well before I found it. It seemed like a long wait, but it was probably no more than a few months. My quest for Hatful of Hollow—released in the U.K. in 1984—would continue for two more years until I finally located a copy in Toronto.
I’m prone to hyperbole when it comes to wonderful music, but I would not be alone in proclaiming The Queen is Dead one of the most perfect records of all time. It is infinitely listenable, each track stands alone but is somehow greater because of what it follows or precedes. “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out” is independently gorgeous, but becomes otherworldly when slotted in between “Vicar in a Tutu’s” jokey vocal reverb conclusion and Johnny Marr’s chimey false-start ”Some Girls are Bigger Than Others” fade-in.
The 15 year-old teenager who bought that album liked to fiddle with computers, ride his bike, listen to music, and play role-playing games. Twenty-five years later that boy still likes all of those things, and the soundtrack hasn’t changed.
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