The band's career didn't last, but their influence has never ceased to make its presence felt... In the middle of the 1980s, when new wave and British pop in general were obsessed with synths, four young Mancunians returned to the classic formula of singer, guitars, bass, drums to fashion a timeless pop music, adorned with simple but fabulous melodies. The Smiths' music reconnected with a heritage that owed more to the Sixties and Seventies than to punk and new wave. Carried by Morrisey's ethereal, crooner's voice and his charmingly acid lyrics, and Johnny Marr's crystalline guitar arpeggios, the Smiths' work is suffused with the breath of their era, but very much runs counter to the prevailing fashions of their times. Like the Kinks of twenty years previously, and the Jam of the late 1970s, the band was a 100% British oddity. A beautiful snapshot of the English society that they criticised with such virulence, and, what's rarer, subtlety. In 2002, readers of NME, still hypnotised by their work, crowned the Smiths "The most influential group of all time" – ahead of the Beatles!
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