The World Still Won’t Listen

A Tribute to the Smiths (Too Damn Hype)
by Nik Rainey

I’ve been party to tribute albums of every size, shape and format (including the Jazz-Funk Bassists Do the Gyoto Monks collection, available only on wire recorder), but the mere notion of this one makes my teats ache. The assembled curriculum vitae of Morrissey and Marr, as verbose, jocose and morose as any in modern music, reinterpreted by a gang of meat-munching, instrument-trashing, machismo-heavy hardcore bands? I woulda thunk you’d get your skull bootheeled into wheat paste for merely mentioning Moz in that company. But then an important fact came to mind: when poof-head music ruled the roost, a period that roughly coincided with the Smiths’ recording history (1984-87) and “alternative” was but a twinkle in David Geffen’s eye, those of us who favored the furrow less plowed, whether it was Limey fop-pop or pass-the-hair-glue-I-think-I’m-Wattie h.c., tended to stick together in self-defense. (Consider the Reagan-era underground godhead status accorded Hüsker Dü, a band that split the difference between punk’s primal-scream imperatives and Morrissey’s ambisexual singalong depressiveness with exhilarating precision.) Whichever way you cut it, we were all rock ‘n’ roll niggers back then, shunted to the back of the school bus together. Whether or not that notion occurred to the folks who conceived The World Still Won’t Listen, it’s that universal youth-angst chord that helps lift it from a brilliantly audacious concept into the upper tier of artist-tribute discs.

Of course, it’s hilarious: some of these bands obviously approached this with thoughts of trashing these songs beyond recognition, and only the most defensive Smiths accolytes (which, admittedly, is probably the vast majority of ’em) won’t dissolve into hysterics when the Meatmen‘s Tesco Vee bellows “I’m inhuman and I need to be FUCKED!” in their “How Soon Is Now?” pisstake, or when A.C. decimates “You’re Gonna Need Someone On Your Side” (actually, like Leeway‘s “Last of the Famous International Playboys,” a solo Mozzer tune, but to say so would reveal me as another picayune rock-crit wuss, so I won’t). But if that’s the intent, the joke’s on them: these songs, every one of them masterfully crafted and deathlessly anthemic, cannot be killed. Some (like “London,” performed by Down by Law, and “What She Said,” covered by Youth Brigade) had chunky punkiness built in at their inception; others (Vision’s “Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before,” 59 Times the Pain‘s “Sweet and Tender Hooligan”) react well to the full-throttle treatment. And I like to think that some of the bands were surprised at how nasty and subversive Morrissey’s lyrics could be: “Panic”‘s visions of street violence and classic “Hang the DJ” outchorus could almost have been written by The Business, and lines like “And so I drank one/ Or was it four?/ And when I fell on the floor/ I drank more” (“Stop Me…”) and “Let me get my hands/ On your mammary glands” (Sweet Diesel, “Handsome Devil”) fit in the gobs of howling punk brats quite comfortably, thank you. By the time the disc spins to a halt with Lament‘s straight acoustic reading of “Back to the Old House,” glowering factions on either side of the indie schism may actually find themselves joining hands and heading off to burn down the discos together, all perceived differences set aside at last. Sure, you won’t likely see any spiked heads in the front row the next time ART mounts The Importance of Being Earnest, but it’s a start.