Just why did such a formidable percentage of Eighties youth, saturated by synthesiser drivel and the thundercloud of Thatcherism, seek shelter and much emotional solace in a fistful of gladioli, the complete works of Oscar Wilde and a conspicuously unnecessary pair of National Health spectacles? Those kitchen-sink survivors - who bought the records, wore the glasses, and devoted solitary weekends fanatically memorising passages from A Taste Of Honey - are quick to remind the culturally parched that aside from being the greatest pop group this century, The Smiths were very much a way of life.
It's a testament to the talent and vision of The Smiths that they inspired such idolatrous worship from as ruthlessly committed a fanbase as pop music has ever spawned - and achieved a status that even the most modest critic would be compelled to term "legendary" - in less than five years and just four studio albums.
Their eponymous debut in 1984 was compositionally flawless, yet the general consensus was that The Smiths was not the generation-defining platter it perhaps could have been. 1985's Meat Is Murder was a confident step forward, the record's inflammatory sentiments and lyrics hinting towards the more sensationalist set-pieces to follow - but it was 1986's The Queen Is Dead that finally propelled The Smiths into an orbit unique within the tired, unchallenging climate of mid-Eighties pop. From its opening charge on the palace gates to the anthemic fantasies of falling under the wheels of a 10-ton truck, the album proved conclusively that, as a lyricist, Morrissey could juggle deadpan wit with a soul-chilling self-deprecation, while - as composer, arranger and co-producer - Johnny Marr was pop's Michelangelo in an age of timid Tony Harts.
In early 1987, the group entered the studio to record their fourth album. But between its reportedly smooth, tantrum-free recording and its eventual release that autumn, without warning The Smiths imploded, almost overnight.
From the moment "Girlfriend In A Coma" had the dubious honour of being previewed the very evening Radio One announced Marr's split from the group, the ensuing album was cursed with the adverse status of a bitter, cryptic postscript to a brief but glorious career.
Consequently, the album became a focus of lamentation for the group's obsessed and grieving fans. Reviews became post-mortems, critics looking for clues to explain The Smiths' unexpectedly premature demise. Which meant that whatever hopes the group may have had for the way the album would be received were eclipsed at a stroke by the bewildering void left by their own sudden disintegration.
The record's typically fatalistic lyrical motifs suddenly acquired a dramatic new significance: the multiple references to death, not least in two song titles, the requiem strings on "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me", Morrissey's entrance as "The ghost of troubled Joe" - surely, these were all coded references to the band's imminent and apparently inevitable end.
But though the wailing and gnashing of teeth was deafening that autumn, the mourning masses really ought to have stopped for a moment to consider exactly what they'd been so generously bequeathed. For if The Smiths' split was the cause of much funereal breast-beating, the album that followed in its immediate wake was, by contrast, glorious and intoxicating.
Far from being hopelessly maudlin (anybody whoever accused The Smiths of being miserable was desperately lacking anything approaching a sense of humour), the album possesses a playful spirit of self-parody, coy lyrical double-entendres and mischievous in-jokes - there's the obvious "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before", for instance, Morrissey's "It's crap I know" aside during the rockabilly chainsaw farce, "Death At One's Elbow", the line, "You just haven't earned it yet baby", itself a previous song title, slipped into "Paint A Vulgar Picture", and the closing lullaby, "I Won't Share You".
Familiar themes are revisited with deft maturity, not least in "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me" - two minutes of distant, tortured jeers and reflectively sombre piano before all hell and its orchestra breaks loose in a dramatic, Walker-esque climax. Morrissey is the heir of nothing-in-particular once more - older, world weary and rapidly losing the fight.
As far as unknown pleasures go, Strangeways' best kept secret is "Death Of A Disco Dancer" - as ambitious a record as The Smiths ever made, with a lush John Barry score sliding into the psychedelic bedlam of "Venus In Furs", and Morrissey spotlighting the fragile myth of the blossoming rave scene with a politely condescending "Very nice". It was unlike anything they'd previously attempted, but still definitively and unmistakeably The Smiths.
"Paint A Vulgar Picture" is the album's other late milestone. An indictment of the music business and its mercenary imperatives, it is funny and cruelly honest. Given the circumstances of its release on Strangeways, it's not surprising it was subject to perhaps over-zealous scrutiny at the time. The shrewd - even unscrupulous - marketing of extra tracks and "tacky badges" remains a legitimate target for such bravura satire, but the song's most damaging blows are aimed at those on the extreme right of fandom's diverse political spectrum, the kind of character Morrissey knew and knows only too well. His tone here is both that of sympathetic agony aunt and wicked, wicked mockery, the track ending with his (quite purposely) audible wretching. Tucked between the more epic numbers are songs no less striking. From the decidedly glam "I Started Something I Couldn't Finish", with its infectious "Typical me" refrain, to the acid-tongued "Unhappy Birthday" and the military two-step, piano-led opener, "A Rush And A Push And The Land Is Ours", Strangeways is indeed the most diverse collection The Smiths ever assembled.
Asked in 1994 to comment on Johnny Marr's remark that Strangeways was their best album, Morrissey gave a typically Wildean reply. "Well, it is," he said. "We're in absolute accordance on that. We say it quite often. At the same time. In our sleep. But in different beds."
When The Smiths split, there were those for whom it seemed not much less than the end of the world as they knew it. And the reputation of Strangeways has suffered as a result of such over-reaction. The album is too often seen as "an epilogue", the last wheezing gasp of an exhausted band.
Don't you believe it!
The musical inspiration that originally aroused such gladioli-waving mass hysteria was never more impressive, never more realised, never more accomplished than on Strangeways, Here We Come, an album whose considerable qualities were so frustratingly overlooked in the anguished vortex of late 1987.
It's The Smiths' masterpiece.
- Simon Goddard, Uncut, October, 1997

"For a band that reportedly hated each other when they made it, the Smiths managed a surprisingly cohesive farewell statement on Strangeways Here We Come. They sure haven't cheered up, as titles like 'Unhappy Birthday,' 'Girlfriend In A Coma,' and 'Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me' make clear. But Morrissey can see the dark humor in the misery, and his world view has grown from self-pity to real compassion."
- Pulse

"'This story is old - I know/But it goes on,' bleats Morrissey on the Smiths' fifth album. Perhaps it will, but not in this form. Recorded last spring, before guitarist Johnny Marr left the band (followed in turn by Morrissey's announcement that he would pursue a solo career), Strangeways, Here We Come stands as the Smiths' unexpected swan song. Ironically, it also stands as one of their best and most varied records: much like R.E.M. on Document, this is the sound of a band unbuttoning its collective collar despite the problematic artsiness of its lead singer.
If you've ever considered Morrissey a self-obsessed jerk, Strangeways, Here We Come isn't likely to change your mind. He's still indulging in angst chronicles like 'Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me,' which is saddled with a turgid, string-drenched melody to boot. But throughout the album, Morrissey keeps returning to the themes of death and parting ('I Won't Share You,' 'Death at One's Elbow'), almost as if he had seen the breakup coming, and dishes out bitter indictments like 'If you should die/I may feel slightly sad' ('Unhappy Birthday'). And in 'Paint a Vulgar Picture,' a bittersweet elegy to a dead rock star, Morrissey makes the mistake of putting down record-company marketing ('Reissue! Repackage!/Reevaluate the songs/Double-pack with a photograph') on an album that has a merchandising address printed on its inner sleeve.
Morrissey is much more effective in 'Death of a Disco Dancer,' which pinpoints Marr's importance to the band, as it builds from his scraping-fingernail fret work to a cacophony of guitars and keyboards. Throughout Strangeways, Here We Come, Marr - who's credited with strings and saxophone arrangements as well as guitar and piano - continually conjures up rich, Gothic frameworks for Morrissey's ornate phrasing.
Bright acoustic guitars add a folksy grace to 'Girlfriend in a Coma' and 'Unhappy Birthday,' and a pumping piano turns 'A Rush and a Push and the Land Is Ours' into a demented tango. In the album's most propulsive number, 'Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before,' Marr and the Andy Rourke-Mike Joyce rhythm section whip up a frenzied brew that amply compensates for Morrissey's tale of rituals of self-punishment following a failed love affair. Marr's piercing solo at the end of the song not only is one of the record's emotional highlights - it also proves it's best the band split up rather than attempt to replace him."
- David Browne, Rolling Stone