SMITHS (THE) The Queen is Dead CD (2017)

Forty years on and it still hits like a breakup you didn't see coming. The Queen is Dead is the record that made moping into an art form, and Morrissey and Marr's finest hour remains one of the most important albums post-punk ever produced.

Released in 1986 and reissued here in a 2017 pressing, this is the one with "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out," "Bigmouth Strikes Again," and the title track's raw, stumbling fury at the British establishment. If you're building a dark aesthetic record collection and this isn't in it, what are you even doing. Essential listening for anyone serious about the gothic, alternative fashion and music lineage that runs straight from Manchester through Melbourne and into every black-walled bedroom ever.

Full length album CD, UK origin, 2017 reissue pressing.

Fans of: Morrissey, Joy Division, The Cure, New Order