Why The Smiths’ Debut Album Is An Indie Landmark

“John immediately got us results”

Porter duly put the album together from fresh sessions, mostly at Pluto in Manchester, but with additional recording and mixing taking place at two London studios, Matrix and Eden. The Smiths liked Porter, and he brought the stability the band needed as they acquainted themselves with studio techniques. “Working with John immediately got us results,” Johnny Marr recalled in Simon Goddard’s The Smiths: Songs That Saved Your Life. “He and I formed a musical and personal relationship that was inspiring. He nurtured not just me but all the band.”

Porter’s disciplined production ensured The Smiths’ debut album came to fruition, but his methods had some downsides. Though crisp and clean-sounding, his takes of Miserable Lie and You’ve Got Everything Now lacked punch, with the latter steamrollered by the muscular BBC recording included on Hatful Of Hollow. By comparison, the producer’s efficient methods suited a lean and nimble Still Ill, and his decision to include ex-Squeeze session man Paul Carrack’s discreet piano and organ textures added a new layer of sophistication to Reel Around The Fountain and the plangent I Don’t Owe You Anything.

“I expect the highest critical praise”

Porter also showcased Johnny Marr’s natural talent in as vivid a light as possible throughout, with many of the tracks featuring extensive guitar filigree. Porter also understood that less could be more, and two of The Smiths’ greatest triumphs, The Hand That Rocks The Cradle and Suffer Little Children, delivered thanks to both the clarity of his production and the restraint of the band’s performances.

Notably devoid of Morrissey’s traditional bon mots and Wildean wit, both songs were especially brave, as they tackled subjects previously deemed taboo. The Hand That Rocks The Cradle alluded to child abuse, while the mournful, elegiac Suffer Little Children reflected on the horrific crimes committed by the Moors Murderers, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, during the 60s. Even though it was written in tribute to the children the notorious duo abducted and murdered, the song predictably caused a furore in the tabloids. However, after Morrissey established a friendship with Ann West, the mother of Moors victim Lesley Ann Downey, she accepted the band’s intentions had been entirely honourable all along.

Tabloid intrusions aside, The Smiths themselves had mixed feelings over how their debut album turned out. Though he talked it up at the time, saying, “It’s a very, very good album – it is a signal post in music,” in a Record Mirror feature, Morrissey later expressed his doubts about the execution of the record, if not the songs themselves.

“We were better than anyone else”

However, in that same Record Mirror article, he declared, “I really do expect the highest critical praise for it,” and the more enlightened media observers duly obliged, with Melody Maker observing, “The Smiths will quickly and justifiably become giants. This, their first album, is as fresh and colourful as the newly picked daffodils that wordsmith Morrissey likes to wave about onstage.”

“I think the only way that record could have got made was for John Porter to come in and show us how to make a record properly, which is what he did,” Johnny Marr told Record Collector, while reflecting on The Smiths’ debut album in 1992.

“I was happy that people were getting a chance to hear us, because we were better than anyone else at the time and I just thought I was happy to make a record,” Marr added. “Just that it existed and the songs were there for people to hear was enough for me.”