Somehow That Really Impressed Me: The Smiths

In the following, final chapter of this work, I will discuss the Smiths. My work is essentially looking at mainly “documentary” culture, as Raymond Williams would define it in broad terms: “the selective tradition”, more specifically. This chapter looks particularly at where the Smiths actually fit within this in terms of popular culture. In my view, they represent the culmination of the cynic sensibility, achieving a balance between its Bohemian, apolitical and cross-cultural aspects. The Smiths, to me, appear to some degree to encompass the voices of John Wain, Kingsley Amis, John Osborne, John Lennon, Stephen Poliakoff and Mark E. Smith, among others. The work of each of these artists appears in the context of some degree of British historical upheaval; even, at times, at points of crisis. For instance, Lennon and the Beatles reflect the rapid liberalisation of British society in the 1960s, as well as the maturation of the baby boom generation and the limits of hippy optimism. Poliakoff reflects a disillusionment with the hangover of the said optimism in the 1970s, leading into punk and post-punk music. And many critics see the Smiths as inextricably linked with the deconstruction of the idea of Britain as “New Jerusalem” by Margaret Thatcher’s government. Popular cultural critic Chuck Klosterman alludes to this fact: “In a decade categorized by excess, The Smiths — and especially their sexually baffling front man — were introspective, iconoclastic, and alienated” (50).