November 11, 2020 • 47 mins
If you were an alienated teenager in the 1980s — or an alienated teenager during any era who loves the music of the 1980s — then you have probably spent a lot of time listening to The Smiths and The Cure. But the lead singers of those bands, Morrissey and Robert Smith, hated listening to each other. Starting with an interview in 1984 in which Morrisey expressed his desire to shoot Smith, the rivalry between these two mope-rock kings has been vicious and often extremely hilarious. When it comes to crafting insults about overly sensitive individuals, Don Rickles has nothing on these guys.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Rivals as a production of I Heart Radio. Hello everyone,
and welcome to Rivals, the show about music beefs and
feuds and long simmering resentments between musicians. I'm Steve and
(00:20):
I'm Jordan, and today we're gonna take a look at
the feud between Morrissey of The Smith's and Robert Smith
of The Cure. The rivalry means a lot to people
because both of these bands spoke to those of us
who felt alienated and lonely in our teens, which, as
hardcore music fans is probably most of us. We bonded
with one or both of these bands in a really
special way. And well, that's true that you could easily
(00:41):
enjoy both. I know that everybody had their favorite. I
think this rivalry is significant because it's not just the
case of two bands who exist in the same lane
being unwillingly pitted against each other as rivals. The lead
singers of these bands actually hated each other. I mean,
I forget Oasis versus Blur, this is the original battle
of British pop rock bands warring with each other in
(01:01):
the press, and in spite of their reputations as like
these like moby goth rockers, these guys were actually really
funny when they were insulting each other. Oh yeah, they
were Gallagher Brothers level, I mean, and I was never
able to figure out how real it was though. I mean,
I know they were competitive on some level, sort of
battling it out for a subsection of the post punk
late era new wave sound, especially with their fighting social commentary.
(01:27):
But I also think that Smith and especially Morrissey have
a touch of the David Crosby where they loved just
playing up their missanthropy by saying really outrageously awful things
about people in the press for for attention and headlines.
And you know, it makes me wonder if did they
even mean it. I mean, because they both admitted as much.
Morrissey once said I lie a lot. It's really useful,
(01:48):
and Robert Smith said I lie a lot, especially in interviews.
So in my gut, I feel like that's got to
be at play at some level in this too. Yeah,
I mean, I think that's true. I'm sure there was
some exaggeration going on here, but I also feel like
there was some genuine dislike and I think it's sent
for Morrissey in the nineteen eighties being seen as this
poet and true artist and Robert Smith being depicted as
(02:10):
this like melodramatic, more adolescent guy. And it's been fascinating
for me to see like this shift over the past
several decades where I feel like, in many ways Robert
Smith now has the level of respect that Morrissey used
to have. Of course, let's do mostly to Morrissey's saying
many awful things and self sabotaging his reputation. Yeah, that's
(02:31):
that's definitely a major factor. I don't know. To me,
talking about both these bands, it almost makes me uncomfortable
in the way because it conjures up these memories of
such a weird time in my life personally, all that
like angsty adolescent stuff. I'm sure other people fail that
way too, And I almost wonder if that sensation had
an adverse effect on the reputation of The Cure in particular,
because for a time it was a band you're almost
(02:53):
embarrassed to admit that he liked because it was so
linked to this painful, awkward adolescent period that we all
went through. But ultimately you said, I think that the
Cure benefited from that, and now we look back on
them fondly because the music was always there for us
during this crucial time, and the Cure of you know,
received the recognition they deserved. They were inducted in the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in twenty nine. And
(03:13):
what's more, they survived to watch Morrissey to send into
a right wing parody of himself. So that's a win. Yeah,
you mentioned the Cure getting into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame, and the Smiths are not in the
rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which I think is
a major crime. They deserve to be in there. But
you know, I'm sure if you ask Morrisey about this,
he would say he doesn't care, or he would at
least claim that he doesn't care. But I like to
(03:33):
think that this is something that Robert Smith can lord
over him if they ever bump into each other on
like the post punk senior citizen circuit. But we're getting
ahead of ourselves. There's so much to explore here, So
without further ado, let's get into this mess. I think
it's important to begin with a very crucial fact, and
that's that Stephen Patrick Morrissey hates an awful lot of stuff. Yeah,
(03:56):
he hates everything, he really does. I mean I just
want to take a quick moment to demonstrate this point.
Morrissey hates meat, roller coasters, rain, cold weather, dance music.
He's called rave music a refuge for the mentally deficient
and described long long hair as an unpartable offense which
should be punishable by death. Yeah, that's rationale. He He
hates the music of Stevie Wonder, which I think might
(04:17):
be a first in human history. Who hates Stevie Wonder?
I gotta speculate it's maybe because Stevie Wonder's name is
Stephen and Stephen Patrick. Morrissey hates his birth name, apparently
reminds him of Steve Austin from the TV series The
six Million Dollar Man, which also hates. He doesn't like
the name Steve. I know, yeah, you got you got
(04:38):
some things to saying that, Steve. Yeah, it's getting personal now, Morrissey.
He hates Kate Bush, saying the nicest thing I can
say about her is that she's unbearable. That voice such trash.
He hates Bob Geldof, calling him a nauseating character. He
hates so many people that the list is too long
for me to even read over here. Quite tellingly, his
first solo LP after the Smith's disbanded was called Viva Hate,
(04:59):
and he's ever denied being, you know, seriously missingthropic, saying
in one early interview, I hate most people, and I
don't want to. It's an awful way to be. But
the human race gives me no comfort. Oh my god.
And to illustrate this point, when he smelled meat being
cooked when he's performing at Coachella in two thousand nine,
(05:19):
he famously said, I can smell burning flesh. I hope
to God it's human. So this is the level of
the person we're dealing with, and he's either an Olympian
level missingthrope or a great a outrageous quote machine. His
lyrics would suggest a combination of the two. So as
far as his conflict with Robert Smith goes, it starts
really at the beginning of Morrissey's career. It's he's giving
(05:41):
an interview with the magazine The Face, and the reporter
asked this question, if I put you in a room
with Robert Smith, markis Smith of the Fall in a
loaded Smith and Wesson, who would bite the bullet first? Now,
before we get to Morrissey's answer here, I think it's
clear from the construction of this question that the idea
is to name a bunch of people named Smith because
(06:01):
Morrissey isn't a band called the Smith's. It's not really
about Robert Smith or the Cure particularly. I mean, it's
not known yet really how Morrissey feels about that band.
It's really just a jokey question to ask Morrisey, where
you know, you're setting the ball on the t for
him to say something outrageous. And of course Morrissey can
never resist the bait here as he ever turned the
other cheek. Morrissey, I don't think he's ever turned down
(06:23):
an opportunity to slay someone off, absolutely, which makes him
a terrible person, but it makes him perfect for this show.
So I guess I have to thank Morrissey for that.
But Morrissey says, and this is maybe like like the
worst possible answer from like a humanist perspective, but like
it's a very funny answer. He says, I'd line them
up so that one bullet would penetrate them simultaneously. At
(06:46):
any rate, it's rather curious that he began wearing beads
at the emergence of the Smiths. This is Morrissey's saying
of Robert Smith, and he's been photographed with flowers, and
of course this is a reference to the fact that
early in his career Morrissey would come on stage holding daffodils.
So there's the implication that Robert Smith is somehow ripping
him off. And he says, I expect he's quite supportive
what we do, but I've never liked the cure, not
(07:07):
even the caterpillar, not even the Yeah, exactly, I'm curious,
like why he's singled out the caterpillar as like it
being amazing. That doesn't even like that song, Like I
I don't think of that as necessarily being like the
most popular cure song or the most accessible cure song,
but or the most like the Smith's cure song. Yeah,
I couldn't figure that right. It's kind of weird, But
(07:27):
at any rate, the point is is that Morrissey would
murder Robert Smith have given the opportunity, and he thinks
that he's ripping him off. So that is what has
been established in this interview. And this quote gets back
to Robert Smith, who fired back in kind. He said,
Morrissey is so depressing if he doesn't off himself soon
I probably will. Yes, it's just beautiful Winston Churchill level
(07:52):
insult right there, very very good. Years later, when he's
looking back on the Morrissey feud, Robert Smith also said,
you know, I would have expect it at the time,
him being a non meat eating, vegetarian, pacifist sort of guy,
to say I choose to shoot myself or I choose
to shoot no one. But he said I'd lined them
all up and shoot them all. When I was told
that at the time, I kind of took umberge. I
thought that's fucking nice. And then he drops a c
(08:14):
bomb because he's Robert Smith. Um, it seemed like if
he's genuinely pretty hurt by this whole exchange. I mean,
he said it was, you know, not unnecessary. I've never
said or done anything to morris See and the according
to Robert Smith, at least at that point, they've never
even been in the same room together. Yeah, you know,
I'm gonna tip my hand here as being more sympathetic
generally to Robert Smith. And I think I'm probably a
(08:35):
bigger Cure fan than I am a fan of the Smith's,
even though I love both bands. But it really is
amazing to me that Robert Smith generally comes off as
like relatively normal and level headed in his interviews, which
you wouldn't necessarily expect necessarily if you just listen to
his music, or like you see him on stage. Obviously
he's wearing all the makeup. He always seems miserable in
(08:56):
his music, but then when he's talking to reporters, he
seems like a pretty normal guy. Yeah, exactly. He's like,
he's funny and he just sounds reasonable. Whereas with Morrissey,
the more interviews he's done in his career, the crazier
and more irrational he becomes. It's like he's already pretty
melodramatic in his lyrics, but like he just is so awful,
(09:16):
Like the more he talks so in terms of like
their personal dispositions, I feel like that's like a defining
difference between these guys. Yeah, I mean, Robert Smith would
claim in later years that he was confused why there
was even a comparison between the care and the Smiths.
Uh it said, there's nothing that links Morrissey and the
Care In my mind, as years go by, it's very
easy to think we were from the same generation, but
we're not, and he's right. I mean, the Cure recorded
(09:38):
their first album ight, and the Smith's released their self
titled debut in four which is kind of a different
mini generation in a way. And I think that the
Smith's stuff sounded maybe more like early Care albums, But
by the time the Smiths came around, they were doing
sort of more synth based, moody, darker, the head on
the door type stuff that really didn't sound very similar
(09:59):
to the Smith's at all to me, at least. Again,
I love both bands. To me, it is natural to
compare them. I understand that the Cure started earlier. They
are really part of that post punk generation that really emerged,
you know, after the sex Pistols in the Clash, you know,
in the late seventies. But I think the reason that
they get grouped together is that the same kind of
person loves both bands, you know, as like, if you
(10:21):
love the Smiths, you probably love the Cure, and vice versa.
And they just both have I think, a very kind
of quintessentially like eighties alternative rock vibe to them. You know. Again,
even though the Cure started earlier, they didn't really come
into their own until the nineteen eighties. Like with those
albums that you mentioned, Head on the Door obviously, kiss Me,
kiss Me, Kiss Me, and then I think hitting their
(10:41):
culmination like their peak with Disintegration in nine. What I
think is interesting about these bands in terms of how
they perceived critically is that I think that the Smiths
for years had this reputation as being a smarter band. Uh.
They were the band that I think critics tended to
rate higher than the Cure. The Queen is Dead as
a record that you're much more likely to see near
the top of like Greatest Albums of All Times lists
(11:04):
than you are Disintegration, for instance, even though if given
the choice, I would take Disintegration personally over The Queen
is Dead. The strength to me of the Smiths is singles.
I think they're singles. Collections are excellent, and they have
so many songs that I would say are just like
perfect songs. There's a light that never goes out and
(11:24):
in Glove how Soon is Now? I mean, there's just
so many wonderful singles that they have, Whereas I look
at The Cure as being more of an album band
like they have I think several albums that hold together
as statements, whereas again, I think the Smiths you have
The Queen is Dead, and then there are other albums
to me, are a little spotty here and it's much
more about singles. I also think the Cure you have
(11:45):
to give them credit for their longevity. You know, they
were around before the Smiths, and they were around after
the Smiths, And this is another thing that gets overshadowed
the Cure. Maybe I'm wrong about this, but to me,
they were a much more popular band, especially in America,
Like I feel like at her peak, like weren't that
you're playing arenas basically like by the time of disintegration, Like,
I don't think the Smith's ever got to that kind
(12:06):
of level, at least here in the United States. Yeah,
And I wonder if that worked against them becoming almost
more of this like populist favorite. I'm sure Morrissey could
throw that back in their face in a lot of
ways too. I always thought that the Smiths seemed like
it was for a more discerning music fan. I always
seem more literate. They tackled social issues, you know, meet
his murder, The Queen is Dead. In ways, I don't
(12:27):
think the Cure ever really did. I think Robert Smith
was mostly writing about himself, and I think that in
some ways is one of their great strengths because when
he's describing how he's feeling, some often that resonates with
all of us, depending on what we're going through in
our lives. But I think that also you could argue
that Robert Smith seemed a lot more kind of like
naval gazey and self obsessed too, and I think that
that was the fact that they didn't really look outward
(12:50):
quite as much as the Smith's I think ding them
definitely at the time, you know, in in uh Thatcher
era England, especially when there was sort of a lot
to rail against. That was always fascinating to me that
that's sort of the political element of their music. I
just wonder to what degree Robert Smith internalized the critical
conversation around both bands, because and this is something I'm
(13:10):
sure he would never admit to personally. But you know, again,
like by the end of the eighties, the Cure like
had like a legitimate pop hit with love Song. You know,
love Song, I believe was like a top five hit
just for them, And of course that song has been
covered by so many artists since then. I mean, it
was on one of the Adele Records, which I'm sure
bought Robert Smith, like ten houses, you know, just a
(13:33):
ton of money, I'm sure from that cover. But again,
I feel like for a long time people just took
the Smiths more seriously while also dinging The Cure for
being again this kind of like adolescent angsty naval gayzey band.
And you know, there's an interview that Robert Smith gave
I think it pretty much at the height of The
Cure's popularity, where he took a shot at Morrissey and
(13:53):
he says he's a precious, miserable bastard. He's all the
things people think I am. And I think that's a
very telling quote because I'm sure Robert Smith felt like, oh,
people are you know, they have this caricature of me
that I'm just like this sad, bastard guy, and that's
preventing some people from you know, giving me my due
as like a great songwriter. Like people talk about Morrisey
(14:15):
being a great songwriter, but like I like, I'm a
great songwriter too, and I asked to write my own
music too. But I don't get that kind of love
from critics. They don't look at me as a tomb Smith.
They look at me as just like this miserable guy,
But it's like, what about this other guy, Like he's
just as miserable as me, if not more so, right,
I mean Robert Smith incredible guitarist, producer and wrote all
(14:37):
the Cures music, And I agree with that. And also
I think there's a case of maybe like you just
like someone because you see elements of yourself and them
that that you don't like about yourself. So maybe there
was some of that too. It's like no, no, no, no,
I'm not that bad, it said him. Look at him,
He's even worse than me. So yeah, I could see
it being your way as well, being like no, come on,
(14:58):
like this is Morrissey actually is a miserable bastard and
I do so much more. But also maybe there's some
of it just was he worried it did hit too
close to home. He did see elements of himself that
he didn't like. So these two ended up continuing to
snap at each other even after the Smith's broke up.
And you know I alluded to this earlier. I mean
the Smith's window of time, Like really, isn't that big?
(15:18):
I mean they were basically a force in British music
for about five years in the mid nineteen eighties. By
the end of the eighties, they're finished Johnny Marr, who
is a genius guitar player, and I feel like he
doesn't get as much credit as he deserves. And that
Morrissey mar songwriting partnership, just like the wonderful music that
he wrote for those songs. By the way, we have
to do a Morrissey versus mar episode at some point
(15:40):
that will be amazing. But anyway, like even after the
Smith's broke up, Morrissey and Robert Smith continue to take
shots at each other. There's this great interview. I feel
like it's like a pretty famous quote where Robert Smith
was talking about how, you know, Morrissey is this animal
rights activist and how that runs counter to just how
awful he is to human beings, you know, like he
(16:01):
cares more about animals than he does about human beings.
And Robert Smith says, this is a great quote. He says,
if Morrisey says not to eat meat, then I'm going
to eat meat. That's how much I hate Morrison, which
possibly my favorite quote of this whole thing. That's great.
And then Morrissey of course shoots back. He said, Robert
Smith is a fat clown with makeup, weeping over a guitar. Uh.
(16:24):
Just like I feel like the Robert Smith quote is
like a little more self aware. You know, he's almost
like making fun of himself a little bit for how
much It's like, I'm just reacting against anything that he
does just because this guy annoys me, whereas Morrissey is
just like being directly insulting of like, you know, he's
calling him fat, you know, he's saying he's weeping over
a guitar. And Robert Smith, of course he has a
(16:44):
shoot back, you know. He there was an interview that
he did around this time with the magazine Zone zero
nine where he was talking about his status as a
godfather of goth and he doesn't really like that distinction,
and he says, I'm tired of being known as a
doomy goth casualty. The press tries to portray me as
a gloom and doom singer. But take a look at Morrissey.
Batman is a professional complainer. Um. So, you know, just
(17:08):
going back to what I was saying before, I think
this idea, I think that annoyed him, that he was
caricatured in this way that I don't think Morrissey was
to the same degree at that time. I think that,
you know, Morrissey definitely was known as this moby artist.
But I feel like his songwriting partnership with Johnny Marr,
I think people are certainly critics they treated that with
a degree of seriousness, almost like likening them to like
(17:31):
Lennon McCartney, you know, like the Lennon McCartney of their era.
That I don't think they did that with Robert Smith.
I don't feel like he got the credit that he
deserved as a songwriter at that time, because yeah, you know,
the Cure had a very distinct image. But you know,
if you look at their albums, I mean he's writing
all these great songs, and you know, as great as
the Smith's are as a singles act, I should mention.
I mean Standing on a Beach their compilation of their
(17:53):
eighties singles, that's like a defining document of like early
alternative rock. I mean, he wrote a lot of great
singles too. I think he just felt like, hey, recognize
my talent, don't just look at the makeup in like
the crazy hair, Like I am producing great material at
this time my favorite Robert Smith story from this period,
and it might not be true, but I choose to
believe it. Have been having trouble source in the quotes
(18:15):
for this, but Robert Smith said, I remember running into
Morrissey at a Halloween party or something. I went to
punch him on the arm, and he just closed his
eyes and started crying seeing that. I mean, I'm just
imagining a scenario where like Morrissey would go to anyone's
Halloween part, right, yeah, And would you do something or
would he just be Robert Smith? Of course not, I
(18:35):
could see Robert Smith going into a Halloween party. I mean,
like Morrissey. Morrissey would never go to a Halloween party.
That's the only reason I doubt this story, because I'm
just I'm just trying to imagine a scenario like who's
holding the Halloween party? Who would be friends with both
of these guys and get them both to show up
right and make the mistake of inviting them both? Yeah,
I mean is that like, uh, you know, I'm just
(18:56):
trying to think of like prominent eighties stars, is like
Sting having this party is like Bono or like George Michael,
you know, like who would be having that party said.
That's the only reason I doubt that story. Otherwise, I'm
like you, I would rather believe it than disbelieve it.
So this all brings us to the Smiths at this
point are done, passed on into legend, and Morrissey has
(19:17):
a hit number one on the British charts with his
debut album Viva Hate, which has incredible songs every Day
is like Sunday and swede Head. He's gearing up to
pro and his second solo disc, Kill Uncle with an
Interview with the Enemy, which is actually another thing he hates.
Forgot to mention that earlier, and he takes a stab
at the Cures Disintegration their masterpiece. I I it's one
(19:37):
of my favorite albums of all time. I think it's
their definitive album, one of the best albums of the eighties.
I think it's better than any single Smith's record. I
mean love songs. You mentioned Pictures of You Homesick, which
I think might be my favorite Cure song ever, Lullaby,
Fascination Street, brilliant album. Morrissey, as one might expect, doesn't
feel this way. He describes the Cures Seminal record as
(19:59):
absolutely vial and adds the cure a new dimension to
the word crap, which is a great quote. Yeah that's
the poll quote. It's very insulting. But I like Robert
Smith's response because I actually think his response is funnier
than even that great quote, because you know, he was
told about Morrisey's opinion of Disintegration, and Robert Smith says,
(20:20):
at least we've added a new dimension in crap, not
built a career on it. He's definitely much more self
aware in his in his insults back. That's totally right, exactly,
just you know, he's kind of being self deprecating, but yeah,
he's just able to twist it and get it back
on Morrissey. And it's like, Morrisey, give me a break.
Disintegration brilliant record and a very influential record too. I
(20:44):
mean there's so many types of music, whether it's dream pop,
even like like SoundCloud rappers have like sampled cure songs.
I mean, like Corn has covered Cure songs. I mean,
their influence really extends beyond just this alt rock lane.
And the same is true also of Morrissey. He's also
had a very wide influence. But Disintegration a masterful record.
(21:04):
All right hand, We'll be right back with more rivals.
It's always interesting me that Robert Smith loggs way more
insults than Morrissey and all of this back and forth,
and maybe because he's been asked a battle a lot
more and he's should have been, you know, on the
defensive in this whole beef. Morrissey's verbal assaults I think
(21:27):
are a lot more potent, but Smith definitely has the frequency. Uh.
In November, he's interviewed by Spin magazine and the Robert
Smith interview title is called Happily ever After, which still
makes me laugh, and he goes after Morrissey again, saying
I have never liked Morrissey and I still don't. I
think it's hilarious actually what things I've heard about him
(21:48):
and what he's really like, and his public persona is
so different. He's such an actor, calling him a poser
and rolling Stone. Not too long after, he says, you know,
I'd rather have our fans than his. Our cure fans
are generally quiet, well spoken, and friendly and not pretentious
in the slightest. Hopefully that reflects on the nature of
the cure. And he's kind of right, I mean, especially
(22:08):
when you watch interviews with Morrissey, even like pre all
the right wing stuff, like in the early in the
early eighties, he's kind of frightening. You feel like he
could turn on you. There's something that very I don't know.
I always get kind of freaked out watching his old interviews.
Whereas Robert Smith, there's like a gentleness there that, like,
you know, you want to give a hug or something too,
And I feel like that extends to that case. It's
(22:31):
not obviously I'm more of a Cure guy than a
Smith's guy. I feel like that extends to their fans too.
I don't know, there's something about something more sensitive maybe
about cheer fans. I don't know. Well, you know, again,
I feel like there is quite a bit of overlap
in the fan bases here. And I think that, you know,
if you like the Cure, is a very high likelihood
that you like the Smiths, And if you like the Smiths,
I think there's a likelihood that you like the Cure.
(22:52):
The difference is that I just think that there's more
Cure fans period, because the Cure, again, like we're talking
about just like America by itself, I think they were
much bigger in America because like by the end of
the eighties, like I said before, they were having like
genuine pop hits, not just like alternative rock hits, but
like they were played on top forty radio. And you know,
it makes sense that Adele ended up covering a Cure
(23:14):
song because the Cure really were like a pop band
in a way that I don't think the Smiths were.
I think they were more so in England than in here,
but here they were always more of a cult band,
and the Cure isn't often described as like a populist band,
but I think in this dynamic anyway, they are the
more populist group. They are the band that you just
had a wider repeal. And as we were saying earlier,
(23:37):
I think in a way, you know, because of the
indie politics at the time, that made the Cure less
cool than the Smiths. You know, the Smith's always had
that hip outsider status that the Cure was never going
to have. Of course, as those indie polics matter less
and less as we get farther and farther away from
like the eighties and nineties, I think that coincides with
the Cure's reputation getting better, and maybe the Smith's diminishing
(23:59):
a little bit. But of course that's also due to
the fact that Morrissey, starting in the early nineties, takes
a very bizarre left turn toward being basically a right
wing lunatic. And that evolution begins, I guess, like in
En two, like he was performing at this music festival
in England and he put a union jack around himself,
(24:19):
and of course, you know, we think about the who
flying a union jack in the nineteen sixties, and I
think back then it was this idea of just being
proud to be from England, you know, and which is
something that we also see in The Kinks at that time,
writing specifically about England in the face of like America
just being such a big cultural force in the world.
But by the early nineties, like the symbolism of like
(24:40):
a union jacket had changed quite a bit and really
kind of turned into this like symbol of nationalism in England.
And I just wonder, like to what degree, you know,
Morrissey did a great job of this earlier in the episode,
talking about all the things that he hates. The man
is an elitist, and it seems like his elitism is
really starting to take an ugly turn at this time
(25:01):
where it's not just like a funny like you know, misanthropic,
like I'm giving fun quotes in an interview, it's like
actually sort of leaking into his worldview, like where he
actually does think he's better than other people. Yeah, I
mean this was like pre britpop and in that era,
as you said, it would definitely have more right wing connotations.
And at this festival he is performing at, there was
(25:21):
apparently a large Skinhead contingent there and it was felt
that it was sort of signaling to these nationalists extremist groups.
And at the time, the Enemy had a headline with
a picture of Morrissey on stage at that festival flying
the flag or flirting with disaster. So it definitely it
got noticed at that time, and in fact, Morrissey was
so piste off by that headline that he refused to
talk to the Enemy for like a decade or something.
(25:43):
So um So, yeah, this was something that started early
on in the nineties, and it's interesting to me that,
for all their differences, Robert Smith never went in on
Morrissey for his controversial statements or any of his sort
of out there political views. Which became much much, much
more pronounced as the decade went on at but was
interesting given their feud that he never went there. I mean,
I think Robert Smith was smart enough to know that,
(26:05):
like Morrissey is owning herself with this stuff. It's like,
what do I need to say? He's making a fool
of himself, so you know, just let him continue to
make a fool of himself. At this point, we're used
to Morrissey, you know, all the terrible quotes that he's
had over the years, and we're going to get into
some of those later in this episode. I think people
are used to it by now, but I really feel
like there's maybe a sense of portrayal started to come
(26:27):
in to play with fans in the nineties that you know,
Morrissey was at his best associated with the underdog. You know,
he was the music of like alienated people, people on
the outside, and to embrace this sort of ideology it's
so strange. But at the same time, if you think
of him ultimately as an elitist, it does have a weird,
kind of twisted sense of logic to it. Yeah, we'll
(26:49):
get more than this later too, but especially but we're
betrayal I think is definitely the perfect one. It's been
hard for a lot of fans who looked to him
as somebody for soulace when they felt alone and isolated
and sort of outpressed in the eighties. I think it's
been really hard to rationalize the music that came from
that person to the public statements that he says. Now.
Back in two thousand four, The Cure and Morrissey faced
(27:11):
off in the charts again. They both had back to
back releases of Morrissey's You Are the Cory Uh in May,
and The Cure had a self titled album the following month.
And um, I guess it's probably fair to say at
this point both of their relevance had really faded significantly
and they kind of began the slide into more of
I'm not gonna call him nostalgia acts, but they definitely
didn't have the same critical and cultural potency that they
(27:34):
once did. But Robert Smith was being interviewed for his
new album, and he still took the opportunity to slag
off Morrissey just for old time Sick. In an interview
with Entertainment Weekly, he said Morrissey was constantly saying horrible
things about the cure. In the end, I kind of
snapped and started retaliating, and it turned into some kind
of petty feud. I've never liked anything he's done musically,
but I don't have any kind of strong feelings of
(27:56):
animosity towards him as a person because I've never met him.
Maybe that halloween aories think so his music sucks, but
he might not be a jerk. I can't say for sure,
but you know, I've never met him and I probably
never will because I actually do hate his guts. There
was I guess, an official like piece of chord between
these guys that began. In twenty nineteen, Morsey gave an
(28:17):
interview where he was sounding off on a wide range
of issues, including his very problematic I guess political points
of view, but he also ended up talking about Robert Smith,
and Morsey was like, actually, I think weirdly conciliatory in
this context. He said, I said some terrible things about
him thirty five years ago, but I didn't mean them.
I was just being very grange Hill, which I guess
is a British like teen soap opera. It's great when
(28:40):
you can blame everything on Turette's syndrome. So is that
is that an apology? Yeah? Yeah, I mean the word
regret is in there, I suppose, yeah, But the Turette's
thing at the end is definitely I count that legally
as an apology. I don't know about Sincere. I just
feel like an apology means except getting responsibility for what
(29:01):
you've done, and I feel like he did not accept
responsibility at the end. But we're talking about Morrissey here,
so this is as close as as we're going to
get to an apology. And of course Robert Smith has
to respond, and he gave an interview to the Enemy
where he says it was slightly odd as I haven't
really had it at the forefront of my consciousness over
the last twenty or thirty years. I don't know even
(29:23):
at the time, I never quite understood what the problem was.
It's far from important right now. Which I love that
response because it's very like Walter sob Check and the
big Lebowski is saying, which, by the way, Robert Smith,
who look, we both love, he's being like pretty disingenuous
here because he's basically saying, like, I haven't even thought
about this in thirty years. Meanwhile, we've just listed several
(29:44):
quotes of him slagging off Morrissey that we're well within that,
you know, twenty or thirty year window. So I mean, look,
maybe he only thought about it when journalists asked him
about it, but he's certainly never backed away from taking
a shot at Morrissey when he had the opportunity. But again,
you know, it's clear that, like when you get beyond
the insults that Robert Smith, it seems like he was
(30:07):
genuinely hurt. Going back to that four interview where Morrisey
said that he would shoot him and Marky Smith. It
was this interview that he did with The Guardian where
he says, I felt it was unfair that he would
shoot me. If you asked him again, he might choose
to shoot himself rather than me or whoever else it was.
So he still cares, It still cares that. It's like,
(30:29):
I don't care, I haven't thought about in thirty years.
But I also remember this interview where he said that
he would shoot me, you know, So again, be a
little disingenuous there, but I appreciate the calmer than you are,
you know defense there. I think that's always a good thing.
Like we're like, well, but you you're acting like you care.
I've never even cared at all, Like, so I'm clearly
the winner here. This all begs the question did Marky
(30:51):
Smith ever respond any of this? Well, I mean, Marky
Smith is an even bigger mr probe than Morrissey, So
you know, I'm sure that he would like get a
like a machine gun and like mow them down if
you ask Marky Smith. So maybe Robert Smith is being
a little more generous at this stage, because we've said
Morrissey is becoming something of a pariah due to his
(31:11):
string of really increasingly controversial quotes about race and immigration
and the meat too movement. UH. In the last fifteen years,
Morrissey's transformed into basically a one man assault on political correctness.
And again it's interesting that Robert smithther came to him
for that. But again, like you said, it was just
such an easy target. And for a while I was
tempting to try to write off everything morris He said
(31:31):
as really being like intentionally provocative just for attention, But
as time went on, it really got harder and harder
to ignore, Like is he being deliberately provocative? Is he
being like a pro wrestler villain or is it a
case of big mouth strikes again? You know, I mean,
his his uh misanthropic tendencies curdled into these really reprehensible beliefs.
And we won't go too deep into this because that's
(31:53):
the whole other episode of you know, Morrissey versus everyone
who isn't Morrissey, but it's worth noting because I think
it really impacted the Smith's reputation in a way that's
relevant to the Smith's versus cure argument. And you know,
in the early days, Morrissey was this paragon of left
wing ideology. He was anti Thatcher with Margaret on the guillotine,
he was anti monarchy with Queen is Dead, and uncompromising
(32:14):
attitude towards animal rights. Meet his murder, he was really
explicit and his hatred of blue blooded establishment and control
of songs like the Headmaster ritual. Uh when has how
we feel if somebody murdered Margaret Thatcher in the eighties,
he replied, obviously I'd marry that person. So you know,
he's definitely as left wing as you can come in
this era. And those songs are all about the downtrodden,
(32:37):
lonely outsiders, you know, Mexico, And that's an extra from
the you were the Choreyott takes takes on white privilege.
It seems if you're rich and you're white, you'll be
all right. I just don't see why this should be.
So it's crazy when you contrast like those early songs
with like that two thousand seven interview that he did
with the Enemy, where I feel like that was like
(32:59):
him really going off the deep end. Oh yes, that
was when I think he ended up suing them for
that too. It's just it's really confusing for like this
first generation Irish Catholic immigrants speaking out so strongly against
what he saw is really lax immigration policies in the UK.
He says, although I don't have anything against people from
other countries, the higher the influx into England, the more
(33:19):
the British identity disappears. You walk through Knightsbridge and have
a neighborhood in London on any Bland day of the week,
you won't hear an English accent. England is a memory.
Now the gates are flooded and anybody can have access
to England and join in. And he ended up taking
the enemy to court for libel, saying that the quotes
were taken out of context, and he got an apology
from the magazine. But then a couple of years later,
(33:41):
in twos ten, he does an interview with The Guardian
Weekend magazine and he referred to Chinese people as quote
a subspecies. And this is in response to their treatment
of animals. Horrendous. Absolutely, yeah, I mean, and and it
keeps going. I mean. He said awful things about London's mayor,
Sadik Khan, saying that he talk properly at some quotes,
(34:02):
and he he reportedly responded to the terrorist attack in
his hometown of Manchester in seventeen by criticizing immigration, despite
the fact that the perpetrator wasn't an immigrant, so it
had nothing to do with that at all. He reportedly
said that Berlin had become quote the rape capital of
the world due to its open borders. Really bad, and
whenever people would ask him he's a racist, he's quoted
(34:24):
as saying variations on the word racist is meaningless. Now
everyone ultimately prefers their own race. Does this make everyone racist? Uh? Yeah,
you know. Once you say everyone ultimately prefers their own race,
like you're pretty much like like way on the slippery slope.
It just gets worse after that. You know, he's been
a Brexit supporter, you know, he's been a vocal critic
(34:47):
of me too, And I just feel like all this stuff,
as you were saying earlier, it's just like hurt the
reputation of the Smiths, because if you love the Smiths,
not only because they had great music, but because you
thought they signified something about being an alienated outsider, that
this was going to be music that like spoke for you,
you know, as someone who doesn't feel comfortable in the
mainstream of society. You know, you looked at Morrissey as
(35:09):
a hero, you looked at someone You looked at him
as someone who's gonna like stand up for you and
and and people like you. So to see him do
this hell turn that he's done in the last fifteen
years or twenty years or so, you know, even if
in his mind he feels like, well, I'm just reacting
to what I feel is like sort of stifling political
correctness and I'm being provocative, I'm being interesting. Even if
(35:30):
that is what is at play here, it just takes
away what he wants signified to people, and it just
makes his songs seem phony. And I think with an
artist like Morrissey, authenticity is so important, you know. But
it's like, you can't listen to those records now without
hearing these quotes in your head, and it just plays
against I think what those records originally meant to people. Yeah, absolutely,
(35:52):
And you know, I mean, Morrissey very famously has a
huge following in the Latin American community because his songs
speak to that sense of otherness as they, you know,
try to they leave their home behind and try to
assimilate New American culture. So I'm sure that the abrupt
face specifically on the issue of immigration was really hurtful
to a lot of them. There was some really interesting
interviews out there with Latin American Morrissey fans speaking about
(36:16):
how how they're coming to two terms with with these
things that he says, and it is very hurtful. And
you know, in in England there have been some stores
that won't suck his records anymore, and subway posters in
uh I think in the UK were taken down for
some of his new albums too, So there's been increasing
blowback as his statements have gotten more and more extreme.
(36:37):
Concurrent with this was the Cure's reputation receiving kind of
a shot in the arm and the two thousand tens
and for years, as we said earlier, the Cure we're
sort of scene as this doomy, self serious, melo dramatic
teenage band, and the fact that they were a commercial success,
much bigger than the Smiths in the US was sort
of a liability because, like as we said, made them
this cheap, populous act in the eyes of many taste makers,
(36:58):
especially when compared with the Smiths of like cool Wit,
it's really incredible. And the Enemy in December of two
thousand named the most influential artist of all time. The
Smiths flogged in at number ten. The Cure didn't place
at all. When Enemy ranked the fifty greatest artists of
all time in two thousand two, the Smith's edged out
the Beatles for the number one spot and the Cure
(37:19):
didn't appear at all. That's just crazy to me. I
think it makes more sense for British Music magazine to
do that, because the Smith's clearly just meant more in
England than they met in the United States. But to
not even put the Cure on the list at all
is like so crazy to me when again, you look
at the length of their career, which really goes from
the late seventies until like the mid nineties. As far
(37:41):
as them being like a really relevant hit making band,
I mean, that's like a twenty year run, which is
impressive for any band. But if you look at again,
like the quality of their catalog again, having multiple albums
that I think are really excellent, it just shows like
how much they were underappreciated. I have to think too that,
you know, the disposition of Robert's Smith versus Morrissey. I
(38:01):
just feel like that's become so much clearer now in
the last twenty years. And you know, we were talking
about this earlier about how if you want a caricature
Robert Smith as just like this miserable, sad bastard type
that really falls apart when you see interviews with him
or you read interviews where I just generally find him
to be a very self aware, funny, smart guy. And
(38:23):
you know, I was thinking about that moment when the
Cure were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame in twenty nineteen, there was that viral video of
Robert Smith being interviewed on the red carpet before going
into the theater. Did you see that video? It's hilarious, Like,
this is very excited woman interviewing Robert Smith and and
she asks like, are you as excited as I am
(38:44):
to be here tonight? And Robert Smith just kind of
looks at her and says, well, it doesn't look like it,
you know. And it is very low key, like almost
like a Larry David type desposition, And it's hilarious. And
it just shows like again like he seems like a
guy who knows who he is. He's comfortable with this
place in like music history and music culture. And you know,
(39:05):
you mentioned self serious as being a tag that was
put on the Cure. He actually doesn't seem to take
himself that seriously. No, not. I don't even get you know,
missing throat vibes from him necessarily. I get somebody who
just doesn't want to deal with all the sort of
bullshit that goes along with having to be like, you know,
playing arenas like the Cure did and stuff like that.
The older he gets, the more I just see, you said,
(39:27):
a low key guy. So before we go to the
pro case for each side. We have to answer the
looming question that's been in the air since the start
of this episode, which is who would win in an
actual fight between them? You got Morrissey Pope or Rock
sad Clown? What do you think? You know? Neither one
of them seem like they're in great shape. I mean,
I guess Morrissey is probably like a bit better shape
(39:49):
than Robert Smith. You know. I just see them circling
each other and saying mean things to each other without
actually throwing a punch, and then at some point just
getting bored and wandering off. It's really hard for me
to imagine them actually coming to physical blows, Like what
do you think? Do you think they could actually land
a punch on each other? I could see maybe one
coming from Robert Smith. I could see him having a
(40:11):
sadistic streak. But I could see, you know, Morrissey just
laying down to welcome the sweet relief of death. That's
where I'm at. We're gonna take a quick break and
get a word from our sponsor before we get to
more rivals. Okay, we've reached the part of our episode
(40:32):
where we give the pro side of each part of
the rivalry. Let's talk about The Smith's first. One of
the greatest singles bands of all time as far as
I'm concerned. I mean, a few bands have as many
just like perfect pop songs as the Smith's, do you know?
And I a literated to this earlier. We haven't really
talked about Johnny Marr in this episode. I think that
he is a really crucial part of what makes The
Smith's magical. And I'll say that, like, if you don't
(40:53):
want to listen to the Smiths because you find Morrissey
is so annoying, don't forget that Johnny Marr is a
big part of that band and they're still worth listening
to even if you find the lead singer irritating, just
because of his wonderful guitar playing. And it must be
said about Morrissey, you know, as obnoxious as he can be,
he really is like a pretty brilliant lyricist, and I
think in his prime he is like one of the
(41:14):
great British pop rock lyricists of all time. Uh, And
it's a shame that that talent gets overshadowed by some
of this other stuff. But yeah, I mean wonderful song
titles too. I mean, he could title a song as
well as anybody. Oh yeah, I think he's one of
the few musicians whose lyrics worked on that you get
almost as much out of him on the page, you know,
I mean their poetry, they're so witty and insightful. He
(41:37):
took the ordinary and dramatized it in such a way
that was just so relatable. These characters that are just
steeped in insecurity and shame, and no one expresses loneliness
and angst like Morrissey. I mean, it was funny, it
was sad, it was angry, it was defeated, it was defiant.
I mean often all in the same song. Unparalleled lyricist.
And you know, we've said all through the episode it's
(41:58):
pretty much accepted that the Smiths with the most you know,
in quotes important band. But it's insane how prolific they
were just for their five years streak. And I think
in a lot of ways it's the Hendrix effect. They
never got to be middle age and make their bad
Clapton albums. You know, the Smith's never made old sock.
You know, as much as I prefer the Cure for
the song by song comparison of their peak eras the
(42:20):
Smiths might have an edge. I think the Smith's peaks
were maybe higher. What do you think that's I although
I do prefer I think that the Cures catalog overall
more so. Yeah, I mean, I think the Hendrix comparison
is after like the Velvet Underground or Big Star, any
of these bands that have a short life, but everything
they put out was more or less essential. And that
(42:42):
seems to be true of the Smiths, even though I
don't think that their albums from that period are as
good as the Cure albums with maybe with the exception
of The Queen is Dead. But to me again as
a singles band, they're really great and uh definitely one
of the best singles bands of their era, and really
I think of all time, like they're in that kind
versation if you go over to the Cure side again,
(43:02):
a longer career, a deeper catalog, and I think they
have like a wider range of influence. I mean, going
back to that list that you were talking about earlier
on how the Smiths were ranked higher than the Cure,
I guess the Cure wasn't even on that list of
like most influential British fans but if you look at
the people that have covered Cure songs, it's like everyone
from Adele to Corn to Little Peep. You know, they've
(43:22):
either covered Cure songs or they they've sampled them. I
think that speaks to the Cures again, more populist appeal. Uh.
You know, they were a band that sold more records
in the Smiths. They had like bigger hits at least,
you know, certainly here in America. And I think they
continue to speak to outsiders, maybe even more than the
Smiths do. Also, you know, as we've reiterated time and
again in this episode, Robert Smith is just a more
(43:45):
likable person than Morrissey, you know, like I cheer for
him in a way that I don't for Morrissey. Yeah,
I agree. I mean, so much of what the Smith
seems so attached to their place and time, and maybe
some of that is because they're sort of directly tackling
social issues. If Morrissey's lears talked to being an awkward, angsty,
boring kid of a certain era and culture, I think
the Cure songs are what being an angsty team felt like,
(44:07):
you know, what those epic mood pieces like homesick, like
just the songs are just ecstatic highs, like just like Heaven,
and then these deep dark loads like that that three
minute opening part to Homesick with that like mournful piano part.
I mean the Cure masters of like the three minute
instrumental intro. I just want to say, like, oh, Disintegration
has that exactly, And I think that the Cure sound
(44:31):
is so much more unique than the Smith's. I kind
of feel about the Smiths the same way that I
do about Blur and sometimes even the Kinks. It's that
it's not for me, you know. I can appreciate it academically,
and the melodies are always gorgeous, but the lyrics again
seems so tied to a specific time, place and culture,
and obviously they can relate to the loneliness and alienation,
which is one of the reasons why Morrissey has such
(44:51):
a strong following in the Latin American community. His words
are obviously able to speak to more than just those
who grew up in you know, northern England in the
recession of the late seventies and the right wing Thatcher
era of the eighties. But there's something about you know,
Morrissey and his prime He had this chiseled, good looking face,
great haircut, pompadour, and he was sort of like the
(45:12):
idealized outsider that we all kind of wanted to be.
And Robert Smith, with this sort of scraggly hair and
his off putting, kind of bizarre makeup and kind of
hunt shoulders, he was almost more how I think he
seemed like one of us. He seemed like one of
the shy, awkward kids, you know. I think of uh
Chuck Closterman's famous essay about Billy Joel about how why
(45:33):
Billy Joel could never be cool because whenever he looks
at Billy Joel, he sees himself. I think that's how
I think about Robert Smith. You know, when I look
at him, I just relate to to him so much.
I just see myself in so many ways. And maybe
that's why he's my favorite of the two. So if
we look at these two bands together, look I like
both bands. I think most people like both bands, and
(45:53):
I like that they hate I don't think that this
rivalry actually impedes on anyone's enjoyment of the other band.
It's not like Oasis versus Blur, where people felt compelled
to take a side. You know, if you like one band,
you probably like the other. And I think the dislike
that they had actually enhances our love of the Smith's
and the Cure, because there's all this great fodder. You know,
(46:14):
they were slagging each other, and they did it in
a really funny, entertaining way. Yeah. I can't think of
any case where, you know, if any Smith's fans were
staunch anti Cure or vice versa, I don't really, I
can't really think of any examples of that really happening.
Like you said, the debate was all about which one
of the bands was better than the other, and Morrisey,
I think it was more of an iconic cultural force.
(46:34):
But I think the music of The Cure is going
to continue to endure and probably proved to be more
influential of the two bands. I'm gonna argue, but maybe
I'm just buy us and just I'm a former Cure kid. Well, Steve,
to die by your side as we pick apart rivalries
would be the most heavenly way to die. Would you say,
it's just like heaven? Yes, yes, I would. Well, now
(46:56):
that we got to punt out of the way, I
think it's time to bid everyone goodbye, so thank you
for listening to this episode of Rivals. We will be
back with more beefs and feuds and long simmering resentments
next week. Rivals is a production of I Heart Radio.
The executive producers are Shawn Tytone and Noel Brown. The
(47:16):
supervising producers are Taylor Chicogne and Tristan McNeil. The producer
is Joel hat Stat. I'm Jordan's run Talk. I'm Stephen Hyden.
If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave
us a review. For more podcast for my heart Radio,
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows
Rivals as a production of I Heart Radio. Hello everyone,
and welcome to Rivals, the show about music beefs and
feuds and long simmering resentments between musicians. I'm Steve and
(00:20):
I'm Jordan, and today we're gonna take a look at
the feud between Morrissey of The Smith's and Robert Smith
of The Cure. The rivalry means a lot to people
because both of these bands spoke to those of us
who felt alienated and lonely in our teens, which, as
hardcore music fans is probably most of us. We bonded
with one or both of these bands in a really
special way. And well, that's true that you could easily
(00:41):
enjoy both. I know that everybody had their favorite. I
think this rivalry is significant because it's not just the
case of two bands who exist in the same lane
being unwillingly pitted against each other as rivals. The lead
singers of these bands actually hated each other. I mean,
I forget Oasis versus Blur, this is the original battle
of British pop rock bands warring with each other in
(01:01):
the press, and in spite of their reputations as like
these like moby goth rockers, these guys were actually really
funny when they were insulting each other. Oh yeah, they
were Gallagher Brothers level, I mean, and I was never
able to figure out how real it was though. I mean,
I know they were competitive on some level, sort of
battling it out for a subsection of the post punk
late era new wave sound, especially with their fighting social commentary.
(01:27):
But I also think that Smith and especially Morrissey have
a touch of the David Crosby where they loved just
playing up their missanthropy by saying really outrageously awful things
about people in the press for for attention and headlines.
And you know, it makes me wonder if did they
even mean it. I mean, because they both admitted as much.
Morrissey once said I lie a lot. It's really useful,
(01:48):
and Robert Smith said I lie a lot, especially in interviews.
So in my gut, I feel like that's got to
be at play at some level in this too. Yeah,
I mean, I think that's true. I'm sure there was
some exaggeration going on here, but I also feel like
there was some genuine dislike and I think it's sent
for Morrissey in the nineteen eighties being seen as this
poet and true artist and Robert Smith being depicted as
(02:10):
this like melodramatic, more adolescent guy. And it's been fascinating
for me to see like this shift over the past
several decades where I feel like, in many ways Robert
Smith now has the level of respect that Morrissey used
to have. Of course, let's do mostly to Morrissey's saying
many awful things and self sabotaging his reputation. Yeah, that's
(02:31):
that's definitely a major factor. I don't know. To me,
talking about both these bands, it almost makes me uncomfortable
in the way because it conjures up these memories of
such a weird time in my life personally, all that
like angsty adolescent stuff. I'm sure other people fail that
way too, And I almost wonder if that sensation had
an adverse effect on the reputation of The Cure in particular,
because for a time it was a band you're almost
(02:53):
embarrassed to admit that he liked because it was so
linked to this painful, awkward adolescent period that we all
went through. But ultimately you said, I think that the
Cure benefited from that, and now we look back on
them fondly because the music was always there for us
during this crucial time, and the Cure of you know,
received the recognition they deserved. They were inducted in the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in twenty nine. And
(03:13):
what's more, they survived to watch Morrissey to send into
a right wing parody of himself. So that's a win. Yeah,
you mentioned the Cure getting into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame, and the Smiths are not in the
rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which I think is
a major crime. They deserve to be in there. But
you know, I'm sure if you ask Morrisey about this,
he would say he doesn't care, or he would at
least claim that he doesn't care. But I like to
(03:33):
think that this is something that Robert Smith can lord
over him if they ever bump into each other on
like the post punk senior citizen circuit. But we're getting
ahead of ourselves. There's so much to explore here, So
without further ado, let's get into this mess. I think
it's important to begin with a very crucial fact, and
that's that Stephen Patrick Morrissey hates an awful lot of stuff. Yeah,
(03:56):
he hates everything, he really does. I mean I just
want to take a quick moment to demonstrate this point.
Morrissey hates meat, roller coasters, rain, cold weather, dance music.
He's called rave music a refuge for the mentally deficient
and described long long hair as an unpartable offense which
should be punishable by death. Yeah, that's rationale. He He
hates the music of Stevie Wonder, which I think might
(04:17):
be a first in human history. Who hates Stevie Wonder?
I gotta speculate it's maybe because Stevie Wonder's name is
Stephen and Stephen Patrick. Morrissey hates his birth name, apparently
reminds him of Steve Austin from the TV series The
six Million Dollar Man, which also hates. He doesn't like
the name Steve. I know, yeah, you got you got
(04:38):
some things to saying that, Steve. Yeah, it's getting personal now, Morrissey.
He hates Kate Bush, saying the nicest thing I can
say about her is that she's unbearable. That voice such trash.
He hates Bob Geldof, calling him a nauseating character. He
hates so many people that the list is too long
for me to even read over here. Quite tellingly, his
first solo LP after the Smith's disbanded was called Viva Hate,
(04:59):
and he's ever denied being, you know, seriously missingthropic, saying
in one early interview, I hate most people, and I
don't want to. It's an awful way to be. But
the human race gives me no comfort. Oh my god.
And to illustrate this point, when he smelled meat being
cooked when he's performing at Coachella in two thousand nine,
(05:19):
he famously said, I can smell burning flesh. I hope
to God it's human. So this is the level of
the person we're dealing with, and he's either an Olympian
level missingthrope or a great a outrageous quote machine. His
lyrics would suggest a combination of the two. So as
far as his conflict with Robert Smith goes, it starts
really at the beginning of Morrissey's career. It's he's giving
(05:41):
an interview with the magazine The Face, and the reporter
asked this question, if I put you in a room
with Robert Smith, markis Smith of the Fall in a
loaded Smith and Wesson, who would bite the bullet first? Now,
before we get to Morrissey's answer here, I think it's
clear from the construction of this question that the idea
is to name a bunch of people named Smith because
(06:01):
Morrissey isn't a band called the Smith's. It's not really
about Robert Smith or the Cure particularly. I mean, it's
not known yet really how Morrissey feels about that band.
It's really just a jokey question to ask Morrisey, where
you know, you're setting the ball on the t for
him to say something outrageous. And of course Morrissey can
never resist the bait here as he ever turned the
other cheek. Morrissey, I don't think he's ever turned down
(06:23):
an opportunity to slay someone off, absolutely, which makes him
a terrible person, but it makes him perfect for this show.
So I guess I have to thank Morrissey for that.
But Morrissey says, and this is maybe like like the
worst possible answer from like a humanist perspective, but like
it's a very funny answer. He says, I'd line them
up so that one bullet would penetrate them simultaneously. At
(06:46):
any rate, it's rather curious that he began wearing beads
at the emergence of the Smiths. This is Morrissey's saying
of Robert Smith, and he's been photographed with flowers, and
of course this is a reference to the fact that
early in his career Morrissey would come on stage holding daffodils.
So there's the implication that Robert Smith is somehow ripping
him off. And he says, I expect he's quite supportive
what we do, but I've never liked the cure, not
(07:07):
even the caterpillar, not even the Yeah, exactly, I'm curious,
like why he's singled out the caterpillar as like it
being amazing. That doesn't even like that song, Like I
I don't think of that as necessarily being like the
most popular cure song or the most accessible cure song,
but or the most like the Smith's cure song. Yeah,
I couldn't figure that right. It's kind of weird, But
(07:27):
at any rate, the point is is that Morrissey would
murder Robert Smith have given the opportunity, and he thinks
that he's ripping him off. So that is what has
been established in this interview. And this quote gets back
to Robert Smith, who fired back in kind. He said,
Morrissey is so depressing if he doesn't off himself soon
I probably will. Yes, it's just beautiful Winston Churchill level
(07:52):
insult right there, very very good. Years later, when he's
looking back on the Morrissey feud, Robert Smith also said,
you know, I would have expect it at the time,
him being a non meat eating, vegetarian, pacifist sort of guy,
to say I choose to shoot myself or I choose
to shoot no one. But he said I'd lined them
all up and shoot them all. When I was told
that at the time, I kind of took umberge. I
thought that's fucking nice. And then he drops a c
(08:14):
bomb because he's Robert Smith. Um, it seemed like if
he's genuinely pretty hurt by this whole exchange. I mean,
he said it was, you know, not unnecessary. I've never
said or done anything to morris See and the according
to Robert Smith, at least at that point, they've never
even been in the same room together. Yeah, you know,
I'm gonna tip my hand here as being more sympathetic
generally to Robert Smith. And I think I'm probably a
(08:35):
bigger Cure fan than I am a fan of the Smith's,
even though I love both bands. But it really is
amazing to me that Robert Smith generally comes off as
like relatively normal and level headed in his interviews, which
you wouldn't necessarily expect necessarily if you just listen to
his music, or like you see him on stage. Obviously
he's wearing all the makeup. He always seems miserable in
(08:56):
his music, but then when he's talking to reporters, he
seems like a pretty normal guy. Yeah, exactly. He's like,
he's funny and he just sounds reasonable. Whereas with Morrissey,
the more interviews he's done in his career, the crazier
and more irrational he becomes. It's like he's already pretty
melodramatic in his lyrics, but like he just is so awful,
(09:16):
Like the more he talks so in terms of like
their personal dispositions, I feel like that's like a defining
difference between these guys. Yeah, I mean, Robert Smith would
claim in later years that he was confused why there
was even a comparison between the care and the Smiths.
Uh it said, there's nothing that links Morrissey and the
Care In my mind, as years go by, it's very
easy to think we were from the same generation, but
we're not, and he's right. I mean, the Cure recorded
(09:38):
their first album ight, and the Smith's released their self
titled debut in four which is kind of a different
mini generation in a way. And I think that the
Smith's stuff sounded maybe more like early Care albums, But
by the time the Smiths came around, they were doing
sort of more synth based, moody, darker, the head on
the door type stuff that really didn't sound very similar
(09:59):
to the Smith's at all to me, at least. Again,
I love both bands. To me, it is natural to
compare them. I understand that the Cure started earlier. They
are really part of that post punk generation that really emerged,
you know, after the sex Pistols in the Clash, you know,
in the late seventies. But I think the reason that
they get grouped together is that the same kind of
person loves both bands, you know, as like, if you
(10:21):
love the Smiths, you probably love the Cure, and vice versa.
And they just both have I think, a very kind
of quintessentially like eighties alternative rock vibe to them. You know. Again,
even though the Cure started earlier, they didn't really come
into their own until the nineteen eighties. Like with those
albums that you mentioned, Head on the Door obviously, kiss Me,
kiss Me, Kiss Me, and then I think hitting their
(10:41):
culmination like their peak with Disintegration in nine. What I
think is interesting about these bands in terms of how
they perceived critically is that I think that the Smiths
for years had this reputation as being a smarter band. Uh.
They were the band that I think critics tended to
rate higher than the Cure. The Queen is Dead as
a record that you're much more likely to see near
the top of like Greatest Albums of All Times lists
(11:04):
than you are Disintegration, for instance, even though if given
the choice, I would take Disintegration personally over The Queen
is Dead. The strength to me of the Smiths is singles.
I think they're singles. Collections are excellent, and they have
so many songs that I would say are just like
perfect songs. There's a light that never goes out and
(11:24):
in Glove how Soon is Now? I mean, there's just
so many wonderful singles that they have, Whereas I look
at The Cure as being more of an album band
like they have I think several albums that hold together
as statements, whereas again, I think the Smiths you have
The Queen is Dead, and then there are other albums
to me, are a little spotty here and it's much
more about singles. I also think the Cure you have
(11:45):
to give them credit for their longevity. You know, they
were around before the Smiths, and they were around after
the Smiths, And this is another thing that gets overshadowed
the Cure. Maybe I'm wrong about this, but to me,
they were a much more popular band, especially in America,
Like I feel like at her peak, like weren't that
you're playing arenas basically like by the time of disintegration, Like,
I don't think the Smith's ever got to that kind
(12:06):
of level, at least here in the United States. Yeah,
And I wonder if that worked against them becoming almost
more of this like populist favorite. I'm sure Morrissey could
throw that back in their face in a lot of
ways too. I always thought that the Smiths seemed like
it was for a more discerning music fan. I always
seem more literate. They tackled social issues, you know, meet
his murder, The Queen is Dead. In ways, I don't
(12:27):
think the Cure ever really did. I think Robert Smith
was mostly writing about himself, and I think that in
some ways is one of their great strengths because when
he's describing how he's feeling, some often that resonates with
all of us, depending on what we're going through in
our lives. But I think that also you could argue
that Robert Smith seemed a lot more kind of like
naval gazey and self obsessed too, and I think that
that was the fact that they didn't really look outward
(12:50):
quite as much as the Smith's I think ding them
definitely at the time, you know, in in uh Thatcher
era England, especially when there was sort of a lot
to rail against. That was always fascinating to me that
that's sort of the political element of their music. I
just wonder to what degree Robert Smith internalized the critical
conversation around both bands, because and this is something I'm
(13:10):
sure he would never admit to personally. But you know, again,
like by the end of the eighties, the Cure like
had like a legitimate pop hit with love Song. You know,
love Song, I believe was like a top five hit
just for them, And of course that song has been
covered by so many artists since then. I mean, it
was on one of the Adele Records, which I'm sure
bought Robert Smith, like ten houses, you know, just a
(13:33):
ton of money, I'm sure from that cover. But again,
I feel like for a long time people just took
the Smiths more seriously while also dinging The Cure for
being again this kind of like adolescent angsty naval gayzey band.
And you know, there's an interview that Robert Smith gave
I think it pretty much at the height of The
Cure's popularity, where he took a shot at Morrissey and
(13:53):
he says he's a precious, miserable bastard. He's all the
things people think I am. And I think that's a
very telling quote because I'm sure Robert Smith felt like, oh,
people are you know, they have this caricature of me
that I'm just like this sad, bastard guy, and that's
preventing some people from you know, giving me my due
as like a great songwriter. Like people talk about Morrisey
(14:15):
being a great songwriter, but like I like, I'm a
great songwriter too, and I asked to write my own
music too. But I don't get that kind of love
from critics. They don't look at me as a tomb Smith.
They look at me as just like this miserable guy,
But it's like, what about this other guy, Like he's
just as miserable as me, if not more so, right,
I mean Robert Smith incredible guitarist, producer and wrote all
(14:37):
the Cures music, And I agree with that. And also
I think there's a case of maybe like you just
like someone because you see elements of yourself and them
that that you don't like about yourself. So maybe there
was some of that too. It's like no, no, no, no,
I'm not that bad, it said him. Look at him,
He's even worse than me. So yeah, I could see
it being your way as well, being like no, come on,
(14:58):
like this is Morrissey actually is a miserable bastard and
I do so much more. But also maybe there's some
of it just was he worried it did hit too
close to home. He did see elements of himself that
he didn't like. So these two ended up continuing to
snap at each other even after the Smith's broke up.
And you know I alluded to this earlier. I mean
the Smith's window of time, Like really, isn't that big?
(15:18):
I mean they were basically a force in British music
for about five years in the mid nineteen eighties. By
the end of the eighties, they're finished Johnny Marr, who
is a genius guitar player, and I feel like he
doesn't get as much credit as he deserves. And that
Morrissey mar songwriting partnership, just like the wonderful music that
he wrote for those songs. By the way, we have
to do a Morrissey versus mar episode at some point
(15:40):
that will be amazing. But anyway, like even after the
Smith's broke up, Morrissey and Robert Smith continue to take
shots at each other. There's this great interview. I feel
like it's like a pretty famous quote where Robert Smith
was talking about how, you know, Morrissey is this animal
rights activist and how that runs counter to just how
awful he is to human beings, you know, like he
(16:01):
cares more about animals than he does about human beings.
And Robert Smith says, this is a great quote. He says,
if Morrisey says not to eat meat, then I'm going
to eat meat. That's how much I hate Morrison, which
possibly my favorite quote of this whole thing. That's great.
And then Morrissey of course shoots back. He said, Robert
Smith is a fat clown with makeup, weeping over a guitar. Uh.
(16:24):
Just like I feel like the Robert Smith quote is
like a little more self aware. You know, he's almost
like making fun of himself a little bit for how
much It's like, I'm just reacting against anything that he
does just because this guy annoys me, whereas Morrissey is
just like being directly insulting of like, you know, he's
calling him fat, you know, he's saying he's weeping over
a guitar. And Robert Smith, of course he has a
(16:44):
shoot back, you know. He there was an interview that
he did around this time with the magazine Zone zero
nine where he was talking about his status as a
godfather of goth and he doesn't really like that distinction,
and he says, I'm tired of being known as a
doomy goth casualty. The press tries to portray me as
a gloom and doom singer. But take a look at Morrissey.
Batman is a professional complainer. Um. So, you know, just
(17:08):
going back to what I was saying before, I think
this idea, I think that annoyed him, that he was
caricatured in this way that I don't think Morrissey was
to the same degree at that time. I think that,
you know, Morrissey definitely was known as this moby artist.
But I feel like his songwriting partnership with Johnny Marr,
I think people are certainly critics they treated that with
a degree of seriousness, almost like likening them to like
(17:31):
Lennon McCartney, you know, like the Lennon McCartney of their era.
That I don't think they did that with Robert Smith.
I don't feel like he got the credit that he
deserved as a songwriter at that time, because yeah, you know,
the Cure had a very distinct image. But you know,
if you look at their albums, I mean he's writing
all these great songs, and you know, as great as
the Smith's are as a singles act, I should mention.
I mean Standing on a Beach their compilation of their
(17:53):
eighties singles, that's like a defining document of like early
alternative rock. I mean, he wrote a lot of great
singles too. I think he just felt like, hey, recognize
my talent, don't just look at the makeup in like
the crazy hair, Like I am producing great material at
this time my favorite Robert Smith story from this period,
and it might not be true, but I choose to
believe it. Have been having trouble source in the quotes
(18:15):
for this, but Robert Smith said, I remember running into
Morrissey at a Halloween party or something. I went to
punch him on the arm, and he just closed his
eyes and started crying seeing that. I mean, I'm just
imagining a scenario where like Morrissey would go to anyone's
Halloween part, right, yeah, And would you do something or
would he just be Robert Smith? Of course not, I
(18:35):
could see Robert Smith going into a Halloween party. I mean,
like Morrissey. Morrissey would never go to a Halloween party.
That's the only reason I doubt this story, because I'm
just I'm just trying to imagine a scenario like who's
holding the Halloween party? Who would be friends with both
of these guys and get them both to show up
right and make the mistake of inviting them both? Yeah,
I mean is that like, uh, you know, I'm just
(18:56):
trying to think of like prominent eighties stars, is like
Sting having this party is like Bono or like George Michael,
you know, like who would be having that party said.
That's the only reason I doubt that story. Otherwise, I'm
like you, I would rather believe it than disbelieve it.
So this all brings us to the Smiths at this
point are done, passed on into legend, and Morrissey has
(19:17):
a hit number one on the British charts with his
debut album Viva Hate, which has incredible songs every Day
is like Sunday and swede Head. He's gearing up to
pro and his second solo disc, Kill Uncle with an
Interview with the Enemy, which is actually another thing he hates.
Forgot to mention that earlier, and he takes a stab
at the Cures Disintegration their masterpiece. I I it's one
(19:37):
of my favorite albums of all time. I think it's
their definitive album, one of the best albums of the eighties.
I think it's better than any single Smith's record. I
mean love songs. You mentioned Pictures of You Homesick, which
I think might be my favorite Cure song ever, Lullaby,
Fascination Street, brilliant album. Morrissey, as one might expect, doesn't
feel this way. He describes the Cures Seminal record as
(19:59):
absolutely vial and adds the cure a new dimension to
the word crap, which is a great quote. Yeah that's
the poll quote. It's very insulting. But I like Robert
Smith's response because I actually think his response is funnier
than even that great quote, because you know, he was
told about Morrisey's opinion of Disintegration, and Robert Smith says,
(20:20):
at least we've added a new dimension in crap, not
built a career on it. He's definitely much more self
aware in his in his insults back. That's totally right, exactly,
just you know, he's kind of being self deprecating, but yeah,
he's just able to twist it and get it back
on Morrissey. And it's like, Morrisey, give me a break.
Disintegration brilliant record and a very influential record too. I
(20:44):
mean there's so many types of music, whether it's dream pop,
even like like SoundCloud rappers have like sampled cure songs.
I mean, like Corn has covered Cure songs. I mean,
their influence really extends beyond just this alt rock lane.
And the same is true also of Morrissey. He's also
had a very wide influence. But Disintegration a masterful record.
(21:04):
All right hand, We'll be right back with more rivals.
It's always interesting me that Robert Smith loggs way more
insults than Morrissey and all of this back and forth,
and maybe because he's been asked a battle a lot
more and he's should have been, you know, on the
defensive in this whole beef. Morrissey's verbal assaults I think
(21:27):
are a lot more potent, but Smith definitely has the frequency. Uh.
In November, he's interviewed by Spin magazine and the Robert
Smith interview title is called Happily ever After, which still
makes me laugh, and he goes after Morrissey again, saying
I have never liked Morrissey and I still don't. I
think it's hilarious actually what things I've heard about him
(21:48):
and what he's really like, and his public persona is
so different. He's such an actor, calling him a poser
and rolling Stone. Not too long after, he says, you know,
I'd rather have our fans than his. Our cure fans
are generally quiet, well spoken, and friendly and not pretentious
in the slightest. Hopefully that reflects on the nature of
the cure. And he's kind of right, I mean, especially
(22:08):
when you watch interviews with Morrissey, even like pre all
the right wing stuff, like in the early in the
early eighties, he's kind of frightening. You feel like he
could turn on you. There's something that very I don't know.
I always get kind of freaked out watching his old interviews.
Whereas Robert Smith, there's like a gentleness there that, like,
you know, you want to give a hug or something too,
And I feel like that extends to that case. It's
(22:31):
not obviously I'm more of a Cure guy than a
Smith's guy. I feel like that extends to their fans too.
I don't know, there's something about something more sensitive maybe
about cheer fans. I don't know. Well, you know, again,
I feel like there is quite a bit of overlap
in the fan bases here. And I think that, you know,
if you like the Cure, is a very high likelihood
that you like the Smiths, And if you like the Smiths,
I think there's a likelihood that you like the Cure.
(22:52):
The difference is that I just think that there's more
Cure fans period, because the Cure, again, like we're talking
about just like America by itself, I think they were
much bigger in America because like by the end of
the eighties, like I said before, they were having like
genuine pop hits, not just like alternative rock hits, but
like they were played on top forty radio. And you know,
it makes sense that Adele ended up covering a Cure
(23:14):
song because the Cure really were like a pop band
in a way that I don't think the Smiths were.
I think they were more so in England than in here,
but here they were always more of a cult band,
and the Cure isn't often described as like a populist band,
but I think in this dynamic anyway, they are the
more populist group. They are the band that you just
had a wider repeal. And as we were saying earlier,
(23:37):
I think in a way, you know, because of the
indie politics at the time, that made the Cure less
cool than the Smiths. You know, the Smith's always had
that hip outsider status that the Cure was never going
to have. Of course, as those indie polics matter less
and less as we get farther and farther away from
like the eighties and nineties, I think that coincides with
the Cure's reputation getting better, and maybe the Smith's diminishing
(23:59):
a little bit. But of course that's also due to
the fact that Morrissey, starting in the early nineties, takes
a very bizarre left turn toward being basically a right
wing lunatic. And that evolution begins, I guess, like in
En two, like he was performing at this music festival
in England and he put a union jack around himself,
(24:19):
and of course, you know, we think about the who
flying a union jack in the nineteen sixties, and I
think back then it was this idea of just being
proud to be from England, you know, and which is
something that we also see in The Kinks at that time,
writing specifically about England in the face of like America
just being such a big cultural force in the world.
But by the early nineties, like the symbolism of like
(24:40):
a union jacket had changed quite a bit and really
kind of turned into this like symbol of nationalism in England.
And I just wonder, like to what degree, you know,
Morrissey did a great job of this earlier in the episode,
talking about all the things that he hates. The man
is an elitist, and it seems like his elitism is
really starting to take an ugly turn at this time
(25:01):
where it's not just like a funny like you know, misanthropic,
like I'm giving fun quotes in an interview, it's like
actually sort of leaking into his worldview, like where he
actually does think he's better than other people. Yeah, I
mean this was like pre britpop and in that era,
as you said, it would definitely have more right wing connotations.
And at this festival he is performing at, there was
(25:21):
apparently a large Skinhead contingent there and it was felt
that it was sort of signaling to these nationalists extremist groups.
And at the time, the Enemy had a headline with
a picture of Morrissey on stage at that festival flying
the flag or flirting with disaster. So it definitely it
got noticed at that time, and in fact, Morrissey was
so piste off by that headline that he refused to
talk to the Enemy for like a decade or something.
(25:43):
So um So, yeah, this was something that started early
on in the nineties, and it's interesting to me that,
for all their differences, Robert Smith never went in on
Morrissey for his controversial statements or any of his sort
of out there political views. Which became much much, much
more pronounced as the decade went on at but was
interesting given their feud that he never went there. I mean,
I think Robert Smith was smart enough to know that,
(26:05):
like Morrissey is owning herself with this stuff. It's like,
what do I need to say? He's making a fool
of himself, so you know, just let him continue to
make a fool of himself. At this point, we're used
to Morrissey, you know, all the terrible quotes that he's
had over the years, and we're going to get into
some of those later in this episode. I think people
are used to it by now, but I really feel
like there's maybe a sense of portrayal started to come
(26:27):
in to play with fans in the nineties that you know,
Morrissey was at his best associated with the underdog. You know,
he was the music of like alienated people, people on
the outside, and to embrace this sort of ideology it's
so strange. But at the same time, if you think
of him ultimately as an elitist, it does have a weird,
kind of twisted sense of logic to it. Yeah, we'll
(26:49):
get more than this later too, but especially but we're
betrayal I think is definitely the perfect one. It's been
hard for a lot of fans who looked to him
as somebody for soulace when they felt alone and isolated
and sort of outpressed in the eighties. I think it's
been really hard to rationalize the music that came from
that person to the public statements that he says. Now.
Back in two thousand four, The Cure and Morrissey faced
(27:11):
off in the charts again. They both had back to
back releases of Morrissey's You Are the Cory Uh in May,
and The Cure had a self titled album the following month.
And um, I guess it's probably fair to say at
this point both of their relevance had really faded significantly
and they kind of began the slide into more of
I'm not gonna call him nostalgia acts, but they definitely
didn't have the same critical and cultural potency that they
(27:34):
once did. But Robert Smith was being interviewed for his
new album, and he still took the opportunity to slag
off Morrissey just for old time Sick. In an interview
with Entertainment Weekly, he said Morrissey was constantly saying horrible
things about the cure. In the end, I kind of
snapped and started retaliating, and it turned into some kind
of petty feud. I've never liked anything he's done musically,
but I don't have any kind of strong feelings of
(27:56):
animosity towards him as a person because I've never met him.
Maybe that halloween aories think so his music sucks, but
he might not be a jerk. I can't say for sure,
but you know, I've never met him and I probably
never will because I actually do hate his guts. There
was I guess, an official like piece of chord between
these guys that began. In twenty nineteen, Morsey gave an
(28:17):
interview where he was sounding off on a wide range
of issues, including his very problematic I guess political points
of view, but he also ended up talking about Robert Smith,
and Morsey was like, actually, I think weirdly conciliatory in
this context. He said, I said some terrible things about
him thirty five years ago, but I didn't mean them.
I was just being very grange Hill, which I guess
is a British like teen soap opera. It's great when
(28:40):
you can blame everything on Turette's syndrome. So is that
is that an apology? Yeah? Yeah, I mean the word
regret is in there, I suppose, yeah, But the Turette's
thing at the end is definitely I count that legally
as an apology. I don't know about Sincere. I just
feel like an apology means except getting responsibility for what
(29:01):
you've done, and I feel like he did not accept
responsibility at the end. But we're talking about Morrissey here,
so this is as close as as we're going to
get to an apology. And of course Robert Smith has
to respond, and he gave an interview to the Enemy
where he says it was slightly odd as I haven't
really had it at the forefront of my consciousness over
the last twenty or thirty years. I don't know even
(29:23):
at the time, I never quite understood what the problem was.
It's far from important right now. Which I love that
response because it's very like Walter sob Check and the
big Lebowski is saying, which, by the way, Robert Smith,
who look, we both love, he's being like pretty disingenuous
here because he's basically saying, like, I haven't even thought
about this in thirty years. Meanwhile, we've just listed several
(29:44):
quotes of him slagging off Morrissey that we're well within that,
you know, twenty or thirty year window. So I mean, look,
maybe he only thought about it when journalists asked him
about it, but he's certainly never backed away from taking
a shot at Morrissey when he had the opportunity. But again,
you know, it's clear that, like when you get beyond
the insults that Robert Smith, it seems like he was
(30:07):
genuinely hurt. Going back to that four interview where Morrisey
said that he would shoot him and Marky Smith. It
was this interview that he did with The Guardian where
he says, I felt it was unfair that he would
shoot me. If you asked him again, he might choose
to shoot himself rather than me or whoever else it was.
So he still cares, It still cares that. It's like,
(30:29):
I don't care, I haven't thought about in thirty years.
But I also remember this interview where he said that
he would shoot me, you know, So again, be a
little disingenuous there, but I appreciate the calmer than you are,
you know defense there. I think that's always a good thing.
Like we're like, well, but you you're acting like you care.
I've never even cared at all, Like, so I'm clearly
the winner here. This all begs the question did Marky
(30:51):
Smith ever respond any of this? Well, I mean, Marky
Smith is an even bigger mr probe than Morrissey, So
you know, I'm sure that he would like get a
like a machine gun and like mow them down if
you ask Marky Smith. So maybe Robert Smith is being
a little more generous at this stage, because we've said
Morrissey is becoming something of a pariah due to his
(31:11):
string of really increasingly controversial quotes about race and immigration
and the meat too movement. UH. In the last fifteen years,
Morrissey's transformed into basically a one man assault on political correctness.
And again it's interesting that Robert smithther came to him
for that. But again, like you said, it was just
such an easy target. And for a while I was
tempting to try to write off everything morris He said
(31:31):
as really being like intentionally provocative just for attention, But
as time went on, it really got harder and harder
to ignore, Like is he being deliberately provocative? Is he
being like a pro wrestler villain or is it a
case of big mouth strikes again? You know, I mean,
his his uh misanthropic tendencies curdled into these really reprehensible beliefs.
And we won't go too deep into this because that's
(31:53):
the whole other episode of you know, Morrissey versus everyone
who isn't Morrissey, but it's worth noting because I think
it really impacted the Smith's reputation in a way that's
relevant to the Smith's versus cure argument. And you know,
in the early days, Morrissey was this paragon of left
wing ideology. He was anti Thatcher with Margaret on the guillotine,
he was anti monarchy with Queen is Dead, and uncompromising
(32:14):
attitude towards animal rights. Meet his murder, he was really
explicit and his hatred of blue blooded establishment and control
of songs like the Headmaster ritual. Uh when has how
we feel if somebody murdered Margaret Thatcher in the eighties,
he replied, obviously I'd marry that person. So you know,
he's definitely as left wing as you can come in
this era. And those songs are all about the downtrodden,
(32:37):
lonely outsiders, you know, Mexico, And that's an extra from
the you were the Choreyott takes takes on white privilege.
It seems if you're rich and you're white, you'll be
all right. I just don't see why this should be.
So it's crazy when you contrast like those early songs
with like that two thousand seven interview that he did
with the Enemy, where I feel like that was like
(32:59):
him really going off the deep end. Oh yes, that
was when I think he ended up suing them for
that too. It's just it's really confusing for like this
first generation Irish Catholic immigrants speaking out so strongly against
what he saw is really lax immigration policies in the UK.
He says, although I don't have anything against people from
other countries, the higher the influx into England, the more
(33:19):
the British identity disappears. You walk through Knightsbridge and have
a neighborhood in London on any Bland day of the week,
you won't hear an English accent. England is a memory.
Now the gates are flooded and anybody can have access
to England and join in. And he ended up taking
the enemy to court for libel, saying that the quotes
were taken out of context, and he got an apology
from the magazine. But then a couple of years later,
(33:41):
in twos ten, he does an interview with The Guardian
Weekend magazine and he referred to Chinese people as quote
a subspecies. And this is in response to their treatment
of animals. Horrendous. Absolutely, yeah, I mean, and and it
keeps going. I mean. He said awful things about London's mayor,
Sadik Khan, saying that he talk properly at some quotes,
(34:02):
and he he reportedly responded to the terrorist attack in
his hometown of Manchester in seventeen by criticizing immigration, despite
the fact that the perpetrator wasn't an immigrant, so it
had nothing to do with that at all. He reportedly
said that Berlin had become quote the rape capital of
the world due to its open borders. Really bad, and
whenever people would ask him he's a racist, he's quoted
(34:24):
as saying variations on the word racist is meaningless. Now
everyone ultimately prefers their own race. Does this make everyone racist? Uh? Yeah,
you know. Once you say everyone ultimately prefers their own race,
like you're pretty much like like way on the slippery slope.
It just gets worse after that. You know, he's been
a Brexit supporter, you know, he's been a vocal critic
(34:47):
of me too, And I just feel like all this stuff,
as you were saying earlier, it's just like hurt the
reputation of the Smiths, because if you love the Smiths,
not only because they had great music, but because you
thought they signified something about being an alienated outsider, that
this was going to be music that like spoke for you,
you know, as someone who doesn't feel comfortable in the
mainstream of society. You know, you looked at Morrissey as
(35:09):
a hero, you looked at someone You looked at him
as someone who's gonna like stand up for you and
and and people like you. So to see him do
this hell turn that he's done in the last fifteen
years or twenty years or so, you know, even if
in his mind he feels like, well, I'm just reacting
to what I feel is like sort of stifling political
correctness and I'm being provocative, I'm being interesting. Even if
(35:30):
that is what is at play here, it just takes
away what he wants signified to people, and it just
makes his songs seem phony. And I think with an
artist like Morrissey, authenticity is so important, you know. But
it's like, you can't listen to those records now without
hearing these quotes in your head, and it just plays
against I think what those records originally meant to people. Yeah, absolutely,
(35:52):
And you know, I mean, Morrissey very famously has a
huge following in the Latin American community because his songs
speak to that sense of otherness as they, you know,
try to they leave their home behind and try to
assimilate New American culture. So I'm sure that the abrupt
face specifically on the issue of immigration was really hurtful
to a lot of them. There was some really interesting
interviews out there with Latin American Morrissey fans speaking about
(36:16):
how how they're coming to two terms with with these
things that he says, and it is very hurtful. And
you know, in in England there have been some stores
that won't suck his records anymore, and subway posters in
uh I think in the UK were taken down for
some of his new albums too, So there's been increasing
blowback as his statements have gotten more and more extreme.
(36:37):
Concurrent with this was the Cure's reputation receiving kind of
a shot in the arm and the two thousand tens
and for years, as we said earlier, the Cure we're
sort of scene as this doomy, self serious, melo dramatic
teenage band, and the fact that they were a commercial success,
much bigger than the Smiths in the US was sort
of a liability because, like as we said, made them
this cheap, populous act in the eyes of many taste makers,
(36:58):
especially when compared with the Smiths of like cool Wit,
it's really incredible. And the Enemy in December of two
thousand named the most influential artist of all time. The
Smiths flogged in at number ten. The Cure didn't place
at all. When Enemy ranked the fifty greatest artists of
all time in two thousand two, the Smith's edged out
the Beatles for the number one spot and the Cure
(37:19):
didn't appear at all. That's just crazy to me. I
think it makes more sense for British Music magazine to
do that, because the Smith's clearly just meant more in
England than they met in the United States. But to
not even put the Cure on the list at all
is like so crazy to me when again, you look
at the length of their career, which really goes from
the late seventies until like the mid nineties. As far
(37:41):
as them being like a really relevant hit making band,
I mean, that's like a twenty year run, which is
impressive for any band. But if you look at again,
like the quality of their catalog again, having multiple albums
that I think are really excellent, it just shows like
how much they were underappreciated. I have to think too that,
you know, the disposition of Robert's Smith versus Morrissey. I
(38:01):
just feel like that's become so much clearer now in
the last twenty years. And you know, we were talking
about this earlier about how if you want a caricature
Robert Smith as just like this miserable, sad bastard type
that really falls apart when you see interviews with him
or you read interviews where I just generally find him
to be a very self aware, funny, smart guy. And
(38:23):
you know, I was thinking about that moment when the
Cure were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame in twenty nineteen, there was that viral video of
Robert Smith being interviewed on the red carpet before going
into the theater. Did you see that video? It's hilarious, Like,
this is very excited woman interviewing Robert Smith and and
she asks like, are you as excited as I am
(38:44):
to be here tonight? And Robert Smith just kind of
looks at her and says, well, it doesn't look like it,
you know. And it is very low key, like almost
like a Larry David type desposition, And it's hilarious. And
it just shows like again like he seems like a
guy who knows who he is. He's comfortable with this
place in like music history and music culture. And you know,
(39:05):
you mentioned self serious as being a tag that was
put on the Cure. He actually doesn't seem to take
himself that seriously. No, not. I don't even get you know,
missing throat vibes from him necessarily. I get somebody who
just doesn't want to deal with all the sort of
bullshit that goes along with having to be like, you know,
playing arenas like the Cure did and stuff like that.
The older he gets, the more I just see, you said,
(39:27):
a low key guy. So before we go to the
pro case for each side. We have to answer the
looming question that's been in the air since the start
of this episode, which is who would win in an
actual fight between them? You got Morrissey Pope or Rock
sad Clown? What do you think? You know? Neither one
of them seem like they're in great shape. I mean,
I guess Morrissey is probably like a bit better shape
(39:49):
than Robert Smith. You know. I just see them circling
each other and saying mean things to each other without
actually throwing a punch, and then at some point just
getting bored and wandering off. It's really hard for me
to imagine them actually coming to physical blows, Like what
do you think? Do you think they could actually land
a punch on each other? I could see maybe one
coming from Robert Smith. I could see him having a
(40:11):
sadistic streak. But I could see, you know, Morrissey just
laying down to welcome the sweet relief of death. That's
where I'm at. We're gonna take a quick break and
get a word from our sponsor before we get to
more rivals. Okay, we've reached the part of our episode
(40:32):
where we give the pro side of each part of
the rivalry. Let's talk about The Smith's first. One of
the greatest singles bands of all time as far as
I'm concerned. I mean, a few bands have as many
just like perfect pop songs as the Smith's, do you know?
And I a literated to this earlier. We haven't really
talked about Johnny Marr in this episode. I think that
he is a really crucial part of what makes The
Smith's magical. And I'll say that, like, if you don't
(40:53):
want to listen to the Smiths because you find Morrissey
is so annoying, don't forget that Johnny Marr is a
big part of that band and they're still worth listening
to even if you find the lead singer irritating, just
because of his wonderful guitar playing. And it must be
said about Morrissey, you know, as obnoxious as he can be,
he really is like a pretty brilliant lyricist, and I
think in his prime he is like one of the
(41:14):
great British pop rock lyricists of all time. Uh, And
it's a shame that that talent gets overshadowed by some
of this other stuff. But yeah, I mean wonderful song
titles too. I mean, he could title a song as
well as anybody. Oh yeah, I think he's one of
the few musicians whose lyrics worked on that you get
almost as much out of him on the page, you know,
I mean their poetry, they're so witty and insightful. He
(41:37):
took the ordinary and dramatized it in such a way
that was just so relatable. These characters that are just
steeped in insecurity and shame, and no one expresses loneliness
and angst like Morrissey. I mean, it was funny, it
was sad, it was angry, it was defeated, it was defiant.
I mean often all in the same song. Unparalleled lyricist.
And you know, we've said all through the episode it's
(41:58):
pretty much accepted that the Smiths with the most you know,
in quotes important band. But it's insane how prolific they
were just for their five years streak. And I think
in a lot of ways it's the Hendrix effect. They
never got to be middle age and make their bad
Clapton albums. You know, the Smith's never made old sock.
You know, as much as I prefer the Cure for
the song by song comparison of their peak eras the
(42:20):
Smiths might have an edge. I think the Smith's peaks
were maybe higher. What do you think that's I although
I do prefer I think that the Cures catalog overall
more so. Yeah, I mean, I think the Hendrix comparison
is after like the Velvet Underground or Big Star, any
of these bands that have a short life, but everything
they put out was more or less essential. And that
(42:42):
seems to be true of the Smiths, even though I
don't think that their albums from that period are as
good as the Cure albums with maybe with the exception
of The Queen is Dead. But to me again as
a singles band, they're really great and uh definitely one
of the best singles bands of their era, and really
I think of all time, like they're in that kind
versation if you go over to the Cure side again,
(43:02):
a longer career, a deeper catalog, and I think they
have like a wider range of influence. I mean, going
back to that list that you were talking about earlier
on how the Smiths were ranked higher than the Cure,
I guess the Cure wasn't even on that list of
like most influential British fans but if you look at
the people that have covered Cure songs, it's like everyone
from Adele to Corn to Little Peep. You know, they've
(43:22):
either covered Cure songs or they they've sampled them. I
think that speaks to the Cures again, more populist appeal. Uh.
You know, they were a band that sold more records
in the Smiths. They had like bigger hits at least,
you know, certainly here in America. And I think they
continue to speak to outsiders, maybe even more than the
Smiths do. Also, you know, as we've reiterated time and
again in this episode, Robert Smith is just a more
(43:45):
likable person than Morrissey, you know, like I cheer for
him in a way that I don't for Morrissey. Yeah,
I agree. I mean, so much of what the Smith
seems so attached to their place and time, and maybe
some of that is because they're sort of directly tackling
social issues. If Morrissey's lears talked to being an awkward, angsty,
boring kid of a certain era and culture, I think
the Cure songs are what being an angsty team felt like,
(44:07):
you know, what those epic mood pieces like homesick, like
just the songs are just ecstatic highs, like just like Heaven,
and then these deep dark loads like that that three
minute opening part to Homesick with that like mournful piano part.
I mean the Cure masters of like the three minute
instrumental intro. I just want to say, like, oh, Disintegration
has that exactly, And I think that the Cure sound
(44:31):
is so much more unique than the Smith's. I kind
of feel about the Smiths the same way that I
do about Blur and sometimes even the Kinks. It's that
it's not for me, you know. I can appreciate it academically,
and the melodies are always gorgeous, but the lyrics again
seems so tied to a specific time, place and culture,
and obviously they can relate to the loneliness and alienation,
which is one of the reasons why Morrissey has such
(44:51):
a strong following in the Latin American community. His words
are obviously able to speak to more than just those
who grew up in you know, northern England in the
recession of the late seventies and the right wing Thatcher
era of the eighties. But there's something about you know,
Morrissey and his prime He had this chiseled, good looking face,
great haircut, pompadour, and he was sort of like the
(45:12):
idealized outsider that we all kind of wanted to be.
And Robert Smith, with this sort of scraggly hair and
his off putting, kind of bizarre makeup and kind of
hunt shoulders, he was almost more how I think he
seemed like one of us. He seemed like one of
the shy, awkward kids, you know. I think of uh
Chuck Closterman's famous essay about Billy Joel about how why
(45:33):
Billy Joel could never be cool because whenever he looks
at Billy Joel, he sees himself. I think that's how
I think about Robert Smith. You know, when I look
at him, I just relate to to him so much.
I just see myself in so many ways. And maybe
that's why he's my favorite of the two. So if
we look at these two bands together, look I like
both bands. I think most people like both bands, and
(45:53):
I like that they hate I don't think that this
rivalry actually impedes on anyone's enjoyment of the other band.
It's not like Oasis versus Blur, where people felt compelled
to take a side. You know, if you like one band,
you probably like the other. And I think the dislike
that they had actually enhances our love of the Smith's
and the Cure, because there's all this great fodder. You know,
(46:14):
they were slagging each other, and they did it in
a really funny, entertaining way. Yeah. I can't think of
any case where, you know, if any Smith's fans were
staunch anti Cure or vice versa, I don't really, I
can't really think of any examples of that really happening.
Like you said, the debate was all about which one
of the bands was better than the other, and Morrisey,
I think it was more of an iconic cultural force.
(46:34):
But I think the music of The Cure is going
to continue to endure and probably proved to be more
influential of the two bands. I'm gonna argue, but maybe
I'm just buy us and just I'm a former Cure kid. Well, Steve,
to die by your side as we pick apart rivalries
would be the most heavenly way to die. Would you say,
it's just like heaven? Yes, yes, I would. Well, now
(46:56):
that we got to punt out of the way, I
think it's time to bid everyone goodbye, so thank you
for listening to this episode of Rivals. We will be
back with more beefs and feuds and long simmering resentments
next week. Rivals is a production of I Heart Radio.
The executive producers are Shawn Tytone and Noel Brown. The
(47:16):
supervising producers are Taylor Chicogne and Tristan McNeil. The producer
is Joel hat Stat. I'm Jordan's run Talk. I'm Stephen Hyden.
If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave
us a review. For more podcast for my heart Radio,
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