Release
The Queen Is Dead finally emerged half a year later, in June 1986, and was previewed by the May single release of "Bigmouth Strikes Again", strictly speaking the only single taken from the album. Many encouraged the band to release "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" as a single, but Johnny Marr is said to have wanted an explosive, searing single, along the lines of The Rolling Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash", to announce that The Smiths had returned from hiatus. It did not fare as well as expected, stalling at number 26 on the British charts.
The album is popularly regarded as The Smiths' best album. Its mix of jangle pop, British Invasion, music hall, rockabilly and punk rock quickly became a British sensation and established The Smiths as one of the biggest bands of their era. Both Morrissey and Marr disagree, however, citing its 1987 successor (and unexpectedly final Smiths LP), Strangeways, Here We Come, as their peak.
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Famous quotes containing the word release:
“We read poetry because the poets, like ourselves, have been haunted by the inescapable tyranny of time and death; have suffered the pain of loss, and the more wearing, continuous pain of frustration and failure; and have had moods of unlooked-for release and peace. They have known and watched in themselves and others.”
—Elizabeth Drew (1887–1965)
“The steel decks rock with the lightning shock, and shake with the
great recoil,
And the sea grows red with the blood of the dead and reaches for his spoil—
But not till the foe has gone below or turns his prow and runs,
Shall the voice of peace bring sweet release to the men behind the
guns!”
—John Jerome Rooney (1866–1934)
“The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise man sees in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)