The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead

Last week at work, a co-worker of mine unloaded her entire record collection on me.  She was a teenager in the 80's and was into punk, new wave, and ska.  We were talking about music last week, more specifically, we were talking about if she ever collected records.  She told me that she was never a serious collector, but still had quite a few records at her house.  She then went on to tell me that she no longer had any use for them (no turntable, taking up space, etc)  and that if I wanted them, they were mine.  Score!  Nothing beats free records.  All in all there were about 50 records that she brought in, and I ended up keeping 25 or so of them.  The next few posts will be on the records that I think the readers of this blog will enjoy, or at least appreciate their place. 

I first started listening to The Smiths after reading a book called "Hairstyles Of The Damned" by Joe Meno.  Basically it's a coming of age story about a young kid growing up in Chicago and him discovering punk rock.  Very relate able to me.  Anyways, some of the kids in the story are into The Smiths, and me never having heard The Smiths at that point decided to check them out.  I'm glad that I did because they went on to become one of my favorite bands.  Although it took me awhile to really get into them, but aren't some of out favorites like that? 

"The Queen Is Dead" is The Smiths 3rd studio album and is probably my favorite of their studio releases, as it is also re guarded by other fans.  If you've never listened to The Smiths before, I would recommend you start here, or with the "Louder Than Bombs" compilation album. 

I've never had this album on vinyl until now, so, I was pretty psyched to get this. 

I attempted to search out pressing info, but was unsuccessful.  I'm pretty sure it's the first press, released by Rough Trade records.  If anyone knows the pressing info on this, let me know.