Black, white and blue: the racial antagonism of The Smiths’ record sleeves

Black, white and blue: the racial antagonism of The Smiths’ record sleeves

ANDREW WARNES

"Abstract
As Matthew Bannister has recently suggested in these pages (see Popular Music, 25/1), The
Smiths stand at the head of a 1980s Indie canon based on its rejection of a commodification
associated with contemporary black US musics. This article argues that this racial understanding
has also bled into the band’s critical reception, encouraging many to assume that Morrissey and
Marr drew on exclusively white influences. Specifically, I argue that the white camp icons from
the 1950s and 1960s who famously adorn the band’s record sleeves together form a kind of
smokescreen, or ‘beard’, which stokes interest in Morrissey’s sexual predilections and orients it
away from his and Marr’s Black Atlantic sources. The pre-immigrant Britain summoned up by
these icons, I argue, helps prevent fans and critics alike from grasping that Morrissey’s lyrical
attempts to find humour and succour by remembering pain is profoundly inspired by the
African-American form of the Blues."

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Oudp1pUZ9pAwRpkE0Ri81qWLf9gTBKrD/view?usp=sharing