One easy way to make a Smiths fan is to give them The Queen is Dead. It's a pop masterpiece that works as a collection of singles as well as a unified album. There are plenty of Smiths singles collections out there, but in my view they seem somewhat "random" in their cohesiveness. Not so with The Queen is Dead; it's simply one of the greatest albums of all time.

I still remember listening intently to "Bigmouth Strikes Again" on the radio just before this album was released here in the States. This has some of the Smiths' most powerful songs on it - "I Know It's Over", where Morrissey admits defeat at the hands of love and fate, "The Queen Is Dead", where Marr shows why he's one of his generation's best guitarists, "Bigmouth...", where Morrissey's self-deprecating lyrics match Marr's driving chords perfectly, and of course the classic "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out", which has an unforgettable melody. This track is the favorite song of a lot of Smiths fans. "TQID" shows The Smiths at a turning point of sorts, leaving behind the jangly sound somewhat and mixing in a more glam-rock influence. "Some Girls Are Bigger..." is also an outstanding track. This album is already showing up at or near the top of a lot of 100 best albums' lists. It's not surprising, after just a couple of listens you'll see why. Also: notice the resemblance between the opening riffs on "Bigmouth..." with Heart's "Crazy On You"?

The Smiths really are the greatest pop band of all time. The Cure is my favourite band, but The Smiths are undeniably the best. I discovered "The Queen is Dead" when I was twenty (in 2000), and it served as my introduction to the band. I really was not a keen fan of the whole Brit-pop thing and thus had really glossed over this guys. I bought the album after 'Frankly, Mr. Shankly' made its way into repeat on my brain. My first response was disappointment with the rest of the album. Little by little different songs grew on me, and within two moths I was obsessed with the record. That summer I did not by another record for 4 months, and usually I buy about 20 records during the school break. Morrissey is the only singer whose words have the power to haunt me during a day. Right now 'The Queen...' is once again on constant repeat in my car. All the Smiths records are incredible and their abilitly to capture the hearts and minds of audiences really is unparalleled.

If you don't have this record and you loved early U2, New Order, Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen, Depeche Mode records, you need this in your collection. If you love the so-called 'indie-movement' of today and like bands like Death Cab for Cutie, Xiu Xiu, Interpol, Sufjan Stevens, you need this album. Actually you'll want this album. And I'm jealous of anyone who gets to fall in love with this album for the first time. But, then again falling in love with it all over again treats one pretty well too.

Definitely a gem in the Smiths anthology, The Queen is Dead is the album that launched the Smiths to international acclaim in contrast to the relegated cult following they enjoyed in Europe. As many fans of the Smiths, when I first became acquainted with the Smiths, I discovered a band that represented much more than an image or sound. As an alienated youth, Morrissey's whitty and heartfelt lyrics where ones that I readily clung to. Through the music of the Smith's I was able to conjure an image of what it was lke to be British. Perhaps to some residents of the U.K, gestures of national pride and cultural identity might appear to be vulgar or even jingoistic, but if there's anything lacking from music today, it would be the sense of urgeny and passion that a band like The Smiths conveyed to the world. Long live great music and Long live The Smiths.

I've only owned this album for a week, the first Smiths album I've ever listened to, and it has grabbed me with such force that I've become evangelical about it. It is a wonderful piece of music, matching superb tunes (catchy and exquisite at the same time) with hilarious and important lyrics.

I read in Q magazine that at the time of the Smiths in the 1980s someone said that, in twenty years time, they'd be compared to the Beatles. Well, here we are twenty years on, and they aren't. But while the Beatles have gone on to be pop music's Shakespeare - the unchallengable god, quoted and known everywhere - the Smiths are the Keats or Byron: that is, a highly respected and loved group, romantic and death-obsessed, with a smaller canon of work and with a greatness only a rank or two below the Untouchables on Mount Olympus. But you understand the Beatles comparison: a British foursome writing intelligent, socially observant but occasionally mockingly funny songs, in the Beatles traditional (also Queen and Syd Barrett come to mind: camp, surreal nonsense especially on Vicar in a Tutu and Frankly Mr Shankley). Like those other artists, though, they have the import to carry it off to a level away from campness and nursery rhyme-esque silliness - Frankly Mr Shankley, for instance, is a very funny song of unemployment and never-to-be-realised ambitions.

Don't have any qualms about buying this album - I can't imagine anyone who won't love it. The songs are basically pop or soft rock songs, but ratchetted up a notch or three by the lyrics, the style of singing, and the beauty with which the instruments are utilised. Almost every song opens with a pop tune you might expect to carry on for the next four minutes, but they aren't as simple as that: the tune always develops to go to a higher artistic plane, and that is their secret. Just the way Morrissey says a few things - "dressed in your muther's bridal veil", "the mentally ill", "handsome groom, give her room" - is enough to make me laugh or shiver with delight . . . he undulates his voice with a lyrical beauty that is unique. Certain lines stay with you as expressions of teenage worries about sexuality - "another climb into an empty bed, oh well, enough said" is surely every teenager's maxim.

On the social side, this album recorded in "England, Winter 1985" is a masterpiece of social discontent. This is what Thatcher was doing to the whole of Britain: "dear old Blighty" is mocked to high heaven by Morrissey's stark portrayal of a country in the grips of the "dole age", expressed through his almost apologetic republicanism ("her very Lowness with her head in a sling, I'm truly sorry but it sounds like a wonderful thing") and open-mindedness on a new morality (homosexuality, transvestism). Just like the Romantic poets they followed in so many ways, the Smiths' republicanism was brilliant and sadly doomed, but for those still living here it gives us pleasure and hope.

There's nothing more to say about this album - buy this and love it!