Comments for The Smiths, Hatful Of Hollow

An oldie, but DEFINITELY a must have! "So shut your mouth, how can you say I go about things the wrong way? / I am human and i need to be loved / just like everybody else does " *sigh*

just one of those so few albums in which you could listen straight through it. and i purchased mine for 3.99 on cassette in a budget bin! it was a good day.

I found the UK record version of this album at a music shop in Berkeley, CA, and took it home to my turntable, where it's received quite a few spins! Yes, you can listen to it all the way through and enjoy all of the songs. Has one of my favorite songs of all, "How Soon is Now". Definitely a worthwhile purchase!

Have it on vinyl. Have it on cassette. Paid three times the average price of a CD for it on CD import - when it first came out on CD. The best bargain I ever got. Frankly the best album ever!

For their second release, The Smiths made an odd choice in compiling various new, single, and BBC tracks on a double LP (now on one CD). The final product is amazing, with BBC versions of some of the best debut tracks mixed in with other material that showed in just a few months they had grown beyond brilliant into the band that may be the single greatest group of the 1980''s. It''s also important to note that this is the place for UKers to get "How Soon Is Now", one of the best tracks they ever recorded.

This album collects the recordings to John Peel and David Jensen`s shows on BBC Radio 1, in Jul. & Sep. 1983. I think it is the best collection of songs ever recorded by The Smiths. Here we can find all the essentials (What Difference Does It Make?, This Charming Man, Reel Around The Fountain...).

The essential Smiths album isn't The Queen Is Dead as you may have have been led to believe by some of these top album polls conducted over the years by the likes of Q magazine(after all its got a couple of real black sheep in Never Had No One Ever and Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others,let alone Vicar In A Tutu!),and in fairness it isn't even the 2nd best Smiths album(Strangeways,Here We Come), but the ESSENTIAL Smiths album is definitely Hatful Of Hollow,that is if you can call it a proper album!Released in late'84 it is a collection of a,b-sides and sessions meant to retail at no more than £3.99 a the time.Bargain! Despite the low-budget feel to the whole package,for me it captures the real energy of the Smiths that their debut album lost in the production.Not a duff track out of the 16 on offer here,it still remains my favourite album ever,by anybody. steve rynne,october 2005