Popular Culture Review Vol. 5, No. 1, February 1994 | Page 83
The Smiths
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appears as a psychic. In a similar vein, Morrissey and The Smiths
have glorified the most saccharine of '60s music artists through
collaborating with Sandi Shaw, known primarily for winning the
Eurovision Song Contest in 1965 for "Puppet on a String," and through
covering songs from Cilia Black, a singer from the same era with a
similar clean-cut image. The effect of glorifying these saccharine pop
singers would be similar to a contemporary American group p>aying
homage to Burt Bacharach or the Carpenters in their music and
lyrics.
Perhaps most startling, however, is the appropriation of actor
Richard Davalos, in his role as James Dean’s brother in East of Eden,
for the jacket of The Smiths’ final album Strangeways Here We
Come. Davalos as a choice for the cover seems defined almost
entirely by not being James Dean. The distinction is obvious, but most
significant. Choosing to privilege the forgotten Davalos over James
Dean illustrates a desire to glorify the subordinated, particularly
those figures whom the media briefly highlighted but subsequently
ignored. This tendency is clarified through examining the cover from
The Smiths’ self-titled album which features the naked torso of Joe
D’Allesandro in a still from Andy Warhol’s Flesh. Through
D’Allesandro, and other ’stars’ such as Candy Darling (also a Smiths
cover star), Edie Sedgwick, Viva, and Holly Woodlawn, Warhol
offered an inversion of the star system from classic Hollywood. With
a self-conscious appreciation for the artifice of Hollywood, Warhol’s
star system was based almost entirely on presenting the least
’admired’ individuals—transvestites and hustlers—as legitimate,
glamorous stars. In a parallel fashion. The Smi ths have constructed a
similar system of stars, all echoing from a similar era, all largely
forgotten by the media. Through focusing on the media-oriented icons
of the era. The Smiths seem interested in demystifying not Britain of
the ’60s, but rather the packaging and the media representation of
this era. In this respect also, their goal falls along very similar lines
to Warhol’s fascination with surfaces and commercial reproduction.
The adherence to reviving media icons, separating them from
their original context and then juxtaposing them without apparent
motive, could be interpreted as pastiche, a hallmark of
postmodernism. Indeed, critics have categorized The Smiths as post
modern artists; consider Andrew Goodwin’s evaluation, "Groups like
The Smiths, The Cure and New Order can thus be understood as a