Popular Culture Review Vol. 5, No. 1, February 1994 | Page 83

The Smiths 79 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