Despite the enormous impact they made on British indie, the Smiths’ lifespan as an active band (within the public consciousness, at least) barely made five years. From their self-titled 1984 debut up to their fourth and final record in 1987, Strangeways, Here We Come, the Smiths had managed to re-orient British rock. They established a poppier aesthetic driven in equal parts by melody and wit. Setting the foundations for Britpop in the decade that followed.
In Johnny Marr (then still, extraordinarily, a mere 23 years old) Britain had its own quintessential working class guitar hero. Marr’s intricate approach to the instrument served as a sonically lush riposte to the posed starkness of post-punk - and the increasingly bombastic excesses of American rock.
