Fans of The Smiths’ underrated final album, ‘Strangeways, Here We Come,’ are abuzz about a rough demo of ‘Paint a Vulgar Picture’ that recently hit the web. The track features slightly different lyrics, and in a different order, than the 1987 album version.

Spin magazine recently dropped a goldmine into Google Books: scans of nearly every issue of the music mag, from its May 1985 debut up through October 2009. We’ve flipped through the ’85 to ’90 issues, creating links to stories about The Cure, R.E.M., The Replacements, Morrissey, New Order and many, many more.

Despite proclaiming Swords a ‘meek disaster’ last December, Morrissey has gone ahead and made a music video to promote one of the (best) tracks off his late-2009 b-sides album: ‘Ganglord,’ the flip side to 2006’s ‘The Youngest Was the Most Loved.’

The Smiths’ classic second album, ‘Meat is Murder,’ was released Feb. 14, 1985 — exactly 25 years ago today. To mark the occasion, we’ve assembled live video of nearly every track on the album (“Well I Wonder” being the missing link).

The editor of Smiths Indeed — the classic fanzine published from 1986 to 1989 and sold at The Smiths’ ‘The Queen Is Dead’ shows in the UK — is reprinting the full set of 12 issues in a limited-edition run for the second time.

Esteemed UK publishing house Faber & Faber has posted “An Open Letter to Morrissey” on its blog, imploring the former Smiths singer to not only complete his long-discussed autobiography but let the company publish it — noting that, “History demands it; destiny commands it.”

Tweet A previously unheard alternate take of The Smiths’ 1984 B-side “Girl Afraid” has surfaced on a just-discovered Rough Trade Records reference cassette of the […]