The Sound of the Smiths by The Smiths, one of the more high profile bands from the early 1980s alternative/post punk music boom, is now available in MP3 format from Amazon this month for only $5. Browse all 100 albums on sale this month for only $5 each.

Hailing from Manchester, England during the tail end when a lot of bands of that style and verve from there were also getting noticed, The Smiths were and remain, one of the more shining lights from that era of alternative/power pop/post punk hybrid of noise that they gave full fruition.

Led by the bespectacled Morrissey, with his jet black Gene Vincent coiffed hair and who currently has a decidedly different career nowadays than the one with his former band, The Smiths supplied a forum for his whining, guttural vocals which was a perfect counterpoint to the great rhythm section and the stellar guitar work of Johnny Marr, who remains possibly one of the most underrated musicians of his or any generation. On The Sound of the Smiths, which is a compilation of songs from the band’s catalog, Morrissey waxes on and on about teenage angst and all its aches and pains in a collective sense, in an individual sense and in a global sense. The record is full of great tracks, no misses really at all, is a B grade really worse compared to an A? No, and the whole album is like that, good and great, when it comes to the tunes. Favorites like “This Charming Man,” “William It Was Really Nothing,” “How Soon Is Now,” and “Girlfriend In A Coma” intermingle with the tracks only known by more hardcore Smiths fans: “Panic,” “Shakespeare’s Sister,” and “Still Ill” among many, many others, sprinkled with some rare BBC sessions and singles, 23 tracks in all.

Track Listing

1. Hand In Glove
2. This Charming Man
3. What Difference Does It Make? [Peel Session - BBC]
4. Still Ill
5. Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now
6. William, It Was Really Nothing
7. How Soon Is Now?
8. Nowhere Fast
9. Shakespeare’s Sister
10. Barbarism Begins At Home [7" Version]
11. That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore
12. The Headmaster Ritual
13. The Boy With The Thorn In His Side
14. Bigmouth Strikes Again
15. There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
16. Panic
17. Ask
18. You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet, Baby
19. Shoplifters Of The World Unite
20. Sheila Take A Bow
21. Girlfriend In A Coma
22. I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish
23. Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me

Note – when you purchase MP3s through Amazon, it stores your purchases to Amazon’s Cloud Drive; from there you can stream the music right from their online player. Also, if you have a Kindle Fire, your MP3 purchases will automatically be available for you to stream on your device. All your purchases are backed up and available for you to download at any time. You can download the files to your computer to load to an MP3 device and to your iTunes account if you have one. If you’d like to gift these MP3 purchases, you can – just click the “Give album or song as gift” button on the right on the product page. From there you enter the recipient’s email address and then select either specific songs to gift or the entire album.