Louder Than Bombs - About The Album

About The Album

The album was released as the American counterpart to their recent British compilation The World Won't Listen and consisted of all singles and nearly all B-sides that had not at that point been available in the States, either on single or album, with a few other tracks added. The title is borrowed from a line in Elizabeth Smart's extended prose poem "By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept".

The album was intended to substitute for both The World Won't Listen and their 1984 compilation Hatful of Hollow as these had not been released in the United States. This is why the non-single track "This Night Has Opened My Eyes" from Hatful of Hollow was included. (Single A-sides "This Charming Man" and "How Soon Is Now?" had already been released in the U.S. as bonus cuts on the LPs The Smiths and Meat Is Murder, respectively.)

As with The World Won't Listen, this compilation includes the scrapped single "You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby" (passed over in favour of "Shoplifters of the World Unite"), albeit in a different mix.

Because the album offered many B-sides (and the "Sheila Take a Bow" single) that had never been collected onto an album before, Louder Than Bombs became very popular on import with fans in the UK. To avoid high import prices being paid, The Smiths' domestic record company, Rough Trade, decided to release the compilation as well, provoking cries of outrage by fans who only two months previously had shelled out for the slimmer UK counterpart. The blow was somewhat softened by the fact that the double album retailed at single album price.

After WEA acquired the Smiths back catalogue in 1992, all Smiths albums were re-released at mid price, including Louder Than Bombs.