A Light That Never Goes Out

They were, their fans believe, the best band in the world. Critics and sales figures told a similar story: every one of their seven albums between 1984 and 1988 made number one or number two in the UK charts. Twenty-five years after their break-up, the band remain as adored and discussed as ever. To this day, there is a collective understanding that The Smiths were one of the greatest of all British bands.

The Smiths - Morrissey, Johnny Marr, Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce - were four working-class youths who came together, by fate and chance, in Manchester in the early 1980s. Their sound was both traditional and radically different, a music that spoke to a generation, and defied the dark social-economic mood of the Thatcher years. By early 1984, barely a year after their first headlining gig, they were the hottest name in modern music. In the years that followed the group produced an extraordinary body of work: seventeen classic singles, four studio albums, and over sixty unique songs. Yet for all their brilliance The Smiths were continually plagued by their own reticence to play the game, and by the time of 1987's Strangeways Here We Come, they had split. The Smiths would never play together again - their enormous contribution to pop culture forever condensed into a prolific and prosperous halcyon period, their legacy intact and untarnished.

Now, on the thirtieth anniversary of their formation, their firmament remains bright. Their light has never gone out. It's time their tale was told. A Light That Never Goes Out is a meticulous and evocative group biography - part celebration, part paean - telling the complete story of The Smiths for the very first time. The product of extensive research, hundreds of interviews and a lifetime's obsession, it will serve to confirm The Smiths as one of the greatest, most important and influential rock groups of all time.