In what’s either a chilling demonstration of the predictive power of data mining or a totally obvious conclusion you didn’t have to pillage the social-media accounts of thousands of people to find out, Pitchfork reports on a 2015 study from Stanford University and Cambridge University’s Psychometrics Center that…

On August 4, 1958, Billboard put Ricky Nelson’s “Poor Little Fool” atop a brand-new chart it dubbed the Hot 100. Prior to that, the industry had relied on a shaky system that aggregated record store sales, radio DJ spins, and jukebox plays to measure a song’s popularity. The Hot 100 finally put all of those competing…

A complete Smiths reunion remains as unlikely as a bipartisan healthcare deal in the U.S., so the news that a partial gathering was in the works with three of the original members (though not the ones with the most name recognition) was mildly surprising. But that’s what the Manchester Evening News reported earlier…

Given Morrissey’s recent comments on the sexual assault allegations against Kevin Spacey and Harvey Weinstein, it’s starting to feel like the lead singer of The Smiths has always been a vacuous trash receptacle. But now, thanks to the serendipitous forces of the universe, we can see what it would be like for a literal…

Three staffers, three unabashed recommendations.

In the grand scheme of pop culture, Morrissey and The Smiths are undoubtedly influential, but still questionably household names at this point. That makes the appeal of England Is Mine a shaky proposition: It’s a biopic that ends before its subject’s life-changing work even really begins, so those without the…

Next to sex and death, there’s no more compelling subject for songwriters than the thing that happens in between those two endpoints on the cycle of life. Aging—and all the excitement, confusion, and existential dread that accompanies it—has long captivated the songwriter, whose work within a ruthlessly youth-focused…

A Smiths reunion grows less likely with each passing day and split from the European Union, but fans can take heart in the news that a new 7-inch from the band is on its way. This comes from True To You, which, as a Morrissey-approved fan site, is almost as good as getting the news from the Pope Of Mope himself,…

Johnny Marr’s autobiography Set The Boy Free opens in the summer of 1968, with a 4-year-old Marr staring at a little wooden guitar in a shop window. In a life defined by the guitar, there’s no more fitting place to start the story than with the moment Marr came to possess his first instrument, transfixed beyond…

Last week, Johnny Marr revealed in an excerpt from his upcoming memoir that a Smiths reunion was in the works as recently as 2008. It obviously never came to pass, which is kind of surprising given that the intentions were declared while Marr was having drinks with Morrissey—and we all know that plans made over pints…

The Smiths reunion that’s been haunting the minds of sad, dreamy teens for decades almost happened eight years ago. That’s per an excerpt from a forthcoming memoir by guitarist Johnny Marr, in which he discusses a time when, for “four days, it was a very real prospect.”

Permanent Records is an ongoing closer look at the records that matter most.

In Binge And Purge, The A.V. Club’s Josh Modell is going through his collection of 2,000 CDs, writing a bit about each artist, and then purging the unnecessary in the hopes of cutting that number in half by the end of 2016. Read the intro here.

It’s no secret that Chris Gethard is a huge fan of The Smiths. After all, he’s got Smiths lyrics tattooed on his arm, as well as the signature of the band’s singer, Morrissey. It’s why, when he came to Chicago to perform at our comedy festival, we figured we’d put that knowledge to the test. Facing off against two…

The disturbing use of atomic power to end World War II had folks in the following decades pretty shaken up, leading to the “duck and cover” bomb-shelter era of the 1950s and beyond. Ira and Charlie Louvin—an Alabama gospel duo that helped popularize “close harmony” vocals—captured that feeling on their 1962 album …

In Hear This, The A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week: Now that we’re a few weeks into our new year’s resolutions, we’re featuring songs about giving up.

This week’s question is from Senior Editor Marah Eakin:

In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week: some great songs with prominent literary references.

The problem with biopics is that people’s lives don’t easily reduce to 120 minutes of film. While it’s not impossible for a “cradle to grave” biopic to work, it’s exceedingly difficult. That’s why some successful biopics have focused on a smaller part of their subjects’ lives. The biopic Steve Jobs—released this…