Claude says:The Queen Is Dead is peak Smiths—that 1986 sweet spot where Morrissey's baroque melodrama met Johnny Marr's jangly, intricate guitar work, turning indie pop into something that felt urgent and desperate at once. You caught "Bigmouth Strikes Again" once in the summer of 2021 and apparently that was enough, though the whole album's got that rare quality where every track feels like it could be the one that hits different on a second listen.