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Johnny Marr is well known as one of the creators of the mythic group The Smiths, with the temperamental Morrissey. In that group, it’s notorious his talent, to create great riffs as in “There’s a light that never goes out”, in charge of the Mandolin in “Please, Please, please…” or in the case of “How Soon is Now”.
He was been collaborator of several groups as The Cribs and Modest Mouse among others. But he release his first album solo until 2013, with The Messenger.
It was strange listen the guitar riffs of the Smiths with another voice, but he does it pretty well. In Messenger there are several great songs as “Say Demesne”, “European Me” and “The Messenger”. But in the first solo album the feeling it was of a Johnny Marr testing carefully.
In contrast, in “Playland” there are more consistency, freedom, innovation and exploration of several new sounds and almost every song is interesting. Seems that in “The Messenger” there are songs created in several and different times, and in “Playland” seems the album created as a whole thing.
“Back in the Box”, “Easy Money”, “Dynamo” and “Candidate” are the more energetic songs of the album, representatives of the best part of the rock in last years. And the Marr’ voice sounds pretty good. There a lot of catchiness in his songs, inviting to jump and dance with them.
Following, there are songs evocative of the best sounds of The Smiths, as “The Tramp” and “This Tension”.
The return of a legend it’s not necessarily successful. There are a lot of examples of great artists which return to the scenarios and fail. But in this case, the musical quality and the innovation that he presents its notable.
In the middle, between the rock in his best part and the evocative songs of The Smiths, there are songs as “25 hours”, “Speak Out Reach”, “Boys Get Straight” and “Little King”.
Recently, he played “Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me” of The Smiths with The Last Shadow Puppets.
Finally, you can listen our favorites in this links:
Dynamo: https://open.spotify.com/track/57EwTZ0c6dooJlZuNacc4E
Candidate: https://open.spotify.com/track/7F48W6159zUwsMo6PloqZE
This Tension: https://open.spotify.com/track/7oY8WjgFMTvdzSkb5YPvgz
The Echo Music 