Conventional wisdom has it The Queen Is Dead is The Smiths’ crowning glory, yet the band’s final LP provides an equally great, if not a greater, listening experience. Far from the sound of a band on their last legs, Strangeways… shows both The Smiths at their most robust — the muscular swing of “I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish,” “Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before” — and finds them stretching their musical wings. The magisterial sweep of “Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me” and “Death Of A Disco Dancer”’s thunderous coda pointing a way to a future that was sadly never to be.

– Chris Catchpole