The Smiths and Morrissey... Sadness, melancholy, despair, ethics and veganism. The music from these two bands has meant many things to many people. They have been called the most influential band of the last 50 years, and many will agree that at least since the 80s, there is a lot of truth to this statement.

I, like many Smiths fans, pray for the day Johnny Marr and Morrissey will decide to put aside their differences, and get the Smiths together one last time .Unlikely, but a man can dream. However, since The Smiths split up in 1987, Morrissey's solo work has continued in largely the same vein as The Smiths.

But if you're like me, you may have felt that something was missing in Morrissey's solo work. But what is it?

Analyzing Music

Below is a summary of the the two bands work. I excluded deluxe editions, remasters, live, compilation, demos, and "duplicate albums (of which there are a ton). Also, Morrissey is one of the few artists I have encountered without their full collection on Spotify. While I can get information on "You Are The Quarry," I can't listen to all the songs.

The first 4 albums were released by the Smiths and the rest are Morrissey's solo work.

We can see that these metrics have steady relatively consistent, possibly hitting a max of minor key sadness in the early 90s. He has continued to use diverse keys and refrained from cursing.

Song Characteristics

Many things are very hard to quantify in music, but Spotify does its best. They provide the additional detail by track:

• Danceability
• Energy
• Liveness
• Loudness
• Valence (Think sadness, lower the score, the sadder the song)
• Speechiness
• Acousticness
• Tempo

*Spotify does have more, but this is wear I will focus most my analysis. For more information on these metrics please see the Spotify page.

On the below graphs, each point is an album, with the horizontal position reflecting when the album was released. It looks like Morrissey has only gotten sadder over time but otherwise is all over the place.

Interesting... It seems The Smiths were a bit happier and more danceable. Wait, The Smiths are happier? Let's dig into this a bit more

Sadness and Danceability

Looking at the data, the Smiths' average a danceability of .49 to Morrisey's .47, a narrow victory. When it comes to sadness, the Smiths' .65 average makes them look like a rainbow of sunshine compared to Morrissey's .50. Let's investigate further with a simple scatter plot:

I think this shows an important point on the subjectivity of music. "Girlfriend in a Coma" scoring high on the happiness scale shows one of the things that make The Smiths great, the morose lyrics are often complimented by upbeat music. Morrissey had the rest of The Smiths balancing out his depressing lyrics with a happy song, creating an exquisite mix of sounds.

Moving to the opposite corner of the graph, I'm not too surprised "Dear God" and "Last Night I Dreamt Somebody Loved Me" came in as the saddest songs. I am surprised there aren't more songs near "Treat Me Like a Human Being." Perhaps the Smiths sadness is something computer algorithms still have to learn to detect.

It is also worth noting the diversity of the songs. I have not scaled these points in anyway. Morrisey and the Smiths show great range in their music.

Final Thoughts The Smiths and Morrissey

Morrissey's work is extensive. His work reflects the age and is meant to make a statement and make you think. However, some of that music reflects the time and place. I've often found it hard to get into older artists because the back catalogue can be intimidating. I was able to get into The Smiths because I met them at the right time in my life and their catalogue is only 4 albums packed full of gems. This has lead them to age incredibly well and remain accessible and meaningful to all generations.