I got this a decade and a half after the rest of my Smiths collection, just for the fiver-from-Fopp convenience of having ready access to a bunch of tracks that I either had on 7" vinyl (Panic, That Joke Isn't Funny Any More), tape (Bigmouth…, There is a Light…) or not at all (Ask, London). That it reminds me how good Half a Person is, and introduces me to Asleep, which I can't remember hearing before (and is great), is a bonus.
Sigh, it's galling to realise that all these songs were recorded in just 21 months in 1985 and 1986. At the time it felt like The Smiths career extended throughout my adulthood — and this was more or less literally true, since their first single came out just before I was old enough to vote — but in hindsight it seems it was just a blink of an eye.
MusicBrainz entry for this album
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