The best of kind of vinyl reissues are of albums that are tricky to come by. I’m always a little perplexed when things like Supertramp’s Breakfast in America or Steve Miller Band’s Greatest Hits get the deluxe reissue treatment, not because they’re poor albums (I quite like the former) but because their presence in the used market is all but ubiquitous. If you haven’t seen a second-hand copy of either, you’ve never been in a used record store.

On the other hand, this week’s release of all four Smiths studio albums is a godsend. In a perfect world, everyone would be able to find copies of The Queen is Dead in their dad’s record collection, because in this hypothetical perfect world everyone bought The Queen is Dead. Alas, that wasn’t the case, and it’s been a bit of a drag tracking their stuff down.

Rhino, the king of the reissue, has drawn the line at studio albums, so fans looking for Hatfull of Hollow or Louder than Bombs are going to have to continue cruising the used market. What we do have are the eponymous debut, Meat is Murder, The Queen is Dead and Strangeways Here We Come. If you only have the cash for one and you don’t know which one to get, the answer is all of them.

People tend to get hyperbolic in either their acclaim for or derision of the Smiths. As much as I like to sing their praises, I’ll attempt not to give into that and merely say The Smiths were an excellent rock n roll band. The availability of their material on vinyl is fantastic news.