Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Blender
Chicago Tribune
Pitchfork Media	10/10
Q
Rolling Stone
The Rolling Stone Album Guide
Select	5/5
Uncut
The Village Voice	B+

The Queen Is Dead is the third studio album by English rock band the Smiths. It was released on 16 June 1986 in the United Kingdom by Rough Trade Records and released in the United States on 23 June 1986 through Sire Records.

The album spent twenty-two weeks on the UK Albums Chart, peaking at number two. Across the Atlantic, it reached number 28 in Canada on the RPM 100 album chart and number 70 on the Billboard 200 chart, and was certified Gold by the RIAA in late 1990. It has sold consistently well ever since and has received unanimous critical acclaim, with NME listing it as the greatest album of all time in 2013.

Guitarist Johnny Marr wrote several songs that would later appear on The Queen Is Dead while the Smiths toured Britain in early 1985, working out song arrangements with bassist Andy Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce during soundchecks. The title of the album is from the novel, "Last Exit to Brooklyn" by author Hubert Selby, Jr.. The title of the album could be a reference to the scene in Macbeth where Seyton informs the title character of his wife's murder ("The queen, my Lord, is dead"). The title could also refer to a scene in Cymbeline where Cornelius, the doctor, informs Cymbeline, the king, "The queen is dead."

"The Boy with the Thorn in His Side" was, according to Marr, "an effortless piece of music", and was written on tour in the spring of 1985. The song's lyrics refer allegorically to the band's experience of the music industry that failed to appreciate it. In 2003, Morrissey named this as his favourite Smiths song.

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Wikipedia