Johnny Marr Discography: 19 Releases in Order, and His Solo Albums Ranked

Johnny Marr Discography: 19 Releases Across Eight Acts, 1984 to 2026

The Johnny Marr discography on my map runs to nineteen releases across eight acts, from The Smiths in 1984 to The Age of Everything in 2026. I drew every one of them as a station on my Johnny Marr discography art print, with 125 credited musicians as named lines and only one line, his, calling at all nineteen.

Most of my maps follow a band. This one follows a guitarist through eight of them, so the lines around him change completely every few stations while his own runs straight through the middle.

The Johnny Marr Albums in Order, Grouped by Band

Nineteen releases, transcribed from my research sheet in the order its columns run. The sheet groups them by act rather than strictly by year, which is why Electronic's 1991 debut sits after The The's Dusk, and I have kept that order because it is the order the artwork was drawn in.

1. The Smiths, The Smiths (1984)
2. The Smiths, Meat Is Murder (1985)
3. The Smiths, The Queen Is Dead (1986)
4. The Smiths, Strangeways, Here We Come (1987)
5. The The, Mind Bomb (1989)
6. The The, Dusk (1992)
7. Electronic, Electronic (1991)
8. Electronic, Raise the Pressure (1996)
9. Electronic, Twisted Tenderness (1999)
10. 7 Worlds Collide, 7 Worlds Collide (2001)
11. Johnny Marr and The Healers, Boomslang (2003)
12. Modest Mouse, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank (2007)
13. 7 Worlds Collide, The Sun Came Out (2009)
14. The Cribs, Ignore the Ignorant (2009)
15. Johnny Marr, The Messenger (2013)
16. Johnny Marr, Playland (2014)
17. Johnny Marr, Call the Comet (2018)
18. Johnny Marr, Fever Dreams, Pts. 1-4 (2022)
19. Johnny Marr, The Age of Everything (2026)

One note on that list, because being straight about it matters more than a tidy sentence. The 2001 7 Worlds Collide was recorded live, so this map says releases rather than studio albums, which is a departure from the rest of my range.

Four Smiths Albums Carry 19 Names, One The The Album Carries 31

This is the figure that surprised me most when I built the sheet. The four Smiths records between them credit nineteen people: six on the 1984 debut, four on Meat Is Murder, four on The Queen Is Dead and five on Strangeways, Here We Come. A famously self-contained band, and the map draws it as four narrow stations with almost nothing branching off.

Then Marr joins The The and Mind Bomb in 1989 credits thirty-one. One album, more names than the entire Smiths catalogue. Dusk in 1992 credits twenty-four, with a horn section, a string orchestra, Neneh Cherry on one record and Sinead O'Connor on the other.

On the print it reads as a sudden thicket after four clean stations, and it is the single clearest piece of storytelling on the whole sheet. I checked the tally row against the grid column by column before trusting it, and the roster index leaves 125 names, matching the total at the head of the sheet.

Stephen Street, the Producer Who Earned a Line

A production credit on its own never puts anyone on one of my maps. The sleeve has to credit them playing something, and the Smiths run has the cleanest example. Stephen Street produced Strangeways, Here We Come in 1987, and my sheet credits him with bass guitar and guitar as well as songwriting and production.

So he gets a line, and it calls at exactly one station, the last Smiths record. Producers with no playing credit are nowhere on the print, which is why the map looks emptier than a full sleeve would suggest.

Three Electronic Albums, Two Pet Shop Boys and a Twelve-Year Thread

After The Smiths, his longest-running partner in a band of equals is Bernard Sumner, whose line calls at all three Electronic albums: Electronic (1991), Raise the Pressure (1996) and Twisted Tenderness (1999). The 1991 debut carries two famous branch lines. Neil Tennant sings on "The Patience of a Saint" and adds backing vocals to "Getting Away with It", and Chris Lowe plays keyboards on "The Patience of a Saint", which puts both Pet Shop Boys on one station and nowhere else.

Raise the Pressure adds Karl Bartos of Kraftwerk on keyboards, also a single station. Running quietly underneath is Denise Johnson, who sings on "Get the Message" in 1991, returns for Raise the Pressure, then appears once more on Boomslang in 2003. Three stations across twelve years and two projects, the kind of thread a list of albums cannot show you.

The Radiohead Lines That Vanish for Eight Years

The two 7 Worlds Collide records give the map its best gap-and-return story. On the 2001 release, Marr appears alongside Ed O'Brien and Phil Selway of Radiohead, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, Lisa Germano, Sebastian Steinberg, and Neil, Tim and Liam Finn.

Then those lines go silent. Eight years later, on The Sun Came Out in 2009, O'Brien, Selway, all three Finns, Germano and Steinberg come back, joined by Jeff Tweedy, John Stirratt, Pat Sansone and Glenn Kotche of Wilco, plus KT Tunstall and Bic Runga. At seventeen credits it is the second busiest station on the print, and Eddie Vedder does not return: his line calls at one station out of nineteen.

A Beatle's Son, Three Brothers, and Then His Own

Boomslang in 2003 has Zak Starkey, son of Ringo Starr, on drums, with Alonza Bevan of Kula Shaker on bass. Four years later Marr joins Modest Mouse on We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, where James Mercer of The Shins branches in with backing vocals on three tracks.

Then Ignore the Ignorant with The Cribs in 2009, which at four credited names is the sparsest station on the whole print: Marr and the three Jarman brothers, Gary, Ross and Ryan, and nobody else.

The solo records do something the earlier ones never do, which is settle. James Doviak and Jack Mitchell are credited on every solo station, Iwan Gronow from Playland onwards, and the map finally shows a stable group around him after twenty-five years of changing company. Two of those steady lines are family: Nile Marr and Sonnie Marr, his children.

Johnny Marr's Solo Albums Ranked

Marr has now made five solo albums under his own name. Here is how I rank the first four, with the fifth too new to place yet.

Rank	Album	Year	Notable tracks	UK chart peak
1	The Messenger	2013	"Upstarts", "New Town Velocity"	No. 10
2	Call the Comet	2018	"Hi Hello", "Walk Into the Sea"	No. 7
3	Playland	2014	"Easy Money", "Dynamo"	No. 9
4	Fever Dreams Pts 1-4	2022	"Spirit, Power and Soul", "Night and Day"	No. 4

The Messenger stays at the top for me because it sounds like a man deciding, at last, to be the frontman. Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 sits fourth on my list but is his highest-charting solo record, at No. 4.

The Age of Everything, the newest station

The fifth, The Age of Everything, came out on 2 October 2026 on BMG, recorded in Manchester. It carries six credited names, and every one of them was already on the map: Marr, James Doviak, Jack Mitchell, Iwan Gronow, Meredith Sheldon and Nile Marr.

So nobody new branches in. The one-off guests on Fever Dreams, such as Simone Marie Butler of Primal Scream, stop where they were, and Doviak and Mitchell now run through all five solo stations, the longest lines on the map after Marr's own and one station longer than Morrissey, Rourke and Joyce.

Film Scores and Sessions, Off the Map

Some of Marr's best-known work never reaches a station. With Hans Zimmer he played on The Amazing Spider-Man 2 score alongside Pharrell Williams, and on the music for the Bond film No Time to Die, sung by Billie Eilish.

Those are soundtrack and session credits rather than releases by an act he belonged to, so they sit in the story and not on the print.

The Guests Who Call at One Station

Guest	Known for	Their one release with Marr
Paul Carrack	Mike and the Mechanics	The Smiths (1984)
Stephen Street	Producer, credited on bass and guitar	Strangeways, Here We Come (1987)
Neneh Cherry	Raw Like Sushi	Mind Bomb (1989)
Sinead O'Connor	I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got	Dusk (1992)
Neil Tennant	Pet Shop Boys	Electronic (1991)
Chris Lowe	Pet Shop Boys	Electronic (1991)
Karl Bartos	Kraftwerk	Raise the Pressure (1996)
Eddie Vedder	Pearl Jam	7 Worlds Collide (2001)
Zak Starkey	The Who, son of Ringo Starr	Boomslang (2003)
James Mercer	The Shins	We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank (2007)
Jeff Tweedy	Wilco	The Sun Came Out (2009)
Simone Marie Butler	Primal Scream	Fever Dreams, Pts. 1-4 (2022)

"Brilliant idea."

Billy Bragg

Sizes and Paper

It is a landscape print, in A3 (420 x 297 mm), A2 (594 x 420 mm) and A1 (841 x 594 mm), plus separate 16 x 12 in, 24 x 18 in and 36 x 24 in formats. Every size is supplied unframed or ready to hang in a black wood frame.

A3 is enough to read the overall shape, four narrow Smiths stations and then the sudden width of Mind Bomb. A1 is the size at which the thirty-one names on Mind Bomb separate out into readable lines. Every print is a Giclée on 230gsm acid-free matte fine art paper, with the detail on the print and frame specification page.

Related Music Maps

The natural companion is my Morrissey discography art print, the other half of the Smiths partnership, and my guide to Morrissey albums in order covers the eighteen records on that side. For the band Marr joined in 1989 there is the The The discography art print, and Bernard Sumner's other life is charted on the New Order discography art print. The full range sits in my discography music maps collection.

Johnny Marr Discography Questions, Answered

How many albums has Johnny Marr played on?

Nineteen releases are stations on this map, from The Smiths in 1984 to The Age of Everything in 2026. His is the only line that calls at every one of them.

What is Johnny Marr's latest album?

The Age of Everything, his fifth solo album, released on 2 October 2026. It is the last station on the map, with Doviak, Mitchell, Gronow, Sheldon and Nile Marr all running into it.

What is the best Johnny Marr solo album?

My pick is The Messenger (2013), his first solo album. His highest-charting is Fever Dreams Pts 1-4, which reached No. 4 in the UK.

What bands was Johnny Marr in?

Eight acts appear on the map: The Smiths, The The, Electronic, 7 Worlds Collide, Johnny Marr and The Healers, Modest Mouse, The Cribs, and his own solo albums.

Which release has the most credited musicians?

Mind Bomb in 1989, with thirty-one, more than the four Smiths albums put together. The sparsest is Ignore the Ignorant in 2009, with four.

What is not on the map?

Compilations, singles, soundtracks and session work outside these eight acts, plus anything released after the artwork was drawn. The one live record on it is the 2001 7 Worlds Collide, kept as half of that project's pair.