The box's liner notes state that "each album has been taken back to original tape sources and remastered by master-engineer Frank Arkwright, assisted by Johnny Marr at the Metropolis Studios in London". The discs in the CD version are presented in miniature vinyl replica sleeves, including the restored The World Won't Listen artwork. The project was managed by Gary Lancaster, who also worked on Total: From Joy Division to New Order and several other Warner Music Group releases.
Of the reissued albums, which were also released separately on both CD and vinyl, Marr said, "I'm very happy that the remastered versions of The Smiths albums are finally coming out. I wanted to get them sounding right and remove any processing so that they now sound as they did when they were originally made. I'm pleased with the results."[8]
Cover art
The cover art features four unknown women at a fairground taken by German photographer Jurgen Vollmer in the early 1960s. Morrisey chose this picture because he felt the girls looked like the band members themselves.[9]
Song omissions
Despite its name, this remastered compilation is not truly a complete source of Smiths recordings, as several officially released songs are missing on both the standard CDs and LPs. This includes:
The "deluxe version" of the box set contains several of these tracks as part of the 7-inch vinyl set, but is still missing several studio and live tracks.[citation needed]