ALBUMS: Infected (1986); Soul Mining (1984)
MVC Ratings: Infected 3.5/$$$$$; Soul Mining 4.0/ $$$$$
I know it looks like a typo: ‘The the’, but that is the group’s name. I guess your could pronounce it Thee The or The Thee but I’m sticking with Thuh thuh.
This British techno group was the vehicle for Matt Johnson. Hanky Panky was a rock/techno treatment of Hank Williams covers. It is fun but not part of my countdown because I have it only as a CD. ‘Infected’ was an ambitious mess (and their best selling album). It featured heavy synth vibe and too many words. Soul Mining was the debut and still probably the best that I’ve heard. Top songs included ‘This is the Day,’ ‘Uncertain Smile and ‘Giant.’
Uncertain Smile has a piano solo by Jools Holland (of Squeeze fame) that is one of my all time favorite rock piano solos.
Johnson was fond of putting together quixotic lines and singing them over and over until different meanings surface. For example:
I tried so hard to be myself I was turning into somebody else — Out of the blue (Into the Fire on Infected).
How can any one know me if I don’t even know myself? — (Giant from Soul Mining.’
For me they were the classic band that when they were good they were excellent and when they were bad they were very bad. Johnson’s voice, for example, lived or died on his over-emotive delivery. Not everything you are singing, Matt, deserves the Jim Morrison treatment.