Logo
DiS Needs You: Save our site »
  • Logo_home2
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • In Photos
  • Blog
  • Podcast
  • Search
  • Community
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • Blog
  • Community

THIS SITE HAS BEEN ARCHIVED AND CLOSED.

Please join the conversation over on our new forums »

If you really want to read this, try using The Internet Archive.

The The

45 rpm : 1982-2002

Label: Epic Records Release Date: 13/05/2002

1797
mreed by Mark Reed May 13th, 2002

Here at DIS towers (actually a bunch of desks located all over the UK), we don?t necessarily care about what?s cool. We care about what?s good. And this is good. Even if parts of it are 20 years old. Though I?ve never actually heard a ?Best Of? that charts an artists progression quite so drastically in my life - from the drug-psychosis fed pop of 1982?s ?Uncertain Smile?, to this years dark, raw and bluesy ?Cried Out? - 45rpm manages to traverse almost every human emotion. Except optimism.

At the time this was groundbreaking stuff. 1986?s ?Infected? was the first concept album about AIDS, and was backed up with a full-blown film similar in grandeur and ego to Pink Floyd?s?The Wall? except it dispensed with anything as vulgar as a plot and went straight for imagery. The rampant, slightly leftfield music evolved from* The The* mainstay Matt Johnson?s bunker, shot through with social comment upon Thatcher?s Britain. Top Ten singles routinely dealt with war, disease, death, and the forthcoming apocalypse (?Armageddon Days Are Here Again?, released in 1989 predicted a Third World War fought between Islam and Capitalism ).The The always felt like an aberration: _how did this get into the shops?

_ Some of the production now of this is dreadfully dated - what was cutting edge in 1983 just doesn?t cut it anymore. But the raw songwriting underneath it cuts through the bullshit and speaks to the inner dialogue of near enough all people. Oddly enough, unlike most artists,* The The* started off big and political, and then slowly got smaller and more personal as time went on.

The big leap came in 1989 when The The were joined by Johnny Marr of The Smiths, James Eller, and David Palmer on drums. Instead of twenty-something paranoia, the album that spawned forth - the misunderstood ?Mind Bomb? - was a late night collision of God, War, and Love. It sounded like Jesus and Satan fighting in a back alley - and the successor,?Dusk? was an exposed,naked album of perverse love songs.

The last third of the album sees the newer model The The, a raw, bluesy set of hyper-literate, uncommercial modern blues songs, about as far removed from the first handful of songs as you can get, yet essentially exactly the same artist viewed from a different angle. It's music for dark rooms late at night.

The end of this collection sees* The The* in limbo, free of a major label deal, going alone as an independent, presumably into the world of diminishing sales and retrospectives, of which this is the first. A limited edition second CD comes with some copies, but this is largely unessential 12? mixes of tracks that exist in far superior versions on the first CD: worth getting for the completist, tedious repetition for anyone else.

If you?re thinking of spending money on a record this month, try to skip beyond the stuff HMV have on big shelves at the front of the store. Head for this and discover the closest thing Britain gave us to a voice for the 80?s.

  • 7
    Mark Reed's Score
Log-in to rate this record out of 10
Share on
   
Love DiS? Become a Patron of the site here »


LATEST


  • Why Music Journalism Matters in 2024


  • Drowned in Sound is back!


  • Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Year: 2020


  • Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter


  • Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing


  • Glastonbury 2019 preview playlist + ten alternative must sees



Left-arrow

Gemma Hayes

Hanging Around

Mobback
2092

The Vines at Camden Electric Ballroom, Camden, Thu 19 Feb

Mobforward
Right-arrow


LATEST

    news


    Why Music Journalism Matters in 2024

  • 106145
  • news


    Drowned in Sound is back!

  • 106143

    news


    Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Y...

  • 106141
  • news


    Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter

  • 106139

    Playlist


    Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing

  • 106138
  • Festival Preview


    Glastonbury 2019 preview playlist + ten alterna...

  • 106137

    Interview


    A Different Kind Of Weird: dEUS on The Ideal Crash

  • 106136
  • Festival Review


    Way Out East: DiS Does Sharpe Festival 2019

  • 106135
MORE


    news


    The Neptune Music Prize 2016 - Vote Now

  • 103918
  • Takeover


    The Winner Takes It All

  • 50972

    Takeover


    10 Things To Not Expect Your Record Producer To...

  • 93724
  • review


    The Mars Volta - Deloused In The Comatorium

  • 4317

    review


    Sonic Youth - Nurse

  • 6044
  • feature


    New Emo Goth Danger? My Chemical Romance confro...

  • 89578

    feature


    DiS meets Justice

  • 27270
  • news


    Our Independent music filled alternative to New...

  • 104374
MORE

Drowned in Sound
  • DROWNED IN SOUND
  • HOME
  • SITE MAP
  • NEWS
  • IN DEPTH
  • IN PHOTOS
  • RECORDS
  • RECOMMENDED RECORDS
  • ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
  • FESTIVAL COVERAGE
  • COMMUNITY
  • MUSIC FORUM
  • SOCIAL BOARD
  • REPORT ERRORS
  • CONTACT US
  • JOIN OUR MAILING LIST
  • FOLLOW DiS
  • GOOGLE+
  • FACEBOOK
  • TWITTER
  • SHUFFLER
  • TUMBLR
  • YOUTUBE
  • RSS FEED
  • RSS EMAIL SUBSCRIBE
  • MISC
  • TERM OF USE
  • PRIVACY
  • ADVERTISING
  • OUR WIKIPEDIA
© 2000-2025 DROWNED IN SOUND