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Underground > Radio & Music >

The The

  
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
19:38 / 25.11.04
It has come to my attention that there are people in the world... on Barbelith, no less... who really don't like The The at all.

I fail to understand why.

Therefore, I have started this thread so I, and hopefully many others, can explain what is so great about the boy Johnson. And, possibly, if we're nice, so people can say what they don't like about him.


Seriously, of all the bands I've ever described as being "my favourite band ever", The The have popped up more often than most.

"Infected" is, to me, still the BEST album of the eighties. It's catchy as fuck, it's sweet, it's ugly, it's passionate... it's industrial pop, if I may be so bold. (Indeed, Foetus played guitar for the early live line-up.
And "Heartland" is one of the all-time best singles ever.

"Soulmining", its predecessor, was on a par with, if not slightly above, the Smiths as the soundtrack to my self-conscious teenaged misery. Musically far more inventive than ANY of your eighties indie gods, it can still make me cry to this day. When it's not making me dance.

Prior to that (I've just realised I'm going backwards... don't worry, I'll hop forwards again in a bit... I think it's just the order I first heard them in) "Burning Blue Soul", recorded under the name Matt Johnson, kind of forced John Lennon and Brian Eno into a lift together. Then shot them between floors. A truly wonderful album.

Okay. Forwards again. "Mindbomb". A bit of a missed opportunity, I'll admit... Johnny Marr could have been used so much better, but with tracks like "The Beat(en) Generation" and "Armageddon Days Are Here (Again)" I'll forgive it a lot.

"Dusk", though I was incredibly disappointed on first hearing has, over the years, become possibly my favourite The The album. It's mournful, it's smoky... yet it's optimistic. Yes, the "hand that wrote 'the agony has just begun'", the same "hand that 'pulls the trigger of this gun'" is now penning "Love is Stronger than Death", one of my favourite mournfully feel-good songs ever.

"Hanky Panky"- Hank Williams covers. Personally, I love it. Although that all depends on whethre you like The The or Hank to start with.

Hmm. "NakedSelf" is still growing on me, a good three or so years after release. MJ's turned his hand to RAWK!!!, and on Reznor's Nothing label, has proved pretty proficient at it. I'm not sure it's the best medium for his songs, though. However, it is glorious in parts, and never actually shit. "Don't feel sad/When people that you loved stab you in the back"... bits still give me goosebumps. Tracks like "Voidy Numbness", fun though they are, seem to be playing to the gallery; making fun sounds and throwing out sentiments we want. I dunno.

Jesus. This was actually supposed to just read "I like The The. Does anyone else?" But I got carried away.

So, let's start again.

I like The The.

Does anyone else?
 
 
doglikesparky
21:22 / 25.11.04
I'm with you Stoatie. I've got Soul Mining, Infected, Dusk and The Naked Self and regularly listen to them all.

I think Dusk is one of the finest albums ever, it's so seedy and sexy. I can't remember exactly who and where but someone recently noted in another thread that they found it difficult to find something to say other than "It rocks" about things they really liked. It's easy to find the words to comment on why something is no good but when you love it, that's all you can think to say. I feel much the same about Dusk.

The Naked Self was actually my introduction to The The and it's still one of my favourite albums now. There's just something about the sounds and style that, for me anyway, make it very difficult to mentally slot it into a given time period. Soul Mining and Infected, I immediately associate with the 80's because of their sound. Dusk sounds like it was recorded in the early 90's but The Naked Self seems a little more timeless.
Obviously, it was recorded much more recently and perhaps, 5 or 10 years from now I'll look back and say oh yeah, that's so 2000 but for now, it could have been recorded anytime. Just my take on things though, I've mentioned this to friends before and they have no idea what I'm on about.

Short version : I like The The.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
22:18 / 25.11.04
I've been listening to Naked Self a lot recently, oddly enough - All the material to do with capitalism being a form of psychic rape is pretty clearly compromised, for all the reasons mentioned above, but there's something, I don't know, a bit bracing about Matt Johnson's general contempt for modern society - Presumably, he has to go to the shops every now and again, like everyone else does, so I quite like the idea of him standing in line at the queue at Tesco's, quietly seething, speculating on the horrors that the girl on the cash desk is unwittingly part of, as he hands over £1.50 for a can of Kitekat, or whatever. And I'M NOT SURE HE'D BE WRONG.

I love Matt Johnson - the interviews he did around about the time Infected came out, when he was on about psychic encounters he'd had with lobsters in restaurants in downtown New York... probably made me the man I am today

And I just like his laziness, generally. After Burning Blue Soul came out, he had the world at his feet, and that was doubly true when he put out Soul Mining, quadruply so when Infected hit the shelves, and then after that, perhaps not, but he seems to have got by well enough anyway.

He should've collaborated more with Jim Thirwell and The Swans, but there you go, nobody's perfect.
























I was going to say I prefer Burning Blue Soul
 
 
Lord Morgue
06:28 / 26.11.04
Remember Slow Train To Dawn, with Nineh Cherry? When she's tied to the tracks and he's roaring along in this behemoth of an old steam engine, sparks flying against the dusk, into the tunnel, and when he gets there it's this little toy train and she looks so disappointed...
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
08:04 / 26.11.04
All the videos on Infected (mostly directed either by Tim Pop or Slezy from Throbbing Gristle) are truly inspired- Heartland in particular is fucking gorgeous.
 
 
Ariadne
09:52 / 27.11.04
Ooh, I haven't listened to The The in ages! Thanks for reminding me. I used to borrow Soul Mining from the library when I was about 14 and keep it for ages and ages. I must get hold of it again.
I recently bought the Cocteau Twins, Treasure, and listened to it with a mixed sense of nostalgia and relief that I'm so far from the teenage angst of those days.
 
 
unheimlich manoeuvre
14:21 / 27.11.04
i love The The. it was what i listened to most as a teenager and seemed to mean so much more than the Smiths or the Cure. I recently posted "Bluer Than Midnight", my favourite, in The Lyrics O Yr Life! and just noticed Stoatie has with "Love Is Stronger Than Death."
Both songs are from Dusk a grand, moody album.
 
  
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