In Praise of.....Mind Bomb by The The

Mind Bomb is my least favorite of all the albums i have by The The but it does have a few songs i completely love. I am a bit disappointed by Marr's work on Mind Bomb though. Could be that i wanted some Smiths type jangle and got Ecstatic Noise instead.

45RPM is a fantastic compilation though. Nicely done

Impossible to search for The The (or there's no dedicated thread), so here goes:

http://www.thethe.com/

NEW STUFF

Abbottvision!

This is the worst The The album btw :(

I mean it is still really good!

"Good Morning, Beautiful" is an amazing song.

I still stand behind everything I said upthread re: "The Violence of Truth", though.

I've been listening to this album for the first time in years and "Good Morning, Beautiful" (the first The The song I heard) is still as stark, evocative, bombastic and fantastic as it was in 1987.

That and August & September were the two main standouts for me. I'll need to listen to the whole thing again.

But the goddamn three albums either side of it are just...amazing. (The two after, sans Hank Williams cover record, not two before)

lol ok GMB is massive

"The Violence of Truth" is beyond wretched, though.

I can't actually recall that song to mind at all. Probably don't want to. Album takes an age to pick up again after its opening salvo. Actually, I remember "Kingdom Of Rain" not being all that bad. Maybe I'll stick it on.

It is the next good song on the album, yes.

haha and now I'm about to drop a rongbomb but hey who gives...

NakedSelf = awesome example of an artist releasing their best record over 20 years after they began. I'm not even joking. By a nose from Infected and Dusk.

In fact, "ShrunkenMan" is one of the 10 best songs of the decade. Flat-out.

I have NakedSelf with me, as well; I remember liking it but still thinking Infected was still the best album, mostly because of "Sweet Bird of Truth" and the awesome horns that were later sampled for a remix of Queen Latifah's "Dance For Me".

"Sweet Bird of Truth"

This was one of the most influential songs on my developing teenage music consciousness.

"Out Of The Blue (Into The Fire)" was even more so.

Those two tracks do nothing short of fry minds and kick asses.

http://www.last.fm/music/The+The/_/Sweet+Bird+of+Truth
http://www.rhapsody.com/queen-latifah/all-hail-the-queen (track 13)

I heard (and loved) the Latifah track first, so imagine the boggling when I heard Infected approx. 18 months later...

haha "The Beat(en) Generation" is also kind of a dick.

Basically I am wondering why I listened to this album so much when I was 14.

A single 60-minute disc of The The's greatest songs would be peerless. I'm only putting the first two I mentioned from this album in it.

And nothing pre-Infected because I haven't heard anything from that period that's done much for me.

expect to hear the great man return later this year
- though not in the way you'd possibly expect/want.

i was once in a pub beer garden taking it easy when i saw matt heading towards the bar.
my head raced with the idea i should go and say hello, but my shaking knees said not too given he doesn't come across as the most approachable person.
needless to say when my nerves were beaten into submission, the man had gone.

Jesus, that was hard.

1) GMB
2) ShrunkenMan
3) OOTB(ITF)
4) Dogs Of Lust
5) DecemberSunlight
6) Sweet Bird Of Truth
7) Slow Emotion Replay
8) August & September
9) VoidyNumbness
10) Lonely Planet

trimming it down to 10, or making it up to 10 ?

lol the former obv

Actually, there's an argument which states that BoilingPoint >> GMB, but I'm not making it here and now.

(ps: I agree that Nakedself is much, much better than Mind Bomb, even if no single song is as great as "Good Morning, Beautiful".)

guess which song is fitting my mood perfectly tonight

and its brother....lust....

my feelings towards matt johnson have been somewhat changed by the sequence of events described in the luke haines book.

Um, what sequence of events?

Haven’t read the book, but presumably the Johnson-kicking-the-Auteurs-off-a-support-slot and them calling each other grumpy pricks in the press kerfuffle that Haines milked for press back in 1993.

i saw that tour.
the auteurs were fucking boring.
(and in recent times i have said as much to the cellist ..)

the "niggers of the world line" I'm sure is a Lennon reference, but mainly (as Alex says) an accusation that rich westerners contributing to charity for brown people far away (or rich western rockstars organising charity?) view the objects of their largesse with patronising or contemptuous eyes.
This is the _Heart Of Darkness_ argument all over again.

When you add "What makes us ashamed to be white?" to "niggers of the world", you do not get criticism of how the white people treat said brown people like niggers; you get criticism of how the white people aren't treating the niggers the way they should be treated. The patronizing contempt is inherent in the criticism and not at all addressed by the song.

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, November 30, 2004 2:52 PM (7 years ago)

since our recent chat on the other thread re this point DJP it has been playing on my mind.
i too have always been uncomfortable re this lyric, and have no recollection if matt has ever been asked and responded to the use of the word.
so, via a connection, i have forwarded this point to see if he will answer, and se the record straight.

i suspect an all too typical wall of silence, but still, you never know ..

goddamn this album takes a dive after that first track

but what a first track!

My elder brother had this on tape so I used to listen to it. I cant remeber if I ever really liked it or not (I have a feeling I didnt) but 14 year old me thought that Jesus-CIA line was like so deep man.

I love his earnest philosophical wrangling.

Anyway, the music and playing is so great across the board on the The The records that I can handle the lyrical stumbles.

Pretty nice write-up here: http://thequietus.com/articles/16952-the-the-mind-bomb-anniversary-review

When it came out, it certainly felt like a bit of a let-down compared to the previous two albums but it has certainly aged nicely what with the prophetic aspects and Johnny Marr's fantastic guitar.

I miss Matt.

I feel Matt peaked with the first version of "Uncertain Smile", so my fave album of his is Burning Blue Soul. I quite like "Gravitate To Me" though.

xpost Wow, what an overheated, overwritten piece. Well-suited to the album, I suppose, which like most of his stuff is so musically sharp and on-point it offsets the OTT insanity of the vocals.

I've never heard this album, should I bother?

Opening track in search of an album. Rescreen Infected or straight to Dusk imo

I don't get how one could dismiss the bulk of this so easily. I like Infected, and Dusk is my favorite, but most of this album is great.

Also, I know I've said it before, but this era of this band was so great live. Like, this is awesome, though I wish I could find the 1993 version:

htts://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6wa-qOb8eI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6wa-qOb8eI

So finally got around to listening to this. My initial impression is that the first half of the album does more for me than the second half, and some of the lyrics made me wince more than a little.

What, you don't like songs about being "all spurted out"?