Search - The The :: Soul Mining

Remastered? for what reason?

ChrisWN | Santa Cruz, CA | 11/24/2003

(1 out of 5 stars)

"This was definitely my all time favorite album of the early 80's & I was ecstatic when it was issued on CD & included "Perfect" as a bonus track...however this re-issue is a pathetic, money -grabbing, resource-wasting exercise. Time has not been good to Matt Johnson's sense of judgement. Not only are there no bonus tracks, but one of the tracks is removed for the reissue? That's almost as bad as the Peter Gabriel reissues (deleting material from the live 2 CD set to fit it on 1 CD). You can still find the original in bargain bins & since it still has "Perfect" on it, it is superior to this reissue. The original US CD was perfect with "Perfect" & what could have made this an even better issue is the inclusion of 12" versions & b-sides from the singles. (It's true the bonus disc on the greatest hits 2CD set included a few, but when a CD can hold 80 minutes of music, it's really inexcusable not to fill it up when there is plenty of unreleased material that people want on CD). Will the UK 12" mix of Perfect ever make it to CD? or the 3 Orange Kisses from Kazan? Waiting for the Upturn?....I guess I should finally hook up my record player to my computer, extract the original US CD, record the vinyl singles of the same period & burn my own CD, because as long as it's in Matt's hands, it won't see the light of day. :("

The best medicine for complacent self-pity.

Angry Mofo | 07/01/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Soul Mining was heavily influenced by what was contemporary dance music in 1983. In fact, it second-guessed much of what came a little bit later - the drums in "The Twilight Hour" and "GIANT" sound quite similar to those in New Order's stellar dance single "The Perfect Kiss," but Soul Mining predates Low-life by two years. The The's first album uses the sounds of dance music, but is really not danceable at all - the drums are oppressively loud, or so over-processed as to lose all spontaneity, the atmosphere is uncomfortably claustrophobic, and of course, Matt Johnson's snarls and falsettoes put to rest the last shred of anyone's desire to dance. In effect, Soul Mining is dance music made by someone who doesn't dance, can't dance, hates dancing, and casts hateful and longing glances at the pretty and vacuous girls who dance with carnal abandon at the clubs. It's also probably the best debut album of its decade.It's not the music that carries the album. There are many quite catchy hooks, but they sound as oddly jarring as one would expect from a dance album made in solitude about solitude. It has to be Johnson's voice that makes the album what it is - that unflagging, unyielding directness, honest anxiety and fear and withdrawn, reticent anger. Some of these songs - actually, all of them - are about the woman who done Johnson wrong, but there's none of the goths' preferred self-exonerating moping going on here. The first song, "I've Been Waiting For Tomorrow All of My Life" is Johnson's ultimatum to himself: "Another year older, and what have I done? My aspirations have shrivelled in the sun, I'm crippled by guilt, blinded by lies, I've been waiting for tomorrow all of my life!"Soul Mining uses a narrative technique that Johnson wouldn't employ again, namely the second person. Three songs here are addressed to "you," though Johnson is clearly referring to himself. This underscores the album's self-confrontational and self-accusatory nature. "This is the Day," a somewhat upbeat tune that actually owes more to blues than to dance, is actually a portrait of dead-end nowheretown despair, in which the protagonist (Johnson), suffering from insomnia and terminal nostalgia, opens a window and sees that the day outside that he has alienated himself from is so beautiful that he can't help but think that it will bring some kind of change into his life, though no source of change is to be seen anywhere. Less subtle is "The Twilight Hour," a depiction of self-induced emotional slavery in the worst stage. Johnson seethes with venom towards his own spineless conduct - "You were emotionally independent, but starved of affection, so now you've been trapped by tenderness and beaten into submission" - and ends with a line of devastating irony: "You're relying on her for your independence."The title track explores much the same territory using spooky metaphors of floating down tunnels that fit the weird, wispy music flawlessly, but losing no directness in the process - "You've been read like an open book, page by page. You'll never tell anyone your inner thoughts again. You've been taken in by a heart of fool's gold, now you're drifting in circles in the depths of your soul." On the last line, Johnson's soft singing turns to a snarl, as if to show that the conclusion was well-deserved. The chorus is the album's one big sing-along moment - "Something always goes wrong when things are going right...""Uncertain Smile" lacks the anger of the others; it's a sweet jangle pop song about first love from the perspective of the absurd boy who later made Soul Mining. It features the musical highlight of the album, Jools Holland's wonderful jazz-piano solo. The song only shows Johnson's youth at that time - after all, that's when one's worldview is more black and white, one's expectations of oneself are higher, one's emotions are sharper, and one throws all the intensity one has into one's experiences. This gives Soul Mining an air of a kind of innocent naivete, despite all the anger flying around."GIANT" is one of pop music's weirdest images, due to the sheer incongruity of Johnson's tortured lyric with the odd music. The arid drums and bass suggest a torrid desert, an image that pops up in Johnson's first lines, and the little musical phrase that comes in after a couple minutes evokes no image so much as that of a little devil playing a xylophone with great gusto and abandon, shaking his head amusingly to the tune while Johnson sits helpless on his chair. Then, when the pounding tribal beat drowns out the little devil, there's a sepulchral chorus of big dancing devils, who have joined hands in a circle and are now prancing around Johnson as the whole scene recedes into the distance.It's a bizarre image to close with, and close the album it does, now that "Perfect" is no longer the final track. It's available on the greatest hits compilation 45 RPM, but Johnson decided to excise it from the reissue of Soul Mining. While "GIANT" does make the better ending, "Perfect" is a great song in itself, a variation on the themes of Soul Mining in which Johnson is a little more cynical and irritated than usual, but still far from malicious. (Naturally, it's married to some upbeat harmonica figures.) Later, Johnson got older but not much happier; fortunately, The The's steadfast humanity, and the honesty, intelligence and understanding in The The's words and music, only increased with time."

Unfortunately, not the original

xx001a45 | Tampa, FL USA | 01/21/2004

(1 out of 5 stars)

"The original Soul Mining was a double cassette. Fans back then
who couldn't get this rarity would pick up some of the missing
songs on 12" releases or CD singles. If this album were released
now in it's entirety, It would easily be considered his all time best!
The whole second side is like an odd mirror of the first.
The original tracks were:I've Been Waitin' For Tomorrow (All Of My Life), This Is The Day,
The Sinking Feeling, Uncertain Smile, The Twilight Hour, Soul Mining,
Giant, Perfect, Three Orange Kisses From Kazan, Nature Of Virtue,
Mental Healing Process, Waitin' For the Upturn, Fruit of the HeartThree Orange kisses just takes you way below the subdermal of
that skin Matt talks about in Uncertain smile. Mental Healing Process
is a wonderful happy sad tune, all in all a more personal level of
depth to a more mainstream first side. Add his 1984 single "Flesh
& Bones" (the song he played as an encore on the Mind Bomb tour) and
you would have a masterpiece.Not too economical back then for a double cassette but would have
been entirely appropriate for an "original recording remaster" now.
Like some of the other reviewers I'll stick with my UK version
with the woman on the cover by Andy Dog. Being a fan of MJ is
a bit frustrating because of all the down time between label
switches but the Epic/Columbia years were above the rest in
scope and scale."