What a Perfect Day4 Out Of 5 Stars
Matt Johnson, who operated under the nom de rock The The, was a great English crank. He wasn't simply an angry young man, he was just P-O'd. He managed that anger into a series of ever better albums, which included two powerful collections called "Infected" and "Mind Bomb," where his anger and musical ambition merged into a whole. The oddest thing was that he never really had a proper band (with the exception of "Mind Bomb"), yet he still managed to get his point across.
The 45RPM collection wrangles the best of the singles and includes primarily the single mixes, which is a good thing for novices because Johnson's sophisticated aggression can be a lot in big doses. "Infected" marries a dance beat to the paranoia about Aids, while "The Beat(en) Generation" laments apathy in a near folk context. There's a sense of humor, as well, when "Armageddon Days" playfully invokes The Sweet and "Ballroom Blitz" before breaking into a diatribe about religious hypocrisy. In fact, the only time Johnson ever really toned down for an entire album was the aptly named "Dusk," from which "Dogs of Lust" is the best of that album's three representations.
The The wasn't afraid to go loud and aggressive (when I saw them on the "Mind Bomb" tour, Johnny Marr was on guitar and it was easily the loudest concert I've ever attended), but he also unafraid of baring his soul. Early classics "Uncertain Smile" and the deceptively chipper "Perfect Day" show that from the very start, Johnson wasn't going to be one of your typical angry young men. With 45RPM, he delivers conclusive proof that he was a lot smarter than his limited success in America ever shown.
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