Infected (The The album)
| Infected | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by The The | ||||
| Released | 17 November 1986 | |||
| Genre | Post-punk, alternative rock | |||
| Length | 60:59 (40:57) | |||
| Label | Some Bizzare/Epic | |||
| Producer | Warne Livesey, Matt Johnson, Roli Mosimann, Gary Langan | |||
| The The chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Infected | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
| Melody Maker | very favourable |
| NME | average |
| Q |  |
| Record Mirror | |
| Sounds | |
Infected is the second album by The The, released on Some Bizzare/Epic Records on 17 November 1986. The album produced four UK singles, including their best-selling single "Heartland", which reached 29 and spent 10 weeks on the chart, "Infected" (UK #48), "Slow Train to Dawn" (UK #64) and "Sweet Bird of Truth" (UK #55). Although it only peaked at 14 in the UK Albums Chart, it stayed on the chart for 30 weeks, making it by far The The's most commercially successful album.
The first single from the album, "Heartland", held particular significance for Johnson. Describing it as "probably the best song I've ever written", he said, "I'm attacking those working class Tories and middle class who still think Britain is on a par economically with France and Germany... I wanted to write a classic song which is basically representative of its time, a record that in 1999 people will put on and it will remind them exactly of this period of time... you know it took 18 months to write on and off because I knew it was the most important song I was writing."
"Sweet Bird of Truth" is about the USA's military involvement in Middle East politics. Johnson said, "The idea of that single was to provide a musical interpretation of the sort of cultural conflict that occurs when the ultimate Western power takes on the sort of Eastern fundamentalism that you'll find in the Arab nations." Johnson wanted to release "Sweet Bird of Truth" as the album's first single in April 1986, but this coincided with the US bombing of Libya, and with the song's lyrics critical of US military involvement in the Middle East, CBS were unwilling to release and promote the single. In the end it was released as a low-key limited edition single and deleted on the day of release. Johnson said, "The day I went in to tell them I wanted to release the single, they'd just been told by Special Branch to take their American flags down, since, as an American multi-national, they were a possible target for Libyan bombing. So I prepared a statement for the press, but apparently the [UK national daily newspapers] were told not to print it, because they could then be held responsible if CBS were bombed."
Johnson described "Slow Train to Dawn" as "about the psychological relationship between two people and the weakness of the male in that relationship, and infidelity, which is borne from insecurity and weakness". He admitted that the song was partly autobiographical, saying, "I get myself into a lot of difficult situations. I feel I have to live out what I write about out. I don't feel it's fair if I've never done the things I'm singing about. So I've done everything. I've lived out the lives of the characters." In Johnson's mind "Twilight of a Champion" was set in Chicago, despite filming the video in New York: "When I wrote the song, I created this scene where I was in this Chicago skyline at the top of a building and had become everything I wanted to become, but had sold my soul. There's the young boy and the old man, and I'm in the middle, between innocence and corruption." "Mercy Beat" is "essentially about spiritual salvation which is why I wanted to do [the video for the song] in South America, because of the heavy influence of Catholicism and Americana".
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