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Tuesday, May 03, 2005
COLD SPELL AHEAD
7" Single w/ "Hot Ice"
Some Bizarre : 1981
[buy it]
UNCERTAIN SMILE (12")
Epic : 1982
[buy it]
UNCERTAIN SMILE
Soul Mining
Epic : 1984
[buy it]
I have long wondered when that time would arrive when Matt Johnson would finally get his due. As pop music's most unflinching songwriter, he has spent the last two decades producing consistently brilliant music. And while he enjoyed modest popular success in the 80s, he remains, in my mind, one of our generation's most underappreciated talents.
Well according to the advertising executives at Dockers(TM), that time is now!
The latest commercial from the kings of khaki features an ensemble of white people jumping about in slow-motion contentment to a pleasing refrain from The The's 1983 single "This is the Day".
For me, stain-resistant pants are just about the last thing that comes to mind when I listen to the music of Matt Johnson. Things that do come to mind include: "I'm so fucked." and "My heart is a poisoned nostalgic eggplant of pain."
Johnson is angst-rock's alpha male. His lyrics are relentless and brutal confessionals, "so intense, so close to the bone, they can make you blush." (*)
And his self-doubt is infectious. He gets in your ear, and he gets into your head. His misgiving maxims soon become your own:
I have been waiting for tomorrow all of my life.
How can anyone know me when I don't even know myself?
I'm a pretty easy-going guy, but I reached a point in college where the inner-chattering became so intolerable, that I actually took my cassette copy of Soul Mining, wrapped it in heavy bands of duct tape, and hurled it from my dorm window. But it found its way back to my stereo, like that cursed monkey toy from the Stephen King story. I have no doubt Matt Johnson will be playing at my funeral. I won't request it. Some guy in a black coat will just emerge from the bushes and raise a boombox above his head Lloyd Dobler style.
So how is it that Johnson has found his way into a Dockers commercial? (Oh, and did I mention that Johnson is stridently anti-corporate?)
There are a few possibilities. He was scewed by his label. Or he just needs the money. Or maybe its all a big joke, and Johnson is sitting back laughing, like Marcel Duchamp, at the thought of getting a toilet bowl into MoMA.
Whatever the case, it stands as one of commercial music's great Bait and Switches.
Tim Scanlin, a mate of mine and fellow The The apologist writes:
"As founder and sole permanent member of The The, Matt Johnson wields one of the most incisive, razor-sharp wits in all of rock, and chances are it's duped you. 'This is the day, your life will surely change,' you've probably found yourself singing, triumphantly nodding in time with the band's 1983 electro-pop hit, 'This Is the Day.' Admit it.
Too bad the chorus is a sarcastic jab at self-delusion, and the song is really about deep-rooted depression, the unforgiving march of time, painful nostalgia, and insomnia-induced self-loathing. Ouch."
The song, like much of the album, has a formally sunny disposition. The beats are canned, there are harmonicas, xylophones, and a clap-machine. The keyboard player from Squeeze even shows up, and it doesn't get sunnier than Squeeze. But what is sweet on the lips burns in the throat. Give the song a good couple of listens and you will quickly realize that the chances of this "being the day" for Matt are about as legitimate as Walter Mitty piloting a B-25 over Dresden.
Johnson had this to say about the song:
"My life had just changed dramatically and would never be quite the same again. Just 21 years old and writing a song about money not being able to buy back time. A sweet and sickly nostalgia sickness pervades even from such a young age. It's very odd. I can't remember the first time that I started feeling that but that's a personal dilemma for me, really, trying to live life in the present but trapped between fantasising about the future and dwelling on the past. It's certainly more relevant to me as a 40 year old than when I wrote it at 20."
I LOVE PANTS!
Maybe Matt Johnson has a plan. The Men in Pleats will like the commercial, they will see something of themselves in it, they will buy his CDs. Johnson will enter their thoughts like a virus upon a host cell, and a dark dystopic abyss will open up in their irredeemable souls and it will swallow the Men in Pleats like so much stuffed crust pizza.
Having said all this...
I didn't post "This is the Day." You can find it on the great Soul Mining CD. The Docker's version is an alternate mix which you can find on the great Solitude CD.
I've posted 3 songs in the evolution of Soul Mining's "Uncertain Smile."
The first is a very early single, recorded by a teenaged Matt Johnson. The second is original the 12" version, with flute and saxophone. The third is the album version, with aforementioned Jools Holland's keyboard solo.
"Unrequited love. It was a very innocent song. It was written about somebody I was quite obsessed with at the time. And it was completely unrequited and unfulfilled. Perhaps a lot of the best songs are like that in a way, you just have to find a vehicle to contain all of this passion and emotion and if it can't be the person you really want to be with, then the next best thing is a song or a painting or something."
If you are going to buy Soul Mining, I recommend you pick up an older pressing and not the new re-master. For the re-master, Johnson decided to excise the magnificent song "Perfect Day", another miserably chipper jingle that would sound great in a Turning Leaf wine commercial.
Some links:
Thethe.com
"This is the Day" music video
Producer Mike Thorne's thoughts on making "Uncertain Smile".
A recent Guardian interview
Matt Johnson in Pop Culture Press
Johnson on the music industry
And finally, MJ is a vocal opponent of file-sharing, these will only be up for a few days.
posted by James
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