The The's Mind Bomb vs. the Record Matt Johnson Should've Made

The Best Record of 1989 Day 46: #55 Pop Will Eat Itself, This Is the Day...This Is the Hour...This is This! vs. #74 The The, Mind Bomb

Good morning!

Today we’re taking a look at records from The The and Pop will Eat Itself

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Note: As many of you know, I recently wrote about a Best Record of 1989 challenge and noted that I'd occasionally write some of these up.

I've started doing some quick hits of each matchup and posting them directly to the page. Some will be longer, some won’t, and some might just be a handful of sentences. There'll probably definitely be some typos.

Check 'em out and let me know your thoughts! Chin wags & hot takes welcome! Sharing and restacks are always appreciated.

KA—

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Let's be clear: I love The The's Infected. Anything after that was going to be measured against an unfairly high bar. That album was a brick thrown through the window of polite 1980s pop — angry, theatric, and intelligent. But this one? It's less of an explosion and more of a slow burn.

There's no denying Matt Johnson's ambition here — it practically bleeds through the speakers. He's reaching for something here, but that "something" is never really clear. Instead, we get an album that feels pulled in too many directions at once, as if Johnson's trying to mesh together the raw energy of Soul Mining with the electricity of Infected.

Enter Johnny Marr, who finally joins Johnson after years of near-misses and what-ifs. This should have been a summit of two great minds. Instead, it often sounds like two auteurs trying not to step on each other's toes. There's tension, yes — but not always the kind that results in a better outcome. I can appreciate Marr being mindful that he's a guest, but still...

And yet. And yet! The record refuses to be boring. The opener is a mission statement in miniature — nearly seven minutes long, stitched with the muezzin's call to prayer, defiant in its refusal to meet the listener halfway. Elsewhere, an operatic chorus materializes, not so much sung as summoned. It's a fever dream of a record.

But then come the two high points. With Sinéad O'Connor at her best, Kingdom of Rain is a slow-burn implosion — a duet that aches with every note. It's the kind of song you don't play often, not because it isn't brilliant, but because you can't bear it. This kind of track leaves you reaching for the rocks glass and staring out the nearest window. Then there's The Beat(en) Generation, a near-perfect piece of pop cynicism. The message is one of glances askance: “The beaten generation/reared on a diet of prejudice and misinformation." Ain't that the truth! I know I just got done talking about how different it was from Infected, and how that might not've been a good move, but man, I loved this song. And at the risk of carbon dating myself, I bought it on cassingle. I think I still have it?

Infected was a declarative statement. This album is decidedly less so. Johnson may have been just as intent here, but things occasionally get lost in the delivery.

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Some bands evolve. Pop Will Eat Itself detonated.

After Box Frenzy — a chaotic mess that sounded like PWEI cosplaying as the Beastie Boys, it would've been easy to write them off as a novelty act. But then came This Is the Day... This Is the Hour... This Is This! — and everything changed. Turns out the joke was on us.

The not-so-secret weapon here is Flood. Fresh from manning the boards for Depeche Mode and Nitzer Ebb, he turned PWEI's unruly collage of pop culture fragments into something cohesive and forward-looking. This album doesn't play like a follow-up — it plays like a totally different band.

I won't pretend the members of PWEI had any kind of bars—half the time, they're rapping like they're on a sugar high, but that's part of the charm. They weren't trying to emulate U.S. hip hop; they were squishing it into their version of British pop with metal riffs, breakbeats, horror movie samples (and an LL Cool J sample, FWIW). The result is a record that feels like channel-surfing through the late '80s zeitgeist.

The singles still hold up, but what really elevates the album for me is its surprising depth. Between the neon and noise, there's hints of a darker, moodier version of PWEI. Tracks like "Inject Me" and "Wake Up! Time to Die" are definitely not party tracks, suggesting a band more self-aware than they were ever given credit for.

This is The Day… is the record Matt Johnson should've made. So yes, dig it out of the cutout bin and give it a spin. Honestly, it never sounded better.

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My vote: I wanted to like Mind Bomb when it came out. I loved (!) The Beat(en) Generation, but there rest of it never really landed with me. As noted above, I’m sure some of that is the unfair comparison to Infected. It is what it is. Meanwhile, PWEI did the opposite; they followed up a mediocre record with one hitting on all cylinders. My bracket pick and vote will be going to PWEI.

Any thoughts on either of these records? Agree/disagree with my takes? Which one of these would you vote for? Sound off in the comments!

Check out the full bracket here.

Info on the tourney, voting, and more is here.

As always, thanks for being here.

KA—

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