Wiki
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Release Date
1 January 1986
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Length
8 tracks
Infected was The The's second album (if one excludes Burning Blue Soul and The Pornography Of Despair, which was never officially released), released in 1986.
It is reputed that the album used 67 different musicians and 3 producers. The money lavished on it and its companion full-length video seemed at the time to be extravagant for an obscure band.
Many of the tracks carried on with Johnson's main topics of his feeling of alienation from society as all whole and the melancholy that this generates in young males. However around this time Johnson was becoming aware of "World Issues" or the culture clash between the West and Islam. The song "Sweet Bird of Truth" is about a pilot trying to save his plane whilst flying over Arabia and was released just prior to Reagan's Bombing of Libya which affected sales when record shops refused to promote it.
It included the UK hit singles:
"Heartland" - reached No. 29 (UK) in August 1986
"Infected" - reached No. 48 (UK) in October 1986
"Slow Train to Dawn" - reached No. 64 (UK) in January 1987; Matt Johnson's vocals accompanied by Neneh Cherry
"Sweet Bird of Truth" - reached No. 55 (UK) in May 1987; Matt Johnson's vocals accompanied by Anna Domino
In 2000 Q magazine placed Infected at number 99 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever.
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