Infected (1986)

Infected is the second studio album by the English post-punk band the The, released on 17 November 1986 by Some Bizzare and Epic Records. The album produced four UK singles, including the band's best-selling single "Heartland," which reached number 29 in the UK and spent 10 weeks on the chart, "Infected", "Slow Train to Dawn" and "Sweet Bird of Truth". Although Infected only peaked at number 14 on the UK Albums Chart, it remained on the chart for 30 weeks.

Writing and composition

The first single from the album, "Heartland", held particular significance for frontman Matt 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". It features a harmonica solo by Judd Lander.

"Sweet Bird of Truth" is about the US'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 the timing coincided with the US bombing of Libya, and because of the song's lyrics critical of American military involvement in the Middle East, CBS were unwilling to release and promote the single. It was eventually 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." Neneh Cherry sang lead vocals with Johnson on the track.

In Johnson's mind, "Twilight of a Champion" was set in Chicago, despite filming the music video in New York City: "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." Roli Mosimann co-wrote the music for the track, the only composition on the album not to have been completely written by Johnson, and it makes heavy use of the sampling synthesiser Fairlight CMI.

"Mercy Beat" is "essentially about spiritual salvation which is why I wanted to do [the music video for the song] in South America, because of the heavy influence of Catholicism and Americana."

Infected video film

To promote the album, Johnson produced a music video for each track. He divulged his reasons for this unusual form of promotion in an interview with NME:"I came to a crossroads in my career really. Having not played live for three and a half years and having such a low profile – for instance not having my picture on my sleeves – I decided to raise the whole stakes of the thing and risk becoming known a lot more as a personality, which is not really something I'm keen on."