Soul Mining by The The

Soul Mining, the debut album from the The, came out in the UK on 21 October 1983 on Some Bizzare and Epic, and it's really the work of one restless man, singer and songwriter Matt Johnson. He started it in New York after major labels fought over him and CBS won the bidding war, but the sessions fell apart after the first two singles, so Johnson headed back to London and wrote and recorded the rest there.

You can hear both cities in the grooves. It's post-punk and synth-pop with the pulse of the early-'80s New York club scene running under it, all chattering rhythms, shimmering synths and nagging hooks, while Johnson sings about the insecurities of love and the loneliness of modern life in images pulled out of his dreams. "Uncertain Smile" is the jewel, sleek and yearning; "This Is the Day" is a bittersweet, rolling sway of a song; and "Perfect" is a jaunty, sour-sweet pop tune.

Reviews were good but sales were modest, and it stalled at number 27 in the UK. Time has been kinder. It went gold in the UK in 2019, and the 30th-anniversary reissue in 2014 drew raves, with critics hailing it as Johnson's finest hour and among the great records of the 1980s. Infected came next.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.