The The- Early Rarities

Time for our first Album review..
The The-Early Rarities(2011) 
                                     


Our first is a rare bootleg titled "Early Rarities" by the British band "The The".

Let's have a little background on The The.
The The is the guise of Matt Johnson, whom formed the band circa 1979. His first line-up was with Keith Laws, Tom Johnstone, and Peter Ashworth(Triash).
Their first single was released under 4AD Records titled "Controversial Subject".
Later on, Laws, Johnstone, and Ashworth left the band.

Now, let's get a background on the album.
Early Rarities was released circa 2011 as a bootleg album(an audio or video recording of a performance that was not officially released by the artist or under other legal authority.). 
The album has 18 tracks and is a compilation album. 

The 18 tracks on the album are all unrelease 
The album is a rarity itself to me, because the only way you could listen to it is through the magic of YouTube. I haven't heard of about 8 tracks on the album before I listened to it. 

What also surprised me is that you can't find anything about the album anywhere else but Discogs and last.fm, which has a very limited set of samples of the album.

The first track on the album was none other than The The's first single, Controversial Subject. And it even had Controversial Subject's B-Side track, Black and White. 

The first problem with it is that all the tracks are so rare, you can't find any lyrics for any of them except the 12" remix of Soul Mining at the end. 

The second problem is that since this was a bootleg, I can't listen to any of the songs in High Quality like other albums because the tracks are old. I think the only High Quality track is What Stanley Saw because it was actually on a real album that has been remastered before. 

Another interesting thing about the album is that it had the first prototype version of a later single. The prototype was called Cold Spell Ahead, which was the prototype of the hit Soul Mining single Uncertain Smile. Cold Spell Ahead was a very interesting single, which featured the earlier artists of The The's history.

The track Leap into the Wind was also a very interesting track, because the melody reminded me of the track "The Mercy Beat" from the album Infected.

The album also featured all of the bonus tracks of the UK cassette version of  Soul Mining, i.e Fruit of the Heart, Waiting for the Upturn, Mental Healing Process, etc. These bonus tracks were from the unreleased debut Pornography of Despair. Lots of other tracks from this album were put on Early Rarities as well.

Well overall, this was a great album. It really was an old The The anthology, explaining their early tracks progressing into what they are right now. Although there were a few flaws within the album, the great tracks made up for it.

The overall rating of the album is 4 STARS.

Source(s) for my info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleg_recording
http://www.discogs.com/The-The-Early-Rarities/release/3065338
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_The