Jeremy Clarkson once noted that you can’t call yourself a true car enthusiast unless you’ve owned an Alfa Romeo. Perhaps he was alluding to the masochism that was integral to the experience, the price you paid to access something that most cars lacked: soul.
Ensoulment. That’s quite the concept. Matt Johnson’s The The have recently returned to the fray with an album entitled just that. Matt’s always been one for taking the temperature of the times, and I happen to know that he’s partial to classic cars. Old Rovers in his case rather than old Alfa Romeos, an analogue jag that you could probably also get in a classic Jag. Anyway, there are songs on the new record – it’s best enjoyed on vinyl, funnily enough – that tackle the modern world’s overwhelming desire to connect whilst abjectly failing to do so. That’s a paradox that runs to the heart of the new Alfa Romeo Junior, the company’s first fully electric car.
