With the band recognised by NME as ‘Godlike Geniuses’ at their forthcoming annual awards, and a massive gig at the O2 in London looming, where they’ll be supported by a succession of today’s more prominent indie acts including Bloc Party and Kaiser Chiefs, DiS figured now was a good time to take another look at the catalogue of Welsh would-be legends Manic Street Preachers. So, that’s what we’ve done.
Just how do the feelings back then compare with listening anew in 2008? Is Generation Terrorists able to hold its own in a landscape sculpted by snippets on Skins and a closing slot on Tonight with Jonathan Ross? Will anyone care about The Holy Bible today as they did when it tore British rock a new arsehole back in ’94. See…
Generation Terrorists, 1992
The album that, as popular legend goes, was supposed to be the only Manics album and that would sell untold millions of copies as the sole artefact of band who existed in a brief, exultant flurry of creativity. Of course history had different ideas: pitched ambitiously as Guns N’ Roses meets The Clash, Generation Terrorists never launched the then-foursome into the stratosphere but it was undeniably impossible to ignore, if only because of column inches in the popular press that hailed Slowdive as being more worthy of hatred than Adolf Hitler.
Now:
Beloved of Manics fans, Generation Terrorists feels so dated now that it is hard to see the appeal unless you’re a young, angry, addled teenager. While the quality of classics – and they are classics, not simply through being overplayed but because they are shining examples of how to write arrogant and stunningly accomplished pop songs – such as ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’ and ‘Little Baby Nothing’ endures, the production roots the album firmly in the past and the shimmering guitars feel more like relics from the bad old days of the OTT ’80s than a first, violent broadside. If it was released today it’d be laughed out of contention in an instant even if ‘Stay Beautiful’ and ‘You Love Us’ still burst with sweaty excitement, but too many laboured statements along the lines of ‘Natwest-Barclays-Midlands-Lloyds’ prevent Generation Terrorists from holding any appeal to anyone who doesn’t already have a deep emotional connection with the songs themselves.
Video: ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’
- - -
Gold Against The Soul, 1993
Apparently following The Clash’s lead more closely than that of G’n’R, Gold Against The Soul was far more radio-friendly than could have been expected. The FM crunch of ‘Give ‘Em Enough Rope’ is the most obvious touchstone for comparison and this album signified the Manics’ most earnest attempt yet to try and crack the States. Understandably, it was roundly panned by large sectors of their fans and is described by Nicky Wire today as being a blip in their career.
Now:
It’s fair to say that history judged Gold… slightly unjustly. While it is the album that should, ideally, never have existed, the opening three tracks (the masterful triumvirate of ‘Sleepflower’, which since found an enthusiastic rebirth on recent Manics tours, ‘From Despair To Where’ and ‘La Tristesse Durera (Scream To A Sigh)’) remain just as potent as ever. Without any of the sometimes-clunky political / social commentary of its predecessor ‘Gold…’ is able to stand alone without much baggage, mainly because it still isn’t taken all that seriously. But when approached afresh – and in isolation – it’s definitely a strong album. It’s heavy, melodic and packed full of huge choruses: radio-friendly doesn’t have to be used in the pejorative sense and it’s certainly more considered and mature than their debut.
Video: ‘From Despair To Where’
- - -
The Holy Bible, 1994
It didn’t sell very well, but its impact was felt keenly by anyone who’d ever come into contact with the Manics. Heralded by their infamous and still-shocking performance on Top Of The Pops in what can only be described as terrorist-chic and the reprinting of the entire lyric sheet in the centre pages of NME, The Holy Bible was utterly unflinching. Hell, any album released on a major where the fourth word is “cunt” is going to turn some people on and some off.
Now:
Still a masterpiece. It’s taut, uncomfortable and deeply brutal, both in its lyrical content (anorexia / the holocaust, and those are just the songs where Richey’s lyrics are immediately understandable – the rest of the album deals with a nameless dread no person can ever envy) and its pinched, muscular riffs. Listen to it as a suicide note and you’re doing The Holy Bible an injustice; it’s the sound of one man in a close-knit group of friends slowly disintegrating and using his own anguish to create some of the most brilliant art to be released on a large scale as music in years. It’s pounding and relentless and extremely unsettling and deserves to be discovered in turn by every young, confused teenager. It’s not a suicide note; it’s a warning.
Video: ‘Faster’
- - -
Everything Must Go, 1996
Goodbye lyrics etched onto rough books, hello arena tours, Mondeo Man and critical acclaim from practically everyone, including the Brit award panel. And, of course, goodbye Richey. While Everything Must Go and its attendant singles ‘A Design For Life’ and the title track presented the new three-piece as more than a mawkish tribute act, it was hard to shake off the idea that the new bombastic and widescreen Manics were in some way mortgaging the memory of their lost friend.
Now:
Finally considered to be perhaps the quintessential Manics album by Nicky Wire himself, Everything Must Go is the album that allowed them to cast themselves as everymen, able to offer some small piece of solace those who wanted to sit in their bedrooms and recite the lyrics quietly to themselves (‘Small Black Flowers That Grow In The Sky’) right across to the rugby shirt-wearing masses who seemed to populate their gigs now and who wanted to just shout a bit (the chorus of ‘A Design For Life’ has since taken on an ironic quality). Polished but not too shiny and considered without being sterile, it’s a fine tribute not only to their absent friend but to the band they used to be. Put it on again and you’ll be surprised how emotive the sweeping strings and crashing Gibson chords can sound, even 12 years after its initial release.
Video: ‘A Design For Life’
- - -
This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours, 1998
The first album where Nicky Wire wrote all the lyrics and the moment it all started going wrong, according to most die-hards. Musically, ‘If You Tolerate This, Your Children Will Be Next’ and ‘The Everlasting’ felt like cynical attempts at attaining chart-humping success and, with much more orchestral production than ever before it was almost as if the Manics were trying to brush their past under the table.
Now:
An album without Richey’s actual input, but not an album free of his influence. Utterly unrepresented by the singles ‘Tsunami’ and ‘You Stole The Sun From My Heart’, two of the most forgettable songs the Manics have perhaps ever released, it’s actually a stately, tender lament to their past rather than an attempt to move on, strictly speaking. ‘My Little Empire’’s sub-GCSE poetry aside, the lyrics find Wire in a movingly vulnerable mood, quite unable to shoulder the burden alone of how large the Manics had become. While accusations that this is where their descent into Tesco-rock began aren’t exactly unfounded, to dismiss it out of hand does it a disservice. When James bellows “What is there to believe in?” it all becomes clear: they’re older, but no more content than in the past. Just as the Holy Bible was Richey’s, this is Nicky’s more than anything; confused where Richey was focused, afraid of loneliness while Richey embraced it. You can’t escape the idea that he almost feels guilty for what they’d turned into, and that imbues This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours with a sadness and longing that wasn’t immediately evident on its initial release.
‘If You Tolerate This, Your Children Will Be Next’
- - -
Know Your Enemy, 2001
Hopes were sky-high – this was supposed to be the Manics’ return to their vitriolic best, and considering how exciting it was when ‘The Masses Against The Classes’ hinted at their sixth album being more ‘You Love Us’ and less ‘The Everlasting’ the disappointment was huge. Releasing two singles on the same day proved to be an empty gimmick as the songs in question had less musical worth than your average Kooks gig, and the following Greatest Hits tour saw this album entirely glossed over.
Now:
No human being should ever listen to this album ever again. It’s the sound of three middle-aged men searching in the dark for some kind of meaning, as they attempt scratchy punk without any real anger (‘Intravenous Agnostic’), hilariously sub-Beach Boys melody (‘So Why So Sad’), hideously trite disco funk (‘Miss Europe Disco Dancer’) and, horror of horrors, letting Wire take lead vocals (‘Wattsville Blues’). It’s misfire after misfire and listening to it now only feels uncomfortable – you can practically taste their disappointment in becoming a band of ‘The Establishment’ and their idea of kicking against it was to present a poor facsimile of their past glories. Embarrassing.
Video: ‘So Why So Sad’
- - -
Lifeblood, 2004
Snuck out with the minimum of fuss and their joint-lowest charting album ever, Lifeblood was almost the nail in the coffin. They said they were aiming for a detached, bleak album along the lines of Nebraska but instead ended up with little more than a couple of catchy song titles and a brief flurry of media interest when Wire kept blathering on about Richard Nixon. Again, like Know Your Enemy, it’s a rare occurrence for one of these songs to feature live.
Now:
It’s not the aberrance the previous album is, but nor is it a tenth as good as even This Is My Truth…. Familiar Manics lyrical territory is crossed with a song about Emily Pankhurst but the overarching feeling is one of discontentment bred by the enduring failure of Know Your Enemy. ‘I Live To Fall Asleep’ and ‘Empty Souls’ could, if they weren’t so sterile and impotent, be curios of a time when they tried a new musical direction but even when singing about Richey, as on ‘Cardiff Afterlife’, there’s no real drive or focus.
Video: ‘The Love Of Richard Nixon’
- - -
Send Away The Tigers, 2007
Or; Fuck You, We’re Doing This The Way It Should Be Done. Finally, heralded by a radio-friendly single that wasn’t utterly shit and the distinct possibility that they might just have pulled off a stunning comeback, the Manics leapt back into contention as a relevant band. James’ voice sounded like it was as strong as ever and Wire’s motormouth tendencies were firing on all cylinders as the common critical consent seemed to be that this was a return to ‘Everything Must Go’ form. And it was.
Now:
Far, far better than anyone had any right to hope for, it sees the Manics embracing their stadium status by writing a collection of dynamic, catchy rock songs that seemed tailor-made for summer festivals. It blows the previous two albums out of the water, not simply because they sound like they’re having fun again, but because they’re not trying to ignore their past. Just listen to the way Wire sings “I could’ve written all your lines” in ‘Your Love Alone…’ – it’s an acceptance of things past and their first real attempt at moving definitively on. And it helps that their choruses are back on form: ‘Underdogs’ and the unfairly derided ‘Autumnsong’ are as bold and gutsy as anything they’d done before.
Video: ‘Your Love Alone Is Not Enough’ featuring Nina Persson
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MySpace here. Manic Street Preachers play the O2 in London – with support from Kaiser Chiefs, Klaxons, Bloc Party and The Cribs – on February 28; they’ll receive their ‘Godlike Genius’ award from NME the same day. Find tickets here.
I never knew it was possible for me to agree with someone so much
seriously.
I agree with you there.
Very well written and almost surprisingly accurate. I'm not into the Manics anymore but they used to be my favourite band.
Know Your Enemy
isn't that bad imo, much better than this is my truth... lifeblood and send away the tigers.
Agreed!
A very underappreciated album indeed.
The Manics: Completely Shit Since '96
i like the comments on gold against the soul
very accurate and the first manics album i got into. it retrosepct i feel that it's probably more difficult to slate it, despite the production qualities. lots of class songs.
no true.
the masses against the classes, is frankly rather fucking superb.
Eugh, it's terrible!
It's like a watered-down retread of Motown Junk and stinks of a lack of ideas. Or something.
^
This.
Generation Terrorists is an album wholly outside of any attempt to date it. It's also probably the most ambitious debut album in the last 25 years of UK music. A band that young had no fucking right to sound that good, poor production not-withstanding.
*Worse than Northern Uproar since '94
it's cool
to see some positive words about This Is My Truth, which, yeah, it's like Nicky Wire's own Holy Bible or something, and no less disquieting. anything they'd done at the time would have sold a ton... but it's a pretty touching, odd wee album at its heart. hard to imagine anything off it being seen as cynical commercialism if they released it now. i see Send Away The Tigers as a million times more like that kind of thing than songs with lead sitars and properly involved string parts, especially considering their output up to then.
also, the live thing
for the record, the reason why i will never again pay to see the Manics live is because they, as noted, try to totally write-off some of their recent stuff live. '94 to '98 is their golden period in my eyes but this idea that they were totally hopeless on every song afterwards is mad to me. i'd love to hear them play the best stuff from those records live, with the same feeling they put into the 1000th performance of You Love Us or whatever, but they won't and it's got to the point where most of their set is ten or more years old. i wouldn't have much hope that they'll keep playing the SATT stuff people like either... they're just nostalgic and lazy live in my opinion.
Tch!
How can GT be lambasted for sounded incredibly dated and in the following sypnosis GATS be heralded as a lost classic?! I'd swap those two 'now's around. Even now, the first rays of summer bring with them the first notes of Slash and Burn.
Agree with most of the rest of it. Know Your Enemy suffers most from the length but there's some really good songs on it. The bit about This Is My Truth being better than the singles is completely correct. I've been saying that for years. It's got some of their most tender, understated songs on it and yet the constant radioplay of the combined nonsense that is Tsunami and You Stole The Sun (which has a nice verse but an awful chorus) seems to taint opinions of it.
I struggle to pick out individual tracks from Lifeblood. It's not awful, but it's nothing better than 'okay'
this is a really good piece
not least because it makes me actually want to bother listening to their last album again.
Reading that has reminded me
Just how much I fucking love this band.
I agree with a lot of stuff in this...
It's very well written and really highlights some of the most important factors about the Manics and their popularity. I love that they've got a slightly flawed past, it makes their history all the more interesting.
Passing KYE off like that is a bit harsh though. There's some great songs on there and, while it's not the Manics at their best, it's still a better album than some other bands could ever hope to make!
Lifeblood may not be a perfect album either but I think it does deserve more credit. '1985' is one of the best Manics songs of the last few years and there's some other really nice songs on there. I think it's been quite overlooked on recent tours not because it's a poor album, but mainly because most of the songs wouldn't fit too well with the recent rockier setlists.
Nice article though, was great to read and it's always nice to see the Manics get some coverage!
i might slam SATT on when i get in
i actually have GATS on in my car today. i still love the first 4 albums, i always will.
never bothered with lifeblood though
Great stuff...
The Manics were the first band I truly fell in love with, the second gig I ever went to (hello, 3 Colours Red!), and 'Everything Must Go' and the albums either side of it are really most excellent pieces of work. I was embarrassingly addicted to 'EMG' in fact. Brilliant. And top piece.
Though I'll be honest, those since were so bad I've not rushed out and bought 'Tigers'...
Largely Agree
However you missed that '1985' from Lifeblood is one of the ten best Manics songs. More heart, soul, anger, yearning and sorrow than most of their output.
Listening to 'This Is My Truth...' over the weekend, I was surprised as to how well it's aged... or maybe I'm just getting older.
I can't listen to the first two albums though these days, save a couple of tracks. For me, it's not Richey Vs Post-Richey, it's just the middle years. 1994-1998 - that's what made those 'would-be-legends' complete legends in my eyes.
The best commercial guitar band produced by the UK in 90s.
I'm with the masses
Yeah, this is a good article. I was a bit reluctant to read it, thinking "oh hear we go, it's cool to bash the Manics at the moment", but I largely agree with this.
Good Article
Good article, and it's great that a 3rd generation of people will be exposed to the Manics music.
I'm not with you on Lifeblood but the rest - completely. Lifeblood is a lost classic (bar the Nixon song) and in any re-appraisal should do better.
It's easy to forget that for example Generation Terrorists has never ever sounded in vogue. It was out of step at the time, and it still sounds odd now, but that only serves to show what a statement of intent it was - however flawed it is.
I'll be interested to see if any of the bands below them on the bill at this gig last anywhere near as long, and have as big an impact. Somehow I doubt it.
Mostly agreed
If you remove the overly familiar radio-friendly singles, the rest of This is My Truth is a fantastic Manics album that deserves a broader reappraisal.
I don't believe all of Know Your Enemy deserves the scorn the album receives. I still enjoy songs such as The Convalescent and My Guernica. It's when they tried too hard to break the mould that it suffered worst - Miss Europa Disco Dancer is just unlistenable to me. The Manics and irony do not mix.
It's odd that there are two basic cliches when speaking of the Manics. On the one hand you'll get the 'they were only ever good with Richey' line and then the contradictory 'Generation Terrorists and Gold Against the Soul are shit' statement. To me Gold Against The Soul remains a strong album from start to finish and laid the blueprint for the 'return to form' that is widely considered to be Send Away The Tigers. You could still make a great single album from Generation Terrorists today (if it was severely remastered). And I mean great.
Lifeblood could have been a more than worthwhile addition to their canon had they written quality songs to go along with the change in direction. Sometimes I wonder if some people believe 'sounds like Pet Shop Boys' to be some kind of insult! Sadly it was latterday Pet Shop Boys rather than the vintage of It's a Sin or Being Boring (although a lot of it did find the Manics trying their hardest at being boring) and even that was in the minority. For the most part it was just run-of-the-mill post-TIMTTMY Manics with synths and pianos shoving the guitars out of the way.
In fairness, the Manics' Godlike Genius award probably has very little to do with the music itself, more the basic idea of the band, which was genuinely perfect at one point in time and definitely made them the ultimate NME band. The Holy Bible is one one album where everything came together and they realised their potential, but that still leaves them with the same number of genuinely classic albums as the Smiths, Nirvana, the Clash, the Stone Roses, Primal Scream and the Sex Pistols.
know your enemy
had some good songs. so there.
I'm not sure we really needed
another Manics retrospective at the moment, but this is pretty accurate.
Although I would say a few things
GT: Sure the production sounds horrible now(their were better versions of many of those songs) and its probably over long but at least it was ambitious, intelligent and angry which is more than can be said for a lot of indie at that time, in short it stood out.
Know your enemy isn't good but I think the idea was to do something very un rehearsed and more loose, it was purposely underrehearsed after the strictness of EMG and This Is My truth, I'm told that a lot of those songs were studio based...
This is my truth is their last really decent album and even that is flawed. SATT is overly shiny, and commercialised AOR for me, it gets away from what the manics were really good at...
The Manics were never really a proper album band.Unless your a fan then not every album is going to be for you.
"Manics and irony do not mix"
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
what? did you ever go to school? We're not talking Alanis Fuckinsette here.
Anyone who actually complained about the manics covering John Lennon/going to Cuba/not stopping after the first album/playing arena tours/richard nixon/hoovering is taking them far, far too seriously.
As for Miss Europa Disco Dancer and Wattsville Blues well
braindeadmotherfuckerbraindeadmotherfuckerbraindeadmotherfucker
ahem that will be my only lapse into quotism
nicky wire never stopped being a cultureslut and although the rhetoric pretty much came to a halt their aktions continue to divide the opinion of people they don't really give a fuck about. Chris Morris without being at all cool/credible and thats the beauty.
interesting
Observations but bad journalism and factually wrong all over !! A lot of the songs you have slagged off they do indeed still play live and Know your enemy is indeed a cracking lp as Tsunami and You stole the sun are great singles !!They are a great live band who have lived through a rollercoaster of emotion and put out far better records with great lyrics and deep intensity of feeling than most of their contemporairies and they are interested in life and politics not boy meets girl which is what makes them stand apart!! Compared to Oasis they have 100 times more to say !! I personally feel they are still a very underrated band -untrendy and not succumbing to the media ! More power to them i say !!
tsunami and you stole
are on this is my truth tell me yours.
Ex-Cla-Ma-Tion
make a statement..without saying a word
leave the !!!!! dude
good article
well written and pretty unbiased. perhaps DiS should stop worrying about being trendy more often.
dont really have much to add except to echo the 'kye isn't THAT bad' sentiments.
i'd be interested 'discography reassessed' for a few other bands too, if anyones listening.
the holy bible
is one of the greatest albums of all time. end of.
You should do this same thing for Radiohead...
just to see how many fools actually think the first 3 albums are worth more than 7 / 10 nowadays...
Great article. Personally, I went off the Manics ages ago but much of this rings true. I too harbour soft spots for a few tracks on "KYE" though. Fuck knows why, as its shit, but hey...
"Close my eyes" is probably my favourite track post "EMG" anyway. I think it was a B-sdie somewhere?
Agreed.
Holy Bible has been in my top ten all time albums for the last 14 years, and I can see it staying there. Still sounds fresh and brutal today.
Nice to see…
…Gold Against The Soul getting some rep. Vastly under-rated and what got me into the Manics in the first place. Pretty much agree with most comments here, well done, a rarity on DiS
Holy Bible
is a total masterpiece, the sound of emptiness, despair and suffering.
And I'm not even a MSP fan - I hate all their other stuff
Generally I agree with this
although I actually love Know Your Enemy (after removing a few terrible songs to make it 11 tracks)
Oh, and while Wattsville Blues is awful, Nicky's solo album is outstanding