The Manic Street Preachers

[Backstage With Slowdive]

I'd like to have seen the looks on the other members' faces when Richey handed them the lyrics for '4st 7lb' or 'Of Walking Abortion'.

Actually, it was said at the time that James rejected the original lyrics for The Intense Humming Of Evil because he felt they were morally ambiguous about the subject matter, and he wanted something clearer. He should have also rejected the title for being awful.

[Famous Mortimer]

Not noticeably.

I think there's a not massive but noticeable drop-off in quality with her solo stuff, around the same time I remember reading her getting therapy and medication for a bipolar disorder which, according to the article, had gone previously undiagnosed. It's over a decade ago, so I may be imagining this or remembering it badly, dunno.

[variant]

If you can download it. I've tried four fucking times and every time it says the zip file is corrupt. I will get around to soulseeking it at some point.

Yeah, I've heard people are having trouble getting it from the official site. I have a link to another site which has it. Am I allowed to post it here - seeing as it was a free giveaway anyway?

There might have been an encore but I didn't stay for it, being repelled by the spectacle of everyone else in the circle getting up and swaying about, most of them clutching pint glasses.

I think they've only ever done two encores - one at one of their first ever london shows and one at the gig in Cuba.

I think MSP have now resigned themselves to the fact that Design For Life will always be misunderstood and be sung along to by people holding pints above their heads. James referred to it as something like 'the fucking drinking song' at V festival.

[variant]

I also (during on of my twenty or so listens of the Holy Bible this week) just realised that in the left speaker during 4st 7lbs there is a choppy rhythm guitar riff that I had no idea was there until now.

Have you heard the US mix of the album which came with the 10th Anniversary edition? It's great for highlighting stuff like that.

Something I only found out just recently was that during the second chorus of Archives Of Pain James sings Manic Street Preachers at the end instead of Milosevic. To be honest I wasn't really sure what he said before.

[jaydee81]

being repelled by the spectacle of everyone else in the circle getting up and swaying about, most of them clutching pint glasses. Suddenly I understand all the fuss that the old MSP fans made about the new intake back in 1997.

This phenomenon was especially troubling for me as a young Manics' fan in this era. I only really got into the Manics when I was 16, and naturally fell in love with the Holy Bible, just as they became this huge stadium behemoth. It was very frustrating losing something I loved to the masses, which wasn't really mine to love in the first place.
I remember seeing them at the Sheffield Arena in 1997 and being disturbed when all the couples started doing that spoony/groiny grinding dance that they do at gigs.... to She Is Suffering.
I always thought the lyrics to Archives Of Pain were worryingly Daily Mail-esque as well. Any thoughts on that?

[jaydee81]

Something I only found out just recently was that during the second chorus of Archives Of Pain James sings Manic Street Preachers at the end instead of Milosevic. To be honest I wasn't really sure what he said before.

Oooh, I always thought that until I read the lyrics. James Dean Bradfield being one of the most indecipherable singers sans lyrics sheet.

[Thisidiot]

Something I only found out just recently was that during the second chorus of Archives Of Pain James sings Manic Street Preachers at the end instead of Milosevic. To be honest I wasn't really sure what he said before.

For years I thought it was 'electric guitars'.

I got into the Manics in 1990 with 'Motown Junk'. "This Is My Truth.." was the last album I liked enough to buy, and I haven't even heard the latest one.

[Spiteface]

I always thought the lyrics to Archives Of Pain were worryingly Daily Mail-esque as well. Any thoughts on that?

Nicky Wire remarks on it on the 10th anniversary DVD.  He was surprised it came from Richey's minds, given the nature of then lyrics, quite right-wing, pro-death penalty song.  Awesome solo at the end though.

[jaydee81]

I do love a good song with a 'sterilise rapists' sing-a-long lyric though.

[CaledonianGonzo]

They also claimed they are in next week's NME and they've done well, maybe won the poll or something.

Someone's been winding them up.  They're nowhere to be seen in this year's (Klaxonstastic, Foals-nificent) NME Year End Poll.

Sigh.  Remember when the double Xmas-edition of the NME was something to mull over for days?

[jaydee81]

Sigh! Don't! I know it's a combination of us getting old and things changing as well, but me stopping buying the NME was the death of my youth.
I remember my last issue, it had 'I love Cooper Temple Clause' stickers on it. It was the final straw. I lost touch with music for two years.
I remember being annoyed when people wrote in and said 'this is shit, NME is getting thinner every week' and the smug editor would reply 'yes, but we have a comprehensive live listings.' Oooooh! How very exciting.

[lipsink]

I gave up about 5 years ago on the NME. I saw a Glastonbury recently where the editor (who looked about 12) said that when the singer from the Kaiser Chiefs performs onstage "he takes you into his world".

[jaydee81]

the editor (who looked about 12)

That reminds me of the Morrisey quote this week when he describes the surprise when he meets the NME's star journalist, as he thought it was the NME's star journalist's child.
Funny... even though he's out of touch and racist.

[Phil_A]

For years I thought it was 'electric guitars'.

For ages I thought the line "obliterates your meaning" from Mausoleum was "side-split erection".

[Paaaaul]

"The most important thing we can do is get massive and throw it all away. We only wanna make one album, one double album, 30 songs and that'll be our statement, then we'll split up. It's all we wanna do, it's what we've aimed for all our lives. There's no glory in being top of the indie charts, there's no glory in being Top 30. You've gotta be Number One. We just wanna be the most important reference point of the Nineties. That's all."

http://www.thisisyesterday.com/ints/destruct.html

That interview always make me smile when I hear the dull dross they're pumping out now.

edited to add

"We are complete failures," says Richey."We hate being where we are." "if we're still at this point a year from now, we'll stop," says Sean. "We'll split." "The point,' says James fucking Dean, "is one album, one double album that goes to Number One worldwide. It has to be that way. One album, then we split. If it doesn't work, we split anyway. Either way, after one album, we're finished."

[Ronnie the Raincoat]

Someone's been winding them up.  They're nowhere to be seen in this year's (Klaxonstastic, Foals-nificent) NME Year End Poll.

Sigh.  Remember when the double Xmas-edition of the NME was something to mull over for days?

And Melody Maker!

Diary of a Manics Fan was fantastic.  And intense.

[actwithoutwords]

For ages I thought the line "obliterates your meaning" from Mausoleum was "side-split erection".

Don't be ridiculous, it's clearly "obliterate John Lennon". Oh the iconoclasm.

[bill hicks]

Do the Cult of Richey still go along, even though they're all in their 30s now? Or has everyone grown up and started wearing Guardian reader clothes?

They were still there on the last tour, but the two year break must have finally finished them off surely?

Actually did anyone going to the gigs spot youngsters pretending it was 1994 and they were in at the height? I remember lots of young people back in 2004ish (or whenever they took the break), but I was still considering myself part of that group then. Now I'm a depressed 28 year old in the throes of early middle age and existential angst I expect they'd be more noticable.

Every 16 year old should be forced to idolise the Manics. It's a right of passage.

[ccbaxter]

Can't say I noticed any, but then, I was stood at the back, having just got in in time having watched slightly too much of the Liverpool match. Maybe Nicky "best centre-half Cardiff City never had" Wire would have approved.

But would like to think there were. The band's slightly-embarrassed, doubtless-rehearsed, yet still-seemingly-heartfelt-enough tribute to the "mental fuckers" who dressed up, dolled up, sent them clothes, just followed them manically everywhere, came across as both appreciative and accepting of the fact that everyone's, well, older. Good to see, Backstage, that you enjoyed the dismaying, depressing evening for which you seemed to hope! But despite any flaws or disappointments or embarrassments part of me couldn't help but detect from it, the Manics remain a band I can't help but feel massively warm towards - and the cringeworthy RAWK! banter of James Dean Bradfield, or box-ticking skipping rope or tennis-skirt antics of Nicky Wire are surely only just the latest in a long train of self-conscious daftness and self-mockery from the band? Those promises above to sell more than any other album before, then split up - that's a serious gospel manifesto, is it? Was it? And if they didn't... so what? Now they're, what, a powerpoppy arena rock band still trying to fit what they feel are leftfield-ish enough swerves and lyrics into tunes they can belt out alongside the old anthems which still can sound oh-so-tinglesome enough. Okay, so James never now sings the "I laughed when Lennon got shot" line - echoes of The Clash seeming to eventually repent of full-on "no Beatles, no Stones etc" clarion calling...? - and, yes, "The Holy Bible" was oh-so-under-represented the other night, save for a really rather beautiful solo acoustic version of "This Is Yesterday". Which James described as "what I think of as the second most tender moment on the album - you might be surprised by the first" - without saying which this is. Hm, anyone...?

But they still have a certain spikiness with that rousing grandeur, acknowledging they were so much younger then, they're older than that now... Too much Nicky they'd be unbearable, too much James they'd be dangerously close to not the Manics, but the Stereophonics (though he is quite the compelling and underrated guitarist, looping intriguing patterns round and through each song).

And the show still works, for me anyway.
Oh, and the "black sheep" song was "I Am Just A Patsy". Nah, not so keen on that one either.



Favourite Manics B-sides, anyone? I can still be bowled over by the beauty of the "A Design For Life" back-up tracks - "Mr Carbohydrate" (a Matthew Maynard namecheck, excellent), "Dead Passive" and "Dead Trees And Traffic Islands". Though "New Art Riot", "Sepia", "R P McMurphy" and the GLR traffic-report-ruined "Prologue To History" also spring swiftly to mind here.
Their various cover versions, not so much...

[Wolski]

Which James described as "what I think of as the second most tender moment on the album - you might be surprised by the first" - without saying which this is. Hm, anyone...?

'Tie his hair in bunches, fuck him, call him Rita if you want?'

[purlieu]

The aforementioned Sepia, Dead Trees And Traffic Islands and Prologue To History definitely cut it for best b-sides for me.  Oh, and No One Knows What It's Like To Be Me, silly title aside.

[Cack Hen]

Sepia is just Papa Don't Preach, isn't it.

[The Plaque Goblin]

There is a passing resemblance I suppose.

'Hibernation' is a beautiful acoustic track but I only have a truncated 56kbps mp3. Anybody care to put up a copy?

'Pedestal' too, that track's a little nuts.

[Phil_A]

I wrote a long post and then my browser crashed.

Favourite Manics B-sides, anyone? I can still be bowled over by the beauty of the "A Design For Life" back-up tracks - "Mr Carbohydrate" (a Matthew Maynard namecheck, excellent), "Dead Passive" and "Dead Trees And Traffic Islands". Though "New Art Riot", "Sepia", "R P McMurphy" and the GLR traffic-report-ruined "Prologue To History" also spring swiftly to mind here.
Their various cover versions, not so much...

Most of those, and I'd also include "Close My Eyes", "Judge your'self", "Just A Kid", "Locust Valley" and "Bored Out Of My Mind"

Still quite annoyed that "Dead Passive" wasn't on the Lipstick Traces comp, but sodding "Valley Boy" was. And a whole disc of half-arsed covers. And the rubbish booklet which doesn't even tell you where each track was taken from. Disappointing wasn't the word, really.

[Spiteface]

I cannot let this discussion pass without mentioning "Ballad of the Bangkok Novotel".

No ones mentioned "Donkeys" yet either. Or "Close My eyes"

I like those.

[Phil_A]

I mentioned "Close My Eyes", in the post above the one you just posted! Fair play though, I forgot "Donkeys".

[zonko]

Ghosts of Christmas won't download properly using IE for some reason but works ok using Firefox. Or you can use this link http://sharebee.com/a9a8f795 that's ok isn't it? What with it being a freebie anyway?

[lipsink]

My favourite Manics B-Sides: Prologue To History, Sculpture Of Man, Comfort Comes, Just A Kid, Hanging On, Too Cold Here. Both 4 Ever Delayed and Judge your'Self off Lipstick Traces are pretty damn good too.

[thehungerartist]

Have never known of other bands citing the Manics as an influence, which considering the breadth of their back catalogue is strange indeed.

thehungerartist [former Manics obsessive]

[jaydee81]

What was that band in the late 90s with the guy with lipstick on? They were a huge Manics rip off?