Socialist Existentialists from Blackwood are back!

[chebol]

Just thought I'd start a wee thread to see what all the rest of the Manic Street Preachers (http://www.manicstreetpreachers.com/07/home.html) tragics thought/ think of the latest offering from Neil Kinnock's noisiest neighbours.

I've got the album on some kind of super repeat atm. And, no, it's not a *return* to anything, except, as Nicky says, 'the source'. Sex pistols via Oklahoma via Baghdad via Guns'n'Roses via the Cardigans via South Wales via the Clash via the Manics via stupid cliches and good rock...

[Led Zeppelin]

The album was mediocre at best, didn't like it much at all.

Their best album is, and is probably always going to be, The Holy Bible, followed by Generation Terrorists.

[chebol]

I was going to reply to this with some witty and biting analysis of people who measure bands by what they did 15 yrs ago, and of missing the point of what they're about...

and then I saw the vapid thread on your taste in music, and there really seems no point even bothering.

Led Zepellin? Dire Straits?

I didn't ask what you thought their best album was (and, yes, I agree on the picks you made), but what you thought of this album.

If you go around comparing everything they do to THB, then they might as well pack up and go home so you can get on with listening to over-blown cock-rock.

"Imperial Bodybags", "Rendition" and "Send Away the Tigers" are great songs, and "Underdogs" knocks the 'surly-surly-surliness' of early nineties grunge for six.

So, no, it's "not as good" as "Suicide Alley". But it's still one of the best new albums I've heard for a while.

And lines like "Rendition - Rendition/ never knew the sky was a prison", "Imperial bodybags/ coming home in dribs and drabs/ Life as numbers/ with doggy tags/ Filled with holes they're coming back", and "Imperial bodybags/ Prom Queens disposable/ children wrapped in home-made flags" make anything the RHCP ever managed to garble out seem pretty stupid and timid.

"Good god, I sound like a liberal."

Come on, say it - you love us.

[chebol]

And "Your Love Alone Is Not Enough" is one of the best crafted pop songs (as in 'rock', the only kind of pop that counts) I've heard for years.

[Invader Zim]

I beat ya to it: -

http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=66409

PS I saw them a few weeks back, they were mint.

[Led Zeppelin]

Nope chebol, the album was pretty horrible, in almost every respect. I liked the new RHCP album a lot better then this, at least Stadium Arcadium has some songs on it worth listening to.

And comparing Led Zeppelin to the Manics is just fucking lame, it's like comparing my taste in music to yours, it's obvious which one's better.

[chebol]

Leninism, 2 things.
1. I was out to get a rise ("Aggravation is my oxygen"). No offence.
2. Comparing SATT to THB or GT is equally lame. If all you want is decades-old rock, go for it. And feel free to criticise SATT - it certainly has weaknesses, and noone's saying you have to like it. Just don't weigh in with silly comparisons (and I'm saying this as someone who got played a tape of Suicide Alley so long ago I've forgotten the date)

Zim,
agree with you on the song SATT, but Underdogs? Weakest link? I think not. One of the kickingest songs they've come up with for a long time (since The Masses, in fact, with which it has a lot in common)

Also, there is a disturbing tendency to ignore or write-off Know Your Enemy, which is a very, very good album (just a bit too long, which means people tend not to listen to it enough). I consider it one of their best (THB, GT, EMG, KNY, then SATT).

[Invader Zim]

Leninism, I don't see why you are trying to compare the manics with RHCP. Say what you want about SATT, but when RHCP have released an album anywhere near as good as GT or EMG and begun to rise to the truly towering heights of THB then maybe the comparison will be apt. But at the moment RHCP are not even at sea level.


Weakest link? I think not. One of the kickingest songs they've come up with for a long time

I don't like it very much, its boring and has a truly awful edit (1:08).

My personal album ratings would be THB, EMG, GT, SATT, GATS, LB, TIMTTMY, KYE. Not that I think that KYE is a bad album, quite the reverse. I really like it, it has some of the best songs the manics have made on it (Ocean Spray, My Guernica , Found that Soul and FOSWFMC spring to mind), but it has some b-side standard stuff on it as well and it goes on to long.

[chebol]

What would you consider b-side material from KYE?

[Invader Zim]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14, 2007 12:55 pm
What would you consider b-side material from KYE?
Wattsville Blues though its a great song.
Miss Europa Disco Dancer, the Convalescent, Epicentre and So Why So Sad (why did they make this a single? and why did they give it one of the best videos they have ever made?)

[chebol]

Agree on the SWSS, and maybe on WB and MEDD, but they are still both great songs.

I'm not so sure on the convalescent, but I really disagree on Epicentre - it's one of the songs that keeps the record going. I'd sooner shose it, than, say Year of the Purification, or Royal Correspondent (and in that order).

SWSS is a pretty disappointing song all round, I think. It's made worse by the fact that the Australian edition of KYE has the Sean Penn remix tacked on the end too, so if I'm not paying attention, I have to listen to it twice.

For what it's worth, I *only just* put THB ahead of GT.

I have absolutely NO idea how you can put lifeblood ahead of KYE. TIMTTMY, maybe (and there's a good example of albums that drag on a bit), but not KYE.

Back on topic - I keep finding new bits of each of the songs on SATT that i can appreciate. Still not as *blow away the whole fucking world* as EMG, but still growing on me (which can only be good).

One thing is that there are parts of it that sound like they belong on LB (TSGD, for example) and don't *quite* seem to fit here for half the song, and then slip in nicely. I'd actually be interested to hear the b-sides (not an easy option over here Downunder).

[Invader Zim]

I really like Lifeblood, it is so underrated it just scary.

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally posted by Invader [email protected] 14, 2007 11:53 am
Leninism, I don't see why you are trying to compare the manics with RHCP. Say what you want about SATT, but when RHCP have released an album anywhere near as good as GT or EMG and begun to rise to the truly towering heights of THB then maybe the comparison will be apt. But at the moment RHCP are not even at sea level.
Ok, The Holy Bible was good, and it's probably a matter of taste, but Californication is in my opinion equally as good, if not better.

I still listen to songs from that album, I don't anymore to The Holy Bible.

For some reason you really rate the Manics way too high than they deserve to be rated. They were good at first, then they started sucking, but even at first they weren't that great. Songs like Motorcycle Emptiness are classics, but please, don't overrate them so much to say stuff like "truly towering heights".

That's like something a person would say about Wish You Were Here, not The Holy Bible.

[Invader Zim]

For some reason you really rate the Manics way too high than they deserve to be rated.

Mate, you rate RHCP, a pop-rock band for 13 year olds who are just getting into rock music. Sorry but I will stick with the cult bands who actually have a degree of intellegence and sing about issues which I care about rather than superficial pop-rock bands.

The lyrics say it all really, the manics popular songs are about class struggle, revolution and the republicans in the Spanish Civil War. What the hell are RHCP's popular songs about? How much they love LA, LA night life, etc. Indeed the only song which I find any relevence in is the title track from Californication, and that is hardly that intellegent as that theme has been done to death by literally hundreds if not thousands of bands and done better. In short RHCP are just another shitty pop-rock act with nothing to them beyond the surface. That is something that cannot be said of the MSP and that is why I like them because they do have something to them. In short I prefer bands with something interesting to say and say it to good music. And as RHCP can produce neither interesting lyrics nor good music, I rate them about the same level, if not below Coldplay. At least Coldplay made Parachutes, which is a better album than anything RHCP have made.

And as for towering heights, The Holy Bible is widely considered by critics and fans alike to be one of the great British cult albums of the 90's and is regularly cited as such.

[seraphim]

The manics have sold out! Don't get me wrong I love them but they've done a song with Charlotte Fucking Church. Now tell me they did that for anything other than commercial reasons! It makes me sick.

[Invader Zim]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 03:36 pm
The manics have sold out! Don't get me wrong I love them but they've done a song with Charlotte Fucking Church. Now tell me they did that for anything other than commercial reasons! It makes me sick.
That is the price of signing to a major record label.

Do you have a problem with them appearing on other shows designed to garner awareness for new releases, shows such as Jools Holland, T4, performing with Tom Jones, TFI Friday, etc?

If you sign to a major record label (and they have been on Sony since GT) then one of the constraints is you have to compromise with them, and that involves TV appearances and sometimes even a reduction in artistic licence.

Accusing the manics of doing things for commercial value is just silly. Nicky Wire for example still lives in the town he grew up in; Blackwood. Also consider that bands like the manics do not make their money through such appearances or even record sales. They make their money through gigs.