Only ever having owned (i.e. stolen and copied my Mum’s copy of) ‘Forever Delayed’ – Manic Street Preachers’ 2002 greatest hits album – I’ve never actually reeeeally listened to a ‘real’ Manics’ album. I’ve always managed to follow their singles, and have been treated to the familiar sound of my Mum’s FIVE DISC CD player constantly shuffling it’s way through an assortment of their albums every time a new one is released. (She’s been to see them about twenty-something times. Seriously. If you ever go to one of their gigs, she’s the one in the pink feather boa screaming ‘I love you Nicky Wire’ from the back of the crowd somewhere. Yeah. I know…) But I am quite genuinely a fan of the stuff they’ve released, and thought it might be worth seeing whether their album tracks are able to deliver as strongly as their singles do.
After some intense research and indecisiveness, I decided I would give their 1996 album ‘Everything Must Go’ a bit of a whirl. It’s the first album written as a three-piece after the disappearance of guitarist Richey James the year before, and it would be interesting to see how the band presented their fourth album after losing, professionally, their main lyricist, and independently, a very close friend.
However, presumably expected to be a disheartening dedication to Richey James, the band seem to steer themselves away from entering into that vicinity, instead releasing a powerful, almost Brit-poppy sound that doesn’t burden itself with Richey James’ absence. Not that would be a bad thing necessarily. It’s just that it doesn’t do that. Alright!?!
‘Elvis Impersonator: Blackpool Pier’ struck me at first as probably the weakest song on the album, but after giving the track a few more plays and having a read through of the lyrics, it’s actually a really interesting first track. Based around an Elvis impersonator standing on Blackpool Pier, the song delivers a unique and unusual theme (something which many of the tracks on this album, and the Manics’ discography in general, tend to do). The sarcastic delivery of lines such as ‘Fake royalty second hand sequin facade’ gives this song the edge that it needs to keep you interested, touching on the absurdity of an ‘American trilogy in Lancashire pottery’. It’s simultaneously angry, depressing and actually quite funny, and emerged to be a song I grew to quite like.
‘A Design for Life’ enters next as one of the well-established anthems for the working classes during the 90’s. Maybe not quite as reputable as Jarvis Cocker’s ‘Common People’ or Damon Alban’s ‘Parklife’, vocalist James Dean Bradfield states that ‘we are not allowed to spend/as we are told that this is the end’ and that ‘we only wanna get drunk’, giving it enough strength to make this probably the most iconic of the Manics’ singles, and definitely one of their best tracks to be released. Continuing onto another of the Manics’ singles, ‘Kevin Carter’ is notable for being one of the three songs on the album to which the lyrics are attributed to Richey James, written before his disappearance. Lyrically, the song doesn’t say much at all other than making references to Pulitzer Prize winner, Kevin Carter, who (Wikipedia…) killed himself after making worldwide fame following his photograph of a starving African child crawling along the floor as a vulture looks on from the distance. The song is a perfect example of the brilliance of the Manic Street Preacher’s approach to writing. The lyrics don’t need to say too much, as the reference to Kevin Carter alone is enough to portray what they want to say, but are instead focused on being written almost in the form of a poem, with James Dean Bradfield doing nothing to alter the words in order to fit a tune, coercing himself into writing a song around the lyrics so that they can be sung as they are –which makes Richey James’ approach to musical creation highly admirable, and is something I don’t feel Nicky Wire’s songs manage to match quite as well on this album.
‘Enola/Alone’ is a strong fourth track, pretty much just a very ‘Manic-esque’ (I’m gonna start using that phrase as the defining description of pretty much every other track on this album by the way, just to warn you now) sounding song, being both optimistic and pessimistic in it’s lyrical content. ‘But all I want to do is live/No matter how miserable it is’.
Again, we reach another of the album’s classic singles with album title track ‘Everything Must Go’, a Manic-esque song apologising for something. I’m not sure what it is they’re apologising for, but GODDAMN it is it a good song. ‘Small Black Flowers That Grow In the Sky’ again tackles an alternative subject, in that it’s written about animal cruelty. It’s a soft, delicate sounding song that doesn’t really seem to fit in with the rest of the album. I wasn’t a huge fan of this song. It’s alright. I just don’t really see the point in it to be honest. However, it’s then followed by the upbeat, optimistic, Manic-esque track ‘The Girl Who Wanted To Be God’, assuring us that even though ‘There are times when you feel hopeless’, the ‘dawn is still breaking’ and there are always good things to come. Thanks Manics! I feel all good again now after you momentarily brought the mood down! Woo! Yeah!
I don’t really know what ‘Removables’ is about to be quite honest. I had a quick little Google but nobody else really seems to know either. It’s good. I like it. I just really don’t have a fucking clue what it’s about.
‘Australia’ is the fourth Manic-esque single to feature on this album, which again feels very upbeat and happyhappyhappy, but is aaaaactually about feeling fed up with life, and having one of those moments where you just want to get away from it all. ‘I want to fly and run ‘til it hurts/Sleep for a while and speak no words’, before seemingly mocking the use of ‘in Australia’ as people’s common referral to it as the furthest away place that you can go.
‘Interiors (Song for Willem De Kooning) is a Manic-esque song about Alzheimer’s. I think. I did research it. I just can’t remember. HAHAHAHAHAHA only kidding it’s actually an emotionally upsetting, torturous and rather serious disease which we really shouldn’t joke about. Bloody good song though. ‘Further Away’ is also a bloody good song. A Manic-esque track which I think touches on the subject of a dying old man reminiscing about his childhood. It has really good opening lyrics. I won’t put them here. It’s too long. Google it though. I really like them. So do it. NOW!
Final track ‘No Surface All Feeling’ struck me straight away as possibly the best song on this album. The chorus is hellishly strong, (Hellishly?!? I don’t even know where that came from, but boy hickety will I be using it again!) and wraps up the album in a powerful, Manic-esque way.
And so, the answer to ‘are the Manic Street Preachers’ albums as good as their singles?’ is – yes. I guess they are. In that they’re all just very Manic-esque. In fairness, I really enjoyed this album, and it tended to get better the more I listened to it. It’s really worth reading along to some of the lyrics as you listen to get a better understanding of the odd but workable choices of themes in their songs as well. But the only thing I would say (other than the other 1257 words of things that I did say), is that it’s probably only worth listening to this album if you like the Manic Street Preachers, because it is – as pointed out at one point somewhere in this review – a very Manic-esque album. It is a good, powerful and surprisingly upbeat album, but it is also just pretty much what you expect from a Manics’ album. Not that that’s a bad thing at all. I’m just saying. It’s… Manic-esque.
Immediate stand out tracks:
A Design for Life; No Surface All Feeling; Kevin Carter; Enola/Alone; Australia
Link to album:
http://open.spotify.com/user/spillee86/playlist/6gAPAhO5f1VVqnUTIvmXr5
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