MANIC STREET PREACHERS Best Album Poll

Last time I listened to TIMTTMY, the songs seemed to go on for at least 2 minutes too long. Great tunes, but knock a verse/chorus off.

The problem isn't with the length of the songs, more the songs themselves... it doesn't help that the album has a really samey sounding production throughout, either, and that (combined with the slower tempos) is what really makes it a slog.

It could be the production. Feels like most of the songs do what they need to within the 2-3 minute mark and then continue on with very little variation for another 2-3 minutes. The Everlasting is pretty but it lives up to its name. Think I remember an short article in Select at the time talking about how single run-times were getting longer. The late-90s were definitely a time for that.

I need to give Lifeblood another try; I wonder what brad would think of it. "I Live to Fall Asleep" is the most sophisti-pop they ever got, along with "Black Dog On My Shoulder."

i've been meaning to listen to lifeblood for yearrrs. maybe i'll do it today

meanwhile out of morbid curiosity I will listen to its 16 (!) b-sides

oh btw i have investigated since this thread was last bumped and i really love lifeblood

the most recent two albums are both fantastic

Yesssss

New album again before long apparently

that's great bc the world has taken the shape of a manic street preachers album

Haha yeah the line about "misguided tweets" was mocked but seems prophetic now

there's so much sad facebooking!

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/trip-ticks-1/

libraries gave us power
then work came and made us free

futurology is ridiculously good imo

oh yeah I forgot to report on those 16 Lifeblood b-sides

they were mostly quite bad

that's great bc the world has taken the shape of a manic street preachers album

― who is extremely unqualified to review this pop album (BradNelson), Thursday, January 19, 2017 8:23 PM (one month ago)

last time i heard archives of pain i felt a bit creeped out to realize that two of the ppl mentioned in the chorus (zhirinovsky, le pen) had endorsed DJT

woah

It seems that the older I get, the more ridiculous this band seem to become.

I find the lyrics of archives of pain pretty disgusting already

Futurology has grown on me to the point where it's now one of my favourite things they've ever done. That and Journal For Plague Lovers are essentially my two go-to Manics albums these days. I no longer listen to any of the first three.

I've always felt like a very atypical Manics fan for naming Gold Against The Soul as my favourite album of theirs, one of my best friends tends to joke that I usually go against the consensus and it's mainly based on this. I'm actually very surprised to see how many votes it got here!
(My atypical Manics love goes somewhat futher though: apart from favouring GATS, two Manics singles I really don't like all that much are Faster and Your Love Alone Is Not Enough - both are massive fan favourites. Oh and I like Lifeblood a lot.)

That said, since Futurology I'm not sure anymore which of the two I really think is their best. Futurology is amazing throughout, it keeps throwing awesomeness at my ears.

I'd name Gold Against the Soul as my personal favourite of the first three too, tbh. These days, though, I'm pretty much all about their work from Everything Must Go onwards, even one or two of those albums aren't great.

GATS has some p weak moments but the highlights hold up far better for me than most of GT, which i find v hard to stomach now apart from "motorcycle." much prefer the earlier versions of "you love us" and "tennessee."

GT obviously has some great songs but it sounds like shit and my god is it a slog

otm

"Sounds like shit" is a bit harsh... some tracks suit the production, such as 'Natwest-Barclays-Midlands-Lloyds', and others would have been better if they'd been produced more like the stuff they did for Heavenly. The problem that I have with the debut is that they didn't have enough great material for a double album. There's about 10-11 tracks on there that still hold up, but I'm not likely to dig out as often these days because I've heard it too much and the later Manics stuff sounds fresher to me.

rerecordings are usually a dumb cash-in but I would listen the hell out of an album consisting of new recordings of their 10-12 best songs from that era

Yeah, I would too.

I've got to say, sometimes when I think about the Manics' discography, I'm a little impressed - they've made tons of albums and explored as many different approaches to their sound as possible while still sounding like themselves. I just wish I didn't sometimes find their lyrics cringeworthy.

It's amazing how many of their fans still act as if the Manics are all leopard print and eyeliner when that phase of the band lasted barely a couple of years.

I'd rank the "three piece" records like this:

Everything Must Go
Journal For Plague Lovers
Futurology
Lifeblood
Send Away The Tigers
Rewind The Film
Know Your Enemy
Postcards From A Young Man
This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours

Journal for Plague Lovers is a mother of a rock record. I played that to death when it came out.

The problem I have with (relatively) recent Manics is that often Wire's lyrics are so howlingly bad, they kill entire songs stone dead. Lifeblood and (obviously) Plague Lovers being exceptions. Half of Tigers is OK, but the bad half is so appalling that I can only ever think of it as their worst album overall

I agree, although I try to ignore the lyrics when listening to this band in general. Richey's lyrics could be howlingly bad too, just in a different way. There's plenty of stuff on the first three LP's that's atrocious and/or really silly.

I listened to William's Last Words a bunch today. Mostly the Underworld remix, which I prefer, but the lyrics are pretty good on that one.

Indeed, but about two thirds of a page of nonsense had to be cut out to get the lyric down to that.

Turrican's ranking matches my own fairly well. I think I'd swap Futurology with Everything Must Go for 1st/3rd spot & I think I'd put Know Your Enemy a little bit higher. KYE is messy and would have been better with less songs on it, but there's some really great stuff on it.

I usually don't dislike their lyrics but like PaulTMA I'm also divided on Tigers, I think half of it is great (Indian Summer and the last three songs especially - Imperial Bodybags wouldn't have been out of place on Gold Against The Soul!), half not so much.

This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours is the only album I think is pretty bad. It bores me, there's too much drone on it and not enough energy to make up for it. Few songs from that album are highlights.

Postcards also feels like it's somewhat autopilot & overall not too overwhelming, although it gets massive bonus points from me for the guest appearance from my all-time favourite singer Ian McCulloch.

I decided to order the 5 manics albums I never bothered with on CD from amazon marketplace really cheap as after Know Your Enemy (which i loved at the time, indeed saw them both nights at the barras on that tour) I never bought any bar Journal. All based on turricans rankings of a few being better than KYE and even the rest as being better than timttmy. The completest in me needed them.

I only really ever listen to the first three though unlike him. So it will be nice rediscovering them. (I listened to them on spotify or whateever when theb came out.)

Is it worth looking for a deluxe CD issue of generation terrorists? I already own the og CD, LP and Pic Disc( i passed up the CD pic disc version in Missing Records instead of the vinyl one at the time)

I wish gold against the soul would get the vinyl treatment as I bought the 'Gold' CD at the time.

It's clear that this band are really at their best when they try to please themselves instead of the masses or Cult of Richey dickheads.

i didn't know what to expect w/Futurology when my brother insisted i check it out, but it's great, just an excellent rock album.

This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours is the only album I think is pretty bad. It bores me, there's too much drone on it and not enough energy to make up for it. Few songs from that album are highlights.

To say I was disappointed with this album when it first came out is an understatement - I like some of it more now than I did at the time, but it's still my least favourite album of theirs.

'If You Tolerate This...', 'Black Dog On My Shoulder' and 'Tsunami' are my three favourites on that one.

I have the exact same favourites from TIMTTMY! 'You're Tender And You're Tired' is quite alright and 'Born A Girl' is pretty. I also like 'The Everlasting' but I already think the album starts off in a bad way with two ballads, even if both are good.
The rest, I find mostly pretty dull. 'I'm Not Working' is the best example of why that album is Not Working for me.

TIMTTMY sounds like the work of a seriously depressed band, which I think is what makes it so divisive. "I'm Not Working," "Be Natural" and "SYMM" are the most obvious examples of this - pure spaced-out directionless bloat with no sense of purpose. (I like all of these qualities but I can understand why people don't go to the Manics for them.)

'S.Y.M.M.' has some neat chord changes, but it has an awful set of lyrics and the chorus is dreadful. A bit of a cop out not calling it 'South Yorkshire Mass Murderer', which is what it was originally written as.

It's hilarious and strange in retrospect that local police took apparently issue w/ the song (before they heard it, I can only assume) since the lyrics are basically just one long shrug, it sounds like Bradfield was forced to make them up on the spot

I hate the everlasting. Always hated it when played live too

I liked 'The Everlasting' the first time I heard it, but every subsequent listen has been a slog and it's their worst album opener precisely for this reason. Another neat set of chord changes, though.

'S.Y.M.M.' is more about trying and failing to write about something, rather than what the song is supposed to be about. The lyric is one huge cop out with added excuses.

Another weird thing about that album is how openly virtuosic JDB's guitar-playing is throughout compared to a lot of their other material - those elaborate leads and solos on "My Little Empire," "Black Dog...," etc. Most of their albums since have been comparatively power-chord heavy for the most part.

I'm looking at the tracklisting on the back of my copy of This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours and it's actually incredible how much this is making me not feel like listening to it.

I always felt SYMM should have been an instrumental, save for the 'chorus' lyrics. Not attempting to lyrically address the enormous subject, just to make a statement. I don't mind the music at all, but those verses are just abysmal.

This thread is making me remember how great Tsunami is. For that reason alone, TIMT can never be my least favourite.

All of their albums have great stuff on 'em, though. Just so happens that This Is My Truth... has the least amount of great stuff.

Yes, SYMM as an instrumental except for the chorus, that would have been much, much better. When I was 18 I thought they were being clever by (more or less) putting in words that there actually are no words for something so vile. But I grew to dislike those verses quite a bit, "trying and failing to write" sounds like an appropriate assessment.

I'm reminded of the last time I saw them live, James sat down with an acoustic guitar for a couple of songs solo. First, 'A Sudden Welsh Heart'. He then told the audience that he would give us three options and he'd play the one for which we'd cheer the most:
1. Life Becoming A Landslide
2. Small Black Flowers That Grow In The Sky
3. The Everlasting
Of course, how this goes is that the cheering increased in order, so it came down to The Everlasting. I -do- like that song, but I was incredibly disappointed, it was the least interesting thing for him to play by far.