MANIC STREET PREACHERS Best Album Poll

I think that's the order I'd rank them.

Suits me too.

Huge number of votes!

It was a lot, yes. I knew there was secret manics fans on ILM!

i guess i'm meant to vote for the holy bible or emg, but generation terrorists is the one i totally fell for at the time, so, that.

― CharlieNo4, Monday, 1 September 2008 14:35 (1 month ago)

As an addendum to this, I've just been reminded that my version of GT is the US release, with (I think) a substantially different track listing/order. Yes, Wiki agrees with me at least.

I've actually never knowingly heard the UK version, and I'm wondering if my perception of the Manics would have been substantially different had I done so. I understand the US version removed all the vocal snippets and some potentially contentious songs, so what am I actually missing out on? Should I invest, after all this time?

I've also still got the longbox my CD came in, which I suppose makes it collectible nowadays - no examples on eBay for comparison purposes, sadly.

http://theloveof.atspace.com/US-GT-longbox.gif

You should buy it, yes.

I have the pic disk of GT and i always wish i had picked up the reissued ltd pic cd that came out a few months later (probably after Motorcycle Emptiness was a hit). It sat in (the original) Missing Records in Glasgow for about a year at £9.99.

Send Away The Tigers really was a decent album. Maybe the new one will be better than could be expected.

Gold Against The Soul deserves a deluxe reissue.

Also last week people were surprised the Manics were so high in a revived ILM albums of all time poll, so this poll proves there's still LOADS of manics fans around.

there aren't many polls get 121 votes

Sometimes lurkers turn out in droves for polls

LOADS of manics fans around.

Not in America. They're completely obscure here, which is surprising because we like big stadium anthems. I always thought somebody should cover A Design For Life on American Idol. That would help.

didn't see the poll in time to vote but would have gone for holy bible, because the north american version of said album netted me $450 on ebay when i sold it in 2002

daaaaaaaaamn. that's for sure the right time to cash in.

holy shit!

Would have voted for Gold Against the Soul.

a) how'd I miss a Manics thread b)Lifeblood is totally underrated

nah Lifeblood was very poor apart from the opening track.

i only have 'everything must go' and it hasn't encouraged me to discover anything else by this band. it's the epitome of a record that leaves me cold. the music seems to reflect the frumpy cover art - the vocals are bland, the delivery clumsy, the songwriting pedestrian, and there's a general sluggishness to the songs that prevents them from assuming the anthem-like grandeur that was so obviously intended. not particularly bad, just really mundane.

"everything must go" is possibly my least fave (up until "this is my truth" after which I paid no attention) for all the reasons you mention charlie. i like "this is my truth" but each song goes on a bit too long and doesn't really go anywhere after the initial verse and chorus.

http://noisey.vice.com/blog/rank-your-records-manic-street-preachers

"There are some crimes on this album, undoubtedly."

This interview's been around awhile but I am just reading it for the first time. JDB surely one of the few rock songwriters who calls out one of his own albums for being "too rockist."

I've been relistening to some of the old albums since I found a trove of them cheap recently - I often wonder if people who think the debut is so great have tried relistening to it in its entirety. It cries out for a real drummer and a severe edit. (It's crazy how they went from a drum machine in '92 to Sean Moore's beastly work in '96.)

There is a pretty decent album inside KYE if you ditch "My Guernica," "Wattsville Blues," "Miss Europa Disco Dancer" and "Baby Elian" (surely their most short-sighted attempt to be timely). I like to think of it as their Machina - overlong, questionably produced, following up their divisive melancholic turn with a strained "return to rawk" style, complete with a blustery first single touring resurrection in the lyrics ("Found That Soul" vs. "The Everlasting Gaze").

Lastly, Everything Must Go is a much weirder album than I remembered. Blackly bittersweet but with a million coats of polish. Insane how productive they were then - must have been 30+ polished songs out of those sessions.

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." So anyway, still my favorite band ever

Even though I know the Holy Bible is the best, This Is My Truth is the one that came out at the right moment for me.

Everything Must Go and Journal For Plague Lovers are the only Manics albums I still listen to regularly in full, and I have more time for Gold Against The Soul and Lifeblood than most people.

I've listened to both Generation Terrorists and This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours in the last couple of days - the former I thought was mostly horrendous, and the latter I found as utterly boring as I did on release. I haven't felt the urge to listen to The Holy Bible or Know Your Enemy in years, and Send Away The Tigers, Postcards From A Young Man, Rewind The Film and Futurology, I think I only gave a couple of spins to and haven't heard them since.

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.