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Manic Street Preachers, also known simply as the Manics, are a Welsh rock band formed in Blackwood, Caerphilly, in 1986. The band consists of Nicky Wire (bass guitar, lyrics) and cousins James Dean Bradfield (lead vocals, lead guitar) and Sean Moore (drums, percussion, soundscapes).
- 1986–present
- Miles Woodward, Richey Edwards
- Blackwood, Caerphilly, Wales
Feb 20, 2024 · The official website for Manic Street Preachers. Manic Street Preachers are a Welsh rock band, formed in 1986 in Blackwood, Caerphilly and consisting of cousins James Dean Bradfield (lead vocals, lead guitar), and Sean Moore (drums, percussion, soundscapes), plus Nicky Wire (bass guitar, lyrics).
- A Billion Balconies Facing The Sun
- The Masses Against The Classes
- Sequels of Forgotten Wars
- Comfort Comes
- Divine Youth
- La Tristessa Durera
- Orwellian
- Enola / Alone
- Judge Yr’Self
- Solitude Sometimes Is
Manic Street Preachers were always Guns N’ Roses fans: on A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun, they collaborated with the band’s bassist Duff McKagan. Charmingly perverse as ever, they turned in one of their poppiest latterday melodies, liberally decorated with metal guitar.
The band’s conflicted attitude to mainstream acceptance is given full vent in this Chomsky and Camus-quoting blast of anger that alternately questions and celebrates their recent success in both lyrics and music. With a crowd-pleasing steal from Twist and Shout crashing against raw, dense punk rock, it entered the charts at No 1.
A band surveying a vastly altered musical landscape and wondering where – if anywhere – they fit in after 30 years: “There will be no parades for the likes of us … the callous deception of never giving up.” It is so self-interrogating, it answers its own central question: none of their peers would write something like this.
The Holy Bible’s oppressive racket appeared to come out of nowhere – unless you had noticed the B-side of Life Becoming a Landslide. It’s all there: a dark sound rooted in the angular guitars of post-punk years before the post-punk revival took hold, a claustrophobic atmosphere amplified by the effects that muffle and compress James Dean Bradfield’...
Recent Manics albums have contained a lot of duets – testament to Bradfield’s acknowledgement that his own voice has limitations – but this, featuring Welsh singer-songwriter Georgia Ruth Williams, may be the best: an icy-sounding, echo-swathed but tender meditation on ageing.
If you want to compare the Manics to the Clash – and the early Manics would clearly have been delighted if you did – then Gold Against the Soul is their Give ’Em Enough Rope: an overproduced second album that still contains a handful of potent songs, La Tristessa Durera’s sympathetic depiction of a war veteran among them.
Last year’s The Ultra Vivid Lament – a far more focused album than its predecessor, Resistance Is Futile – was heralded by Orwellian, a despairing survey of 21st-century British life that still feels weirdly uplifting thanks to its tune, which perfectly fulfils the band’s stated remit of “the Clash meets Abba”.
A song provoked by Nicky Wire looking at his wedding photos and seeing both Richey Edwards and the band’s late manager Philip Hall, Enola / Alone sums up Everything Must Go’s winning sound – melodically rich, “uplifting but melancholy” as Wire put it, plus Wire’s glum brand of post-Edwards positivity: “All I want to do is live, no matter how misera...
Intended for Sylvester Stallone’s disastrous Judge Dredd movie, but rejected – perhaps understandably, given that Edwards’s minimal lyrics are clearly about self-harm – Judge Yr’self is the great lost Holy Bible-era Manics track: powerful, taut, relentless, punishing in a way that Mega City One’s chief law enforcer might appreciate. It eventually s...
Synthesiser-heavy, death-fixated, described by Nicky Wire as “a withdrawal”, 2004’s Lifeblood – a relative flop on release – has not been given the deluxe reissue treatment afforded most Manics albums. But it deserves reconsidering: beneath its smooth sheen lurk some fabulous songs, as evidenced by the utterly downcast loveliness of Solitude Someti...
- 4 min
- Alexis Petridis
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Manic Street Preachers. @Manicstv ‧. ‧. 118K subscribers ‧ 23 videos. The 20th Anniversary edition of the Manics' seventh studio album ‘Lifeblood’ is OUT NOW. manicstreetpreachers.com ...
Sep 10, 2021 · 10 September 2021. By Paul Glynn,Entertainment & arts reporter. Alex Lake. The Manic Street Preachers are Nicky Wire (centre), James Dean Bradfield (left) and Sean Moore. The Manic Street...
Sep 10, 2021 · 11 September 2021. Alex Lake. The Manic Street Preachers are Nicky Wire (centre), James Dean Bradfield (left) and Sean Moore. By Paul Glynn. Entertainment & arts reporter. The Manic...
Manic Street Preachers. 302,497 likes · 656 talking about this. ‘Lifeblood’ 20th Anniversary Edition - OUT NOW Buy/Stream/Download: ManicStreetPreachers.lnk.to/Lifeblood20
