Manic Street Preachers
Manic Street Preachers are a Welsh rock band formed in Blackwood, Caerphilly, in 1986. Since 1995, the band has been a three-piece of Nicky Wire and cousins James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore. They form a key part of the 1990s Welsh Cool Cymru cultural movement. The band's early releases were in a punk vein, eventually broadening to a wider alternative rock sound. Their early combination of androgynous glam imagery and lyrics about "culture, alienation, boredom and despair" gained them a loyal following.
As a four-piece with Richey Edwards, the band's first charting single was "Motown Junk" in 1991, followed by their first two albums, Generation Terrorists in 1992 and Gold Against the Soul in 1993. 1994's The Holy Bible was the last album with Edwards, who disappeared in February 1995 and was legally presumed deceased in 2008. After a six-month hiatus, and with the blessing of Edwards' family, the remaining members chose to continue, achieving commercial success with the first post-Edwards album, 1996's Everything Must Go, which reached No. 2 in the UK Albums Chart. The follow-up album, 1998's This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours, reached No. 1.
The Manics have headlined festivals including Glastonbury, T in the Park, V Festival and Reading, winning eleven NME Awards, eight Q Awards and four BRIT Awards. They were nominated for the Mercury Prize in 1996 and 1999, and have had one nomination for the MTV Europe Music Awards. The band have sold more than ten million albums worldwide. All of their albums have made the UK Top 20, with This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours and The Ultra Vivid Lament both reaching No. 1. From 1991 to 2010, they had 34 consecutive Top 40 singles in the UK, including Top 10 hits with "Theme from M.A.S.H ", "A Design for Life", "Everything Must Go", "Kevin Carter", "Australia", their first No. 1 single "If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next", "You Stole the Sun from My Heart", their second No. 1 single "The Masses Against the Classes", "So Why So Sad", "Found That Soul", "There by the Grace of God", "The Love of Richard Nixon", "Empty Souls", "Your Love Alone Is Not Enough" and "Autumnsong".
History
Formation and early years (1986–1990)
Manic Street Preachers formed in 1986 at Oakdale Comprehensive School, Blackwood, South Wales, which all the band members attended. Their first line-up consisted of singer and guitarist James Dean Bradfield, rhythm guitarist Nicky Wire, bassist Miles "Flicker" Woodward, and drummer Sean Moore. Bradfield and the slightly older Moore are cousins and shared bunk beds in the Bradfield family home after Moore's parents divorced. During the band's early years, Bradfield, alongside the classically trained Moore, primarily wrote the music while Wire focused on the lyrics. Some of their earliest performances were held at the Blackwood Miners Welfare Institute in the town. The band's name came from Bradfield's busking when he was 16:Woodward left the band in early 1988, reportedly because he believed that the band were moving away from their punk roots. The band continued as a three-piece, with Wire switching from rhythm guitar to bass, and in 1988 they released their first single, "Suicide Alley". Despite its poor recording quality, this single provides an early insight into both Bradfield's guitar work and Moore's live drumming. NME gave "Suicide Alley" an enthusiastic review, citing a press release by the band's friend Richey James Edwards: "We are as far away from anything in the '80s as possible." In 1989, Edwards, who drove the band to and from gigs, joined the band as rhythm guitarist and co-lyricist alongside Wire. Edwards also designed the record sleeves, artwork and the spray stenciled jumpers the band began wearing, with slogans such as "SUICIDE SOLUTION", "GENERATION TERRORIST", "CULTURE OF DESTRUCTION" and "KILL YOURSELF".
In 1990, Manic Street Preachers signed a deal with label Damaged Goods Records for one EP. The four-track New Art Riot E.P. attracted as much media interest for its attacks on fellow musicians as for the actual music.
"Motown Junk" to ''The Holy Bible'' (1991–1994)
With the help of Hall or Nothing management, the Manics signed to indie label Heavenly Records. The band's first single for the label, "Motown Junk", released in January 1991, gave them their first chart appearance, reaching number 94 on the UK Singles Chart. Their next single, "You Love Us", opened with a sample of Krzysztof Penderecki's "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima", and closed with a sample of Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life". It was during this period that the band, particularly Wire and Edwards, began to adopt an androgynous/glam rock visual aesthetic.On 15 May 1991, during an interview with then-NME journalist Steve Lamacq following a gig at Norwich Arts Centre, Edwards carved the phrase "4REAL" into his arm with a razor blade in a bid to prove the sincerity of the band. He was taken to hospital and received seventeen stitches. NME subsequently ran a full-page story on the incident, including an interview with Edwards on his motivations for doing it. A recording of the editorial meeting discussing whether or not they could publish the photo of Edwards displaying his cutting was included as a B-side on the band's 1992 charity single "Theme from M.A.S.H. ", under the title "Sleeping with the NME". The recording features Lamacq, Danny Kelly, and James Brown. As a result of their controversial behaviour, as well as their penchant for giving scathing critiques of other musicians, the Manics quickly became favourites of the British music press, which helped them build a dedicated following.
In mid-1991, the band signed to Columbia Records/Sony Music UK Their debut album, Generation Terrorists, was released in 1992. The record generated six singles, including a re-recorded version of "You Love Us", and sold 250,000 copies. It reached number 13 in the UK Albums Chart. The liner notes contained a literary quote for each of the album's eighteen songs and the album lasted just over seventy minutes. The album's lyrics are politicised like those of the Clash and Public Enemy, with the songs regularly switching from a critical focus on global capitalism to more personal tales of despair and the struggles of youth. Other tracks combine personal and political themes; "Nat West-Barclays-Midlands-Lloyds" was written as a critique of overseas banking credit policies, but also concerned Edwards' issues involving overdrafts and refused loans. The single "Motorcycle Emptiness" criticises consumerism as a "shallow dream" that makes human life overtly commercialised. "Little Baby Nothing", a duet between Bradfield and former porn actress Traci Lords, was described by Priya Elan of NME as a "perfect snapshot of innocence bodysnatched and twisted". In September 1992, the band released a cover of "Theme from M.A.S.H. " as a charity single in aid of the National Spastics Society, now known as Scope. The single became the band's first Top 10 hit, peaking at number 7 in the UK.
In an interview with Sylvia Patterson for the early April 1992 issue of Smash Hits, Richey Edwards summed up their "two philosophies of life" as "there must be more to life than this" and "it's all fucking bollocks".
The group's second album, 1993's Gold Against the Soul, had a more grunge-influenced sound. It was released to mixed reviews but performed well, reaching number 8 in the UK. The album was produced by Dave Eringa, who had already been an associate of the band for several years. In subsequent years, the band have named Gold Against the Soul as their least favourite album, and have described the period surrounding the album as being the most unfocused of their career. Bradfield said: "All we wanted to do was go under the corporate wing. We thought we could ignore it but you do get affected."
By early 1994, Edwards' mental and physical health difficulties, including anorexia, alcohol abuse, depression and self-harm, became worse. In April and May, the band played concerts in Thailand and Portugal and at a benefit concert for the Anti-Nazi League at Brockwell Park, London. Edwards was habitually cutting himself, and appeared onstage in Bangkok with self-inflicted wounds across his chest. Following their appearance at the Glastonbury Festival in June, Edwards was admitted into The Priory, and the band played a few festivals as a three-piece to pay for his treatment. These appearances included T in the Park in Scotland, the Alte Wartesaal in Cologne, the Parkpop Festival in The Hague and the Reading Festival. During the Reading show, Bradfield played Edwards' black Gibson Les Paul Studio as a mark of respect.
The band's third album, The Holy Bible, was released in August 1994. It received critical acclaim, but sold poorly. The album displayed yet another musical change for the band, marking a shift from the modern rock sound of their first two albums towards alternative rock. The album also incorporates various elements from other musical genres, such as hard rock, British punk, post-punk, new wave, industrial, art rock and gothic rock. Lyrically the album deals with subjects including prostitution, American consumerism, British imperialism, freedom of speech, the Holocaust, serial killers, the death penalty, political revolution, childhood, fascism and suicide. According to Q: "the tone of the album is by turns bleak, angry and resigned". There was also an element of autobiographic subjects, like in the song "4st 7lb" where the lyrics clearly tackle Richey's own experience with anorexia. The song was named after 4 stones 7 pounds, or, because it is the weight below which death is purported to be medically unavoidable.
The title of The Holy Bible was chosen by Edwards to reflect an idea, according to Bradfield, that "everything on there has to be perfection". Interviewed at the end of 1994, Edwards said: "The way religions choose to speak their truth to the public has always been to beat them down I think that if a Holy Bible is true, it should be about the way the world is and that's what I think my lyrics are about. doesn't pretend things don't exist". Although its initial sales were poor, The Holy Bible eventually sold over 600,000 copies worldwide.
The band changed their visual aesthetic during this period, away from androgynous glam and towards an army/military look. A now infamous appearance on Top of the Pops in June 1994, where the band performed "Faster", the first single from The Holy Bible, featured Bradfield wearing a "terrorist-style" balaclava. The band were told by the BBC that the performance had received the most complaints in the BBC's history to that point.
With Edwards out of hospital, the band spent late 1994 on a headline tour of the UK and Ireland and two tours in mainland Europe with Suede and Therapy?. In December, three nights at the London Astoria ended with the band smashing up their equipment and the venue's lighting rig, causing £26,000 worth of damage.