Bear Hands comprises Dylan Rau, Val Loper, Ted Feldman, and TJ Orscher, and comes from Brooklyn, New York. Wikipedia calls them a post-punk and indie-rock band. They've been active since 2006 (god help us all), and have three EPs: Golden (2007), High Society (2011), Songs from Utopia Vol. 1 (2012) and an album: Burning Bush Supper Club (2010).
Seeing them live was the worst musical experience of my life, and I can't believe their single is called What A Drag, I just can't even. Here's a video. I watched it so you don't have to.
I MEAN REALLY.
Now that I feel thoroughly unclean...
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE MANIC STREET PREACHERS.
Colloquially known as the Manics, the band hails from Blackwood, Wales, and they're damn proud of their Welsh heritage. They formed in 1986 as a four-piece consisting of James Dean Bradfield (lead vocals, guitar), Nicky Wire (bass, primary lyricist, occasional vocals), Sean Moore (drums, percussion, trumpet), and Miles "Flicker" Woodward (bass) in 1986. Flicker left the band in 1988. The band released their first single, Suicide Alley in 1989; Richey Edwards joined the band on guitar and as a lyricist.
Suicide Alley is magnificent, and it is remarkable that it is their first single; it doesn't seem immature or unsure of itself. It is confident and graceful, and it shows traces of the anthems that will become staples of their catalogue. It is youthful, though: you won't eat at my mind with your ideas of decency/I'll be in suicide alley being who and what I want to be.
Here is Suicide Alley performed at their homecoming gig in Blackwood, Wales in 2011, live for the first time in twenty-five years. Fucking amazing:
Gotta love the strong language disclaimer.
For Heavenly Records, they recorded the amazing single Motown Junk: twenty-one years of living and nothing means anything to me, released in 1991. It heralds the anger of Generation Terrorists, and the political nature of the songs of the same album. It sounds more youthful than any of their other releases, but not immature.
Here is the video, performed at Lokerse Festival 2009 with a little bit of Stop! In the Name of Love at the beginning:
We now come to a notorious incident in Manics history. In an interview with NME journalist Steve Lamacq, Richey Edwards sliced the words "4 REAL" into his arm with a razor blade that he had, you know, just been carrying around. He did this, the story goes, to show that the band was serious and sincere about their work, not just a few pretty faces with instruments and incendiary lyrics. And yes, people did sit up and take notice -- they gained publicity, yes, and shortly after were signed to Columbia Records, a much more major label than their previous, Heavenly Records.
On the Columbia label, they released their 1992 debut album, Generation Terrorists. This is an album with anger; it is very political in nature. It received mostly positive reviews, sold quite well, and is still considered to be one of their best albums.
Their next single was the 1991 anthem You Love Us, which they still use often use as a closer for their live shows. Ask any Manixfan about the pointy-shout, they'll reference that song. It is still one of the band's most popular anthems, and highlights the band's confidence/over-confidence in themselves. We're not your sinners/our voices are for real/we realised and won't be mourned/we're gonna burn your death mask uniforms. Confident, political, self-assured. It has held up extremely well.
Here it is performed to great effect at Reading Festival in 1992:
Stay Beautiful, released in 1991, is wonderfully angry: it has a chorus of why don't you just ____, and during live performances, the audience fills in the blank with the obvious FUCK OFF. It is angry and harsh, and critical of the established norms, as so many Manics songs were and will be -- love your masks and adore your failure and deny your culture of consumption/this is a culture of destruction. The violence and hope in this song is soul-destroying.
Here is a video of them playing it live at the Clapham Grand in 1994. The video quality is pretty shit, but I wanted you to see the audience participation:
Love's Sweet Exile, also released in 1991, is a bit more challenging. There is a Camus quote at the beginning of the video: "Then came human beings, they wanted to cling but there was nothing to cling to". It is that sentiment of despair that permeates the song, despite the relatively upbeat music. It is somewhat of a departure from their other Generation Terrorists songs -- it is political in nature, and the rage is in the lyrics, but it is not sung angrily. It almost sounds hopeful in tone, but the contrast between lyrics and the song itself is striking. Between the billboard masturbation across highways of metallic isolation/there lies the deafening screaming of the millions wiping out the diseased pages of apathy that bleed our innocence.
Here is the official, beloved video:
1992 brought the release of four singles: Slash 'n' Burn, Motorcycle Emptiness, Suicide Is Painless, and Little Baby Nothing.
I still feel like the opening chords of 1992's Slash 'n' Burn are some of the most powerful that the Manics have created, and that's in a catalogue that is full of anthemic openers. This is a HIGHLY political song. Drain your blood and let the Exxon spill in/look around here, you see nothing is very real/chained to economy now famine has been.
Here is the official video:
Ah, Motorcycle Emptiness, released in 1992. This is still their favoured opener. When I introduced my boyfriend to the Manics, I surveyed a group of Manixfans as to what song should be the first he listened to, and this was the overwhelming response. I do think it is a good place to start. It is an anthem, undoubtedly. It's another one to sing along to. From the very first words: culture sucks down words/itemise loathing and feed yourself smiles/ organise your safe tribal war/hurt maim kill and enslave the ghetto to the chorus under neon loneliness motorcycle emptiness, this song GRABS you, and doesn't let go. If the Manics have ever created a perfect song, this is it.
ALL WE WANT FROM YOU ARE THE KICKS YOU'VE GIVEN US.
Have the official video:
Suicide Is Painless, being a cover of the theme from M.A.S.H., is a good cover. It was also their first UK top 10 hit, reaching the charts in 1992. I wouldn't call it remarkable, particularly, but it certainly has a Manics feel to it - it has some under the surface rage, and of course the same political nature as many of the other Generation Terrorist singles.
Let's have the official video:
Little Baby Nothing came next, also in 1992. This features Traci Lords on vocals and in the video. The music video is actually an amazing commentary on various aspects of womanhood; it might be their best video. The song is another staple of their live performances, and for a reason. It's somewhat of an anthem, and very easy to sing along to. It sounds perky, but the lyrics are anything but: no one likes looking at you/your lack of ego offends male mentality/they need your innocence/to steal vacant love and to destroy/your beauty and virginity used like toys. Traci's performance is dead-on, and it's funny that performance is the word that came to mind when that's really one of the main concepts behind the video. The song itself is hard not to love, and strangely catchy.
Here's the official video:
Following this, the band released the album Gold Against The Soul in 1993. Until recently, this was my favourite Manics album, but reviews at the time were mixed. It did reach #8 in the UK album charts. It contrasts quite markedly with Generation Terrorists. The lyrics are significantly less political, and much more introspective and melancholic. Darker -- at least a beaten dog knows how to lie.
Four singles were released: From Despair To Where, La Tristesse Durera (Scream To A Sigh), Roses In The Hospital and Life Becoming A Landslide.
I write this alone in my bed/I've poisoned every room in the house. Yep, still have to sing-scream it every time. This might sound weird, but 1993's From Despair To Where might be the most dance-y of the Manics' singles. It's another where the lyrics are so depressing -- outside open-mouthed crowds/pass each other as if they're drugged -- but the music does not match at all. The song WORKS so well as a whole, maybe because of the contrast, but the dissonance is striking.
Here's a link to it being performed in Los Angeles in 2009.
La tristesse durera/scream to a pi-i-iee. Now that that's out of the way....La Tristesse Durera (Scream to A Sigh), released in 1993-- I'm sorry, I found a video of this set to clips from Robocop and nothing makes sense anymore:
Roses In The Hospital, released in 1993 is a great song. God, I still can't get over that Robocop thing. Roses in the hospital/stub cigarettes out on my arm/roses in the hospital/want to feel something of value. This song is devastating, actually. WE DON'T WANT YOUR FUCKING LOVE.
The equally devastating official video won't embed, so have a link.
1993's Life Becoming A Landslide is a song that I find achingly beautiful. The lyrics actually hurt. My idea of love comes from/a childhood glimpse at pornography/but there is no true love/just a finely tuned jealousy. The music is so poignant, and the whole thing is just heartbreaking. It's hard to listen to at times.
Have a link to the official video, which won't embed.
We now come to the album generally regarded as the Manics' masterpiece, The Holy Bible, released in 1994. Although it was received extremely well by critics, it did not sell terribly well. Thanks, assholes. (It did reach #6 in the UK album charts, to be fair.) For the most part, their early political anger has all but vanished, and the album is introspective and often very sad. Knowing, when you do, what happens next, the album becomes even more heartbreaking and devastating.
Richey Edwards had been struggling with mental illness, including self-harm and eating disorders. He had spent time in The Priory, a mental health facility, in 1994. It hadn't helped, not enough, and on February 1st, 1995, Richey Edwards disappeared. He had withdrawn £200 from his bank account each day prior to his disappearance. His car was later found abandoned near the Severn Bridge, a spot notorious for suicides, but those closest to him have never believed that he committed suicide, and he himself had stated that it "does not enter [his] mind". The band continued to set aside a portion of their royalties for him, and his family did not have him declared presumed dead until 2008.
So The Holy Bible is intense.
It was released in 1994, and three singles followed: Faster, Revol, and She Is Suffering.
Faster, released in 1994, hearkens back to the anger of Generation Terrorists, although without the political statement. When James sings I am stronger than Mensa, Miller and Mailer, I spat out Plath and Pinter, he really does spit it out. There is an intensity to this song.
Here they are performing it at Glastonbury Festival in 1994, with James in his infamous balaclava; when he wore it on the Top of the Pops, it had prompted a huge number of complaints:
Revol is actually kind of a fun song: Mr. Lenin - awaken the boy/Mr. Stalin - bisexual epoch/Kruschev - self love in his mirrors/Brezhnev - married into group sex/Gorbachev - celibate self importance/Yeltsin - failure is his own impotence. Come on, who wouldn't love a song about the (totally made-up, presumably) sexual proclivities of Russian leaders? Between that and the cheery REVOL of the chorus, it's just kind of a feel-good song, if that's not weird to say. Maybe it's because of the music. Yeah, we'll go with that.
Have a video of them doing Revol as a three-piece at Reading 1994, the year it was released, while Richey was hospitalised:
She Is Suffering (1994) is a painful, painful song. You can hear Richey hurting throughout it, possibly more than in almost any other song on The Holy Bible. There are times on the album when the whole band seems to ache, and this is one of them. A vine that can strangle life from a tree/carrion, surrounding, picking on leaves. Sounds almost like it's talking about how mental illness feeds on itself and those around it, no?
Because I hate you, here is She Is Suffering (acoustic) together with 4st 7lbs, also off of The Holy Bible. This will break you:
Their next album, Everything Must Go, was released in 1996, and hit #2 on the UK album charts. It received positive reviews. It is much more commercial than The Holy Bible, or indeed than any of their previous releases. It does mark a return to lyrics of a more political nature, but the songs themselves sound more upbeat and perhaps less angry, for the most part. Four singles were released: A Design For Life, Everything Must Go, Kevin Carter, and Australia.
A Design For Life, released in 1996, is triumphant, still a concert staple. From its very beginning: libraries gave us power/then work came and made us free/what price now/for a shallow piece of dignity to the chorus of we don't talk about love/we only want to get drunk/and we are not allowed to spend/as we are told that this is the end to the repetitions of a design for life, it is wonderfully powerful.
Here it is from their Leaving The 20th Century DVD, complete with Nicky smashing his bass at the end:
Everything Must Go, also released in 1996, is somewhat less of an anthem, but no less of a song. Freed from the memory/escape from our history (history) and I look to the future, it makes me cry/but it seems too real to tell you why. It seems representative of how the Manics were trying to regroup as a band without Richey.
Here's the Chemical Brothers' remix, from the Gran Turismo OST:
I hate talking about 1996's Kevin Carter. It's not a bad song. The lyrics are powerful -- hi Time magazine, hi Pulitzer Prize/tribal scars in technicolour/bang bang club AK47 hour -- and there's nothing wrong with the song itself; the trumpet is great. It just never comes together for me.
And here it is performed on TFI Friday in 1996
1996's Australia tries to be an anthem, and doesn't succeed. We all have failures, right? I want to fly and run until it hurts/sleep for a while and speak no words in Australia. It's not as adventurous as their other work, maybe. It's just not exciting, and I wish it was.
Let's have them playing it in Melbourne, Australia, in 2010:
In 1998, they released This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours. They call this their most commercial album, and in a way, that's true. It gave them a #1 single, If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next, and is less complicated emotionally and politically than their earlier works. It was reasonably well-received by critics. Aside from If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next, it doesn't really have anthems, but it has solid rock songs. They released four singles from it: If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next, The Everlasting, You Stole the Sun From My Heart, and Tsunami.
If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next was released in 1998, and debuted at #1. It's another concert staple, and with good reason: it is an anthem that has stood up well. From the first lines: the future teaches you to be alone/the present to be afraid and cold/so if I can shoot rabbits/then I can shoot fascists, it's chilling. It's also good to scream along to: AND IF YOU TOLERATE THIS, THEN YOUR CHILDREN WILL BE NEXT, WILL BE NEXT, WILL BE NEXT, WILL BE NEXT.
Here's an in-studio version from the Leaving the 20th Century DVD:
The Everlasting was also released in 1998. It is quieter, more introspective, more melancholy again. Still very far from The Holy Bible, but also very far from the triumphant anthems on Everything Must Go and some parts of This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours. In the beginning/when we were winning/when our smiles were genuine/now unforgiven/the everlasting/everlasting. It's aching.
Here is James doing an acoustic version at the iTunes Festival in 2011:
In 1999, they released You Stole The Sun From My Heart. But there's no - no real truce with my fury/you don't have to believe me/I love you all the same. Not really a love song -- they don't write love songs -- but it breaks your heart slowly like a good one all the same. Haven't you ever wanted to tell someone that they stole the sun from your heart? It's a great image.
Here's James with an acoustic version at UEA Norwich in 2010:
Tsunami, tsunami came washing over me... Released in 1999, Tsunami starts violently: for you my dear sister/holding onto me forever/disco dancing with the rapists/your only crime is silence, and continues to overwhelm you with emotion -- cry into my drink, I disappear. It is taut and tense.
Here they are performing it on Later with Jools Holland:
They next released the non-album single The Masses Against The Classes. It hit #1 on the UK charts in 2000. This is an amazing song. We're tired of giving a reason/when the future is what we believe in/we love the winter/it brings us closer together. I'm not sure why it isn't a part of their live catalogue more often -- it's dance-y, and very easy to sing-shout along to. It's almost peppy. Hello it's us again/we're still so in love with you. I can't help it, I love this song.
Here it is, from Pinkpop 2001.
FUN FACT: In 2001, they played in Cuba, the first major non-Communist act to do so. They met with Castro, and released a DVD of the whole deal entitled Louder Than War.
Their next album, released in 2001, is called Know Your Enemy. It has some good songs on it, but is overall their weakest album, and was critically received as such, for the most part. It did make the top 20 albums in the UK charts. It gave them four singles: So Why So Sad, Found That Soul, Ocean Spray, and Let Robeson Sing.
So Why So Sad (2001) is a decent song. It has good music, and mediocre lyrics. So why so sad/you live and you love/so why so sad/dependent on above/searchin' for the dead sea scrolls.
Official music video:
Found That Soul was released on the same day as So Why So Sad in 2001. It's mediocre at best. Sick and pale but strangely alive. Yep, sounds about right.
Here it is, played in Cuba:
Ocean Spray, also released in 2001, marks the first time that James wrote the lyrics by himself. It's easy to see, it's easy to see/to see only white where colour should be. Okay, that's fine. Then we get to oh, please stay awake, and then we can drink some Ocean Spray. Now, I feel bad for mocking that when it's (as Wiki says) inspired by James taking that drink to his mother while she was in the hospital dying of cancer. But come on.
Here's the official video:
Thank god for 2001's Let Robeson Sing . It's not quite an anthem, but it's getting back to those roots. Can anyone make a difference anymore/can anyone write a protest song? It's powerful. It's a fitting tribute to Paul Robeson. I gotta learn to live like you/learn to sing like you. I can't really do this song justice. It might be their best piece of social/political commentary. Sing it loud, sing it proud, always.
Here is the (wonderful) official video:
There By The Grace Of God, a non-album single, was released in 2002 to accompany the release of their greatest hits album entitled Forever Delayed. It feels out of place when you look at their discography chronologically -- significantly better than anything on Know Your Enemy (with the notable exception of Let Robeson Sing), and not belonging with the songs off of Lifeblood, which would be their next album. With grace we will suffer/with grace we will recover/there by the grace of god/there by the grace of god. It's a pretty song, peaceful, almost, definitely melancholy; it's just hard to place.
Here they are performing it on Top of the Pops in 2002:
Now we're onto the album Lifeblood, released in 2004 to mixed critical reviews, and poor chart reception, reaching #13 on the UK album charts. It marked a departure in both style and tone from their earlier albums. The sound is more mellow, often softer, and the lyrics are much more personal in nature, even including one (Cardiff Afterlife) about Richey. Only two singles were released from this album: The Love Of Richard Nixon and Empty Souls.
The Love Of Richard Nixon is political, although not angrily so like their earlier works. The fear of the future/the best years behind you/the world is getting older/the times they fall behind you. So, introspective, melancholy, and political; a mixed bag of the Manics' favoured sentiments.
Here they are performing it on Later, from 2004:
2005 brought the release of Empty Souls. This contains the controversial lyric "collapsing like the Twin Towers", but is otherwise just kind of...sad, really, sad. Empty souls will leave their homes/to find a place where they're alone/rattling memories and hollow bones/leaves a taste so bitter and cold. It sometimes sounds quite dark.
Here's a video of them performing it in Japan in 2005:
Send Away The Tigers was released in 2007 to mainly positive reviews, and a peak chart position of #2. It is more of a return to their rock anthem roots. It's a solid album, but not a great one. Three singles came off of it: Your Love Alone Is Not Enough, Autumnsong, and Indian Summer.
Your Love Alone Is Not Enough carries weak echoes of their earlier anthems, such as If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next. It's a good, solid rock song, and the joint lead vocals of James with Nina Persson work so incredibly well together that they pick up what might otherwise be a weak song. But your love alone won't save the world/you knew the secret of the universe/despite it all you made it worse/it left you lonely, it left you cursed.
Here's the 2007 official video:
2007's Autumnsong is one that I've always liked, and most people I know have always hated. I agree that it's not a particularly strong song, musically, but I like the lyrics: wear your love like it is made of hate/born to destroy, and born to create. Haters to the left.
Here's a nice live version for you, from the Roundhouse, London, in 2011:
Indian Summer is weak musically and lyrically. I guess we'll have to test, until there's nothing left/we said the truth was fixed, it's lost without a trace. It's passable, just not good.
Here's the official video, from 2007:
Their next album was 2009's Journal For Plague Lovers.On a factual level, this comprises probably the last of Richey's lyrics. Before he disappeared, he left copies of files containing lyrics, notes, thoughts with each of James, Nicky, and Sean. With Journal For Plague Lovers, the Manics had decided they were finally ready to use them. They created an album with thirteen tracks, no singles. It was critically acclaimed, and reached #3 on the UK album charts. There was some controversy, as the cover art by Jenny Saville (who also did the cover art for The Holy Bible) was deemed too graphic by UK supermarkets, forcing them to sell it in a plain white cover. Fucking idiots.
This is too graphic for UK supermarkets:
After the emotional devastation of Journal For Plague Lovers, the Manics presented us with Postcards From A Young Man. Anything would be a let-down after Journal For Plague Lovers, and the Manics had very intentionally gone off in a very different direction on it. Nicky infamously said that it was "one last shot at mass communication". The album was received well critically, and reached #3 on the UK albums chart. James had said that they were "going for big radio hits", and they found them in the singles: (It's Not War) Just The End Of Love, Some Kind Of Nothingness, and Postcards From A Young Man.
(It's Not War) Just The End Of Love is another anthem, meant to be sung along to at their concerts. You fight your war, I fought for my life/you pay your dues and I will pay mine and the chorus you can scream along with it's not war, just the end of love/just like before, but it's never enough. It's actually great. Loud, emotional, but also kind of fun.
Here they are performing it at the Positivus Festival in 2012, two years after its 2010 release:
Some Kind Of Nothingness, also released in 2010, features Ian McCullouch. It contrasts with the other two singles from Postcards From A Young Man in that it is less sweeping, much more melancholy, more gentle. Remember you stretched out in the sun/all alone forever, conclusions foregone/will you find some kind of nothingness/still and lonely like an old school photograph.
Here is the official video:
2011's Postcards From A Young Man is another anthem, another concert staple. It is powerful, and sort of...rocks you from the opening. I don't believe in absolutes anymore/I'm quite prepared to admit I was wrong/this life, it sucks your principles away/you have to fight against it every single day.
Here they are playing it at their homecoming gig in Blackwood, Wales in 2011.
The Manics' final single to date is 2011's cover of The The's This Is The Day. The song is presented beautifully, but it's the video that, if you're a Manics fan to any degree, will bring you to tears.
Here it is, the official video, and I did warn you:
And yet again, it won't embed.
And they, ladies and gentlemen, are the Manic Street Preachers. Four Welsh gentlemen who will, if given half a chance, find a way into your heart and make a home there. And then break it into bits, on occasion.
As always, go on and yell at me for any inaccuracies. You know you want to.
No comments:
Post a Comment