Manic Street Preachers
MANIC STREET PREACHERS have travelled an extraordinary distance from their beginnings in the south Wales valleys to become one of the most enduring and distinctive British rock bands of their generation.
Formed in Blackwood in the mid-1980s, the Manics grew around cousins James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore, together with Nicky Wire and Richey Edwards. Bradfield became the band’s commanding lead vocalist and guitarist, Moore its drummer and musical anchor, while Wire and Edwards supplied much of the provocative lyrical and intellectual identity that made the group so different from their contemporaries.
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From Blackwood to Generation Terrorists
From the outset, Manic Street Preachers were never interested in quietly fitting in.
Their early mixture of punk, glam rock, political argument, literature, art and deliberately confrontational imagery won them a fiercely loyal following. Before their debut album Generation Terrorists appeared in 1992, the band famously talked of making the greatest rock album ever, selling 16 million copies and then splitting up.
Things did not quite work out that way.
Fortunately.
Generation Terrorists instead became the beginning of a career that would stretch across decades, producing some of the most recognisable Welsh music of the modern era.
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The Holy Bible and the disappearance of Richey Edwards
The harder-edged Gold Against the Soul followed before 1994’s The Holy Bible took the band somewhere much darker. Its songs confronted subjects including politics, consumerism, war, illness, self-destruction and despair, with Edwards contributing some of his most intense lyrics.
The album was the last the band released before one of the great mysteries of British music.
On February 1, 1995, Richey Edwards disappeared on the day he was due to travel to the United States with Bradfield. His car was later discovered near the Severn Bridge, but no confirmed explanation for his disappearance has ever been established. Edwards was legally presumed dead in 2008, although his body has never been found.
For a time, the future of Manic Street Preachers appeared uncertain.
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Everything Must Go – and a remarkable second beginning
Bradfield, Wire and Moore eventually decided to continue as a trio, releasing Everything Must Go in 1996. It proved a remarkable new beginning.
Songs including A Design for Life, Everything Must Go, Kevin Carter and Australia took the band to a much wider audience without abandoning the intelligence and social commentary that had always characterised their work.
Two years later came This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours, which gave the Manics their first UK Number 1 album. Its singles included The Everlasting and If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next, the latter becoming their first UK Number 1 single.
The provocatively titled The Masses Against the Classes gave them another chart-topping single in 2000.
By this point, Manic Street Preachers had become one of the most prominent bands associated with the extraordinary flowering of Welsh popular culture during the 1990s commonly known as Cool Cymru, alongside artists including Catatonia and Stereophonics.
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Beyond Cool Cymru
Yet one of the most striking features of the Manics’ story is that their career did not simply belong to the 1990s.
Albums including Know Your Enemy, Lifeblood, Send Away the Tigers, Journal for Plague Lovers, Postcards from a Young Man, Futurology and Resistance Is Futile continually changed the band’s musical emphasis while retaining an unmistakable Manics identity.
Their ability to keep evolving was underlined when The Ultra Vivid Lament became their second UK Number 1 album, more than two decades after their first.
They subsequently reached their 15th studio album with Critical Thinking, demonstrating a longevity that few of the British guitar bands who emerged alongside them have been able to match.
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Wales at the heart of the story
Throughout those years, the relationship with Wales has remained central to the band’s identity.
Blackwood, the south Wales valleys, Welsh history and a strong sense of place have never been incidental details in the Manics’ story. Neither has their willingness to engage with politics, culture and uncomfortable ideas.
Their catalogue now ranges from abrasive early punk-influenced recordings to sweeping stadium rock, acoustic songs, electronic textures and deeply reflective later work. They have headlined major festivals, played to audiences around the world and accumulated an extensive collection of chart successes and industry awards.
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Still unmistakably Manic Street Preachers
Yet perhaps their greatest achievement is harder to measure.
Manic Street Preachers have managed to become a major mainstream rock band without ever quite becoming conventional.
The eyeliner may have faded, some of the youthful manifestos have softened and several decades have passed since four young men from Blackwood announced their intention to change rock music.
But the Manics are still here.
And they are still unmistakably themselves.
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