Come All Ye Manics Fans...

darthed1981

In the next 12 months or so, we are promised another in the series of the Manic's cash in because your fans are in their 40s and addicted to nostalgia definitive and much appreciated reissues of their back catalogue.

This time it's their much maligned, by the band themselves, but actually (fuck it) brilliant electronic-influenced album "Lifeblood".

Seemingly in a similar attempt to kill their popularity to the divisive (and recently reissued) "Know Your Enemy". this time they replaced guitars with synths, overdubbed everything, and released a track called "The Love of Richard Nixon" as the first single.

Now, personally, if the Manics released a collection of their post-takeaway fart noises, I'd buy it, so I know assuming I'm anything other than penniless at the time I'll happily be rooked for some signed vinyl and CD package.

Anyone else looking forward to this?  Joking aside the reissue series has been largely brilliant, and assuming that they skip reissuing SATT again (the last reissue was definitive really) we can look forward to late-career highlight "Journal for Plague Lovers" and under-rated "Postcards..."  after this.

Thoughts?  Feelings?  What should be on it?

NB: posted this partly because on another forum people made some quite good jokes like "There should be a documentary on a DVD called 'how not to pick a first single'"

DefaultM

Saw them for the first time on this tour and remember liking the album, but I was 15 at the time and haven't listened to it since.

GoFish

It sounds very on-brand for early Manics, FWIW - like when they happily admitted they would cancel a gig to appear on TOTP. They've come the full circle now

RocknRollDave

I felt at the time that they had a song in their heads that they couldn’t quite nail down and so spent an album trying to write it from a few different angles. Maybe that was a bit of a harsh way of saying that the album has a sound that is very specific to that album, and that runs through the whole album.

It’s a better album overall than Know Your Enemy, and I think the synthy approach worked in its favour (which is not always guaranteed when guitar bands ‘go electronic’), but I have no need for a reissue and expanded edition.


And, yeah, a very bad choice of lead single!

CHRISB50

If they re did Generation Terrorists with proper drums and decent production, I’d cry tears of joy. 

But I won’t be purchasing this one. 

RocknRollDave

CHRISB50 said:

If they re did Generation Terrorists with proper drums and decent production, I’d cry tears of joy. 

But I won’t be purchasing this one. 

Wis awarded.

Some good tunes on there, but ….drum machine?! Why?!?!

CaseOfAce

CHRISB50 said:

If they re did Generation Terrorists with proper drums and decent production, I’d cry tears of joy. 

But I won’t be purchasing this one. 

I'm sure i'll get an "old person shakes fist at cloud" response to this but...

I've never understood why a band's songwriter (Richie Manic in this case) goes to all the trouble of writing deep / intellectual / heartfelt lyrics - and you can't make out most of the words the singer is singing. (see also Joe Strummer / Shane McGowan).

Funkfingers

That is an attempt to maintain some semblance of "class" credibility. Use too many words with more than seven letters and you alienate the target audience.

•

I maintain that there is no such thing as Class. There is only money. The amount of money you have does not alter your value as a person. It just makes some areas of life easier.

GoFish

1) It makes you work for it

2) You can chose not to listen to all the words

Personally, it's a positive point for me. Not everyone would be into the lyrics or want them to take attention from the vocals.

Chimpankie

Lifeblood was the first tour I saw Manics on (Cardiff CIA, first date was cancelled for some reason I can’t remember) so have a soft spot for the album. Assume they won’t be doing one of those tours where they play it in full though!

Jo-to-po

RocknRollDave said:

CHRISB50 said:

If they re did Generation Terrorists with proper drums and decent production, I’d cry tears of joy. 

But I won’t be purchasing this one. 

Wis awarded.

Some good tunes on there, but ….drum machine?! Why?!?!

Drummer wasn't good enough.

Pjon

Chimpankie said:

Lifeblood was the first tour I saw Manics on (Cardiff CIA, first date was cancelled for some reason I can’t remember) so have a soft spot for the album. Assume they won’t be doing one of those tours where they play it in full though!

I was lucky enough to see them for nothing at a Heineken Big Top Festival. Someone lobbed a bottle of Chardonnay at Nicky Wire, they (understandably) had a sense of humour failure and stormed off the stage. Not being a huge Manics fan I went for a pizza and beers and thought no more of it for a couple of years, until I picked up one of their albums and realised how much I liked them. The songs they played at the Big Top became some of my favourites. 

I wasn't keen on Lifeblood, but a reissue tends to prompt me to revisit old stuff and sometimes I find that my taste has changed in the intervening decades!

stickyfiddle

CHRISB50 said:

If they re did Generation Terrorists with proper drums and decent production, I’d cry tears of joy. 

But I won’t be purchasing this one. 

lol yeah this. 

I saw them on the Lifeblood tour. It was fine but no-one gave a shit about the new songs then and they don't now either... 

darthed1981

Jo-to-po said:

RocknRollDave said:

CHRISB50 said:

If they re did Generation Terrorists with proper drums and decent production, I’d cry tears of joy. 

But I won’t be purchasing this one. 

Wis awarded.

Some good tunes on there, but ….drum machine?! Why?!?!

Drummer wasn't good enough.

Sean was OK, it more came down to "it seemed like a good idea at the time".

It took 23 weeks to record anyhow - so if they had tracked the drums the label would have gotten very cross.

In their early years they survived on the quality of the songs, of the "message" and of course the sheer unbelievable talent of JDB. 

That they managed to make something so artistically staggering, to this day, as "The Holy Bible" after the production nightmare of GT, with an album none of them were happy with inbetween, is one of music's great miracles.

darthed1981

Chimpankie said:

Lifeblood was the first tour I saw Manics on (Cardiff CIA, first date was cancelled for some reason I can’t remember) so have a soft spot for the album. Assume they won’t be doing one of those tours where they play it in full though!

I'm honestly not surprised whenever anyone says they have a soft spot for the album, because really I think it's only the band who felt strongly negative about it.

If you like their "softer side" especially it's one of the very best - I'm sticking it on in the car on the way home

RocknRollDave

Jo-to-po said:

RocknRollDave said:

CHRISB50 said:

If they re did Generation Terrorists with proper drums and decent production, I’d cry tears of joy. 

But I won’t be purchasing this one. 

Wis awarded.

Some good tunes on there, but ….drum machine?! Why?!?!

Drummer wasn't good enough.

Played fine on all the songs live and the singles prior to GT.

LPManic

I daresay I'm the biggest Manics fan on here. 

Can't wait for the Lifeblood reissue. It's probably in my top 3 of Manics albums I listen to the most, if not in Top 2. It is arguably their best b-sides era as well. 

And yes they missed a trick with not releasing 1985 as the first single. (Notice they played it recently at Glastonbury and Isle of Wight). But Rob Stringer who is the head of Sony and an old champion of the band picked The Love of Richard Nixon after hearing the album, so that was that.

And yes the album didn't do well. But that's not because of the quality of the songs or the production or the sound but the fact that it came during their transition years from Radio 1 to Radio 2 and into a career band more than an essential contemporary rock band. 

And the band always shit on it because a. it didn't sell, b. they didn't enjoy recording it (first album not done live-ish), c. and they didn't really know what to do when they were making it.

And remember Wire is not really an anarchist but he is a serious archivist (his missus is a professional one), so all these re-issues are part of collecting and presenting material that reflects on a key area for the band. And yes, it's a good way to make a few quid. (How much do they make really with all these vinyls? A few grand each?)

More importantly - they are also coming out with a new album within the next 12 months. They've already recorded half of it with James using an Eastman Juliet with the bigsby to record a number of tracks. It's supposed to be a more guitar-y album. We shall see.

darthed1981

LPManic said:

I daresay I'm the biggest Manics fan on here. 

That is the kind of thing Manics fans are prone to saying.

It's an oddly competitive fanbase.  

I met one fan in a bar once and he said "I'm the biggest Manics fan, I've got "'I love JDB' tattooed on my penis" and I said "that's cool dude" and he said "bet you don't have that on your penis!!" and I said "No, mine says 'I love James Dean Bradfield singer and guitarist of the manic street preachers..."

LPManic

darthed1981 said:

LPManic said:

I daresay I'm the biggest Manics fan on here. 

That is the kind of thing Manics fans are prone to saying.

It's an oddly competitive fanbase.  

I met one fan in a bar once and he said "I'm the biggest Manics fan, I've got "'I love JDB' tattooed on my penis" and I said "that's cool dude" and he said "bet you don't have that on your penis!!" and I said "No, mine says 'I love James Dean Bradfield singer and guitarist of the manic street preachers..."

Haha! Just about got the J on mine... 

darthed1981

Manics' Facebook page now gradually going all Lifeblood themed... so we can expect an announcement in the next few days.

Do we get the "aww, do we HAVE to" reissue that GATS got... or something a bit sexier like the complete reinvention of KYE??

RocknRollDave

darthed1981 said:

Manics' Facebook page now gradually going all Lifeblood themed... so we can expect an announcement in the next few days.

Do we get the "aww, do we HAVE to" reissue that GATS got... or something a bit sexier like the complete reinvention of KYE??

Apart from The Holy Bible, I’d argue that GATS is their best album.
Nowt they have done since has held any long-term interest for me like those two have. Journal was quite special, but I kind of see that as apart from their canon. Not sure why.