I've got the new Manic Street Preachers CD on my desk. I finally got round to buying it at the weekend, but haven't listened to it yet. Gone really are the days when I'd be queuing outside HMV on the day of a Manics release, waiting for the shop to open.
When 'The Holy Bible' was released, I listened to little else for 1994 (and much of the year after). It was so fucking angry, confrontational and exciting. It was also better than 'Gold Against The Soul', which bar for a few tracks seemed a bit "soft-rock" to me. On the 'Holy Bible' it was obvious that something was wrong with Richey Edwards, the bile spilling into his lyrics showed a man who wasn't a happy soul.
When Kurt Cobain killed himself, even though you knew he had problems and wasn't happy at all, it was still a real shock when he finally did himself in. With Richey, it seemed a bit more 'open' I guess. There were articles about him in the NME, where he looked emaciated and was spending time in The Priory. From what I read and heard he was barely eating (bar small bits of chocolate), harming himself repeatedly, and seemed to be suffering a (quite terminal) depression. I'd read so much of what this ludicrously intelligent man had spouted, interviews in 1994 seemed to consist of garbled randomness, occasionally interspersed with the clever and completely self-aware thoughts of the old Richey deep inside.
It wasn't any real shock that he went missing, when there was quite obviously something dearly wrong. The Manics resurfaced again after some time out, and 'Everything Must Go' was the very best they could do. They couldn't make 'The Holy Bible Pt. 2'. Richey wasn't there anymore for one thing, and his lyrics had largely shaped the sound of that album. It would also have seemed somehow inappropriate to release such a downbeat album after what had happened. There were several songs with Richey's lyrics however, and some of the old anger still remained. The album tried to be optimistic though, even though it sometimes found this to be immensely difficult to achieve.
In a strange way, Richey Edwards disappearance made The Manics popular. 'The Holy Bible' wasn't a commercial success by any means, 'Everything Must Go' was far more accessible and the publicity that occurred due to the disappearance/suicide of Richey Edwards, had aroused the interest of music buyers.
For me though, it sort of diminished from there. Subsequent Manics releases didn't really have me poring over the lyrics, or shouting at the top of my voice in nightclubs (something which 'Faster' will still do today).
I'd always wanted to see The Manics live and managed it twice in 1999 (well 1999/2000 as they played over the New Year, whilst I stood alone surrounded by people shaking hands and hugging). I enjoyed both gigs but it had become bloated by then. 'This Is My Truth…' was soft and mellow, the antithesis of 'The Holy Bible'. The loss of their minister of propaganda, the success of later albums, the loss of the fire inside from playing big stadiums to thirty-something who hadn't even heard of your first three albums, it all added up to a band seemingly going through the motions. The glitter covered oddbods in home-made slogan t-shirts started to drift away.
The band knew this, and even though horrible experience had told them to never go there again, they tried to make an angry shout-back to the mid-nineties. 'Know Your Enemy' was okay, but it didn't seem like their hearts were 100% in it. I don't blame them, they are rich, older and settled down now, it's hard to go back to what you were without seeming like fakers.
I'm going to see them in December; I'll always love the band, but it's more for what they were than for what they are.