The Manic Street Preachers’ fifteenth album is one that is extremely easy to appreciate, so long as you’re ready to accept an entire trolley worth of caveats.
Firstly, this is the band’s 15th [FIFTEENTH] album. Few bands with any kind of success ever get this far, never mind a band that started out already preplanning their self-destruction, and coming 34 years after a debut-album the band promised would be their last. And, hey, for a group of three men in their mid fifties this ‘Critical Thinking’ is a great accomplishment. My colleague at work recently had her 50th birthday, and would she be able to produce an album of this quality? Highly unlikely.
Hey, look, I’m getting better at this. Recently, I went on a massive cull of the 2024’s greatest songs to make this list as tight and as concise as possible, so that it would be sure to represent the absolute best of the best and would be as brief and easy to write as possible. And look! There are only one hundred and forty three tracks this year!! That’s a whole seventeen less tracks than last year! This post is going to be a breeze!
OK, three weeks laternow, and I’m almost done! This post will be longer than most books you read, but to be fair most of the ‘books’ you read are Dr Who fanfic.
So, yeah, these songs are really good. And they get better as the list goes on. That’s how these lists work.
When the Politburo unanimously elected Mikhail Gorbachev as the eighth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985, the USSR wasn’t in a great place. The cowboy bravado of Ronald Reagan had lead to military spending to ride to 27% of its GDP; production of civilian goods was frozen at 1980 levels; US financing of Mujahideen warlords to overthrow socialist leaders in Democratic Republic of Afghanistan ensured the war in that country was an absolute disaster (and would later be referred to as “The Soviet Union’s Vietnam“); and general faith in the leading party was at a historic low. It was clear that some changes would be needed. And ol’ Mikky G believed he had just the plan.
Firstly, Gorbachev wound down the USSR’s power around the world. He retreated from Afghanistan, likely assuming the $20 billion that the CIA had donated to train and arm the jihad resistance groups was unlikely to ever have any longterm effects. He went all smiles and waves to the hawkiest of hawks (and now 43 year champion of the “Reason For Everything Wrong In the World” award) Ronald “Rawdog” Reagan, making the landmark agreements that they would scale back the arms race with the small concession that America still carry on doing the exact same shit. His “Sinatra Doctrine” threw the USSR’s hands up in regard to the Soviet Union’s satellite states, allowing them to do it their way and conceding power to the nationalists and the fascists. Secondly, there would be the concept of ‘perestroika’ (перестройка/restructuring), which were economic reforms that essentially dismantled the planned economy without any suggested alternative mechanism. It also introduced market factors, being the softlaunch of capitalism and conceding power to the new bourgeois. It also meant McDonalds and future Pizza Hut adverts. Yay.
this is fine
And then there was glasnost (гласность/transparency), the ultimate liberalisation of the Soviet Union. Gorby essentially opened up the USSR’s ‘Marketplace of Ideas’. The previous Marxist perspective on ‘free speech’ was probably best explained in Mao’s ‘Oppose Book Worship’ (反对本本主义): “no investigation, no right to speak”. Not everyone is assumed to know enough to speak on anything. Now, the USSR would work from Western, liberal rules. Anything goes. All bullshit is as valid as the next. And “free speech” meant what “free speech” means to this day: reactionary right wing potato heads using racism and sexism to further their own desires for profit and accumulation.
You know the rules by now: an entire album discography comprising of at least three albums, every single one of their albums featured on a Necessary Evil album of the year countdown on the Most Trusted Blog in Music. There were a few Legacy Gold Star Artists who added to their repertoire in 2023, but on this post I’m going to be concentrating on the five artists who earned their wings in 2023. Or rather, who were already glorious winged beasts of musical sapience, but got those motherfuckers gold plated in 2023.
Ah, Ms. Zauner! I see you have chosen to commemorate your achievement! As wee you should, my dear.
Oh, and these particular entrants will just be copied and pasted into the master post as well. I’ve just created this new post highlighting the new entries so you wouldn’t have to go back to the original entry every year to see who has earned promotion. So don’t come at me with that “You never think of us! You treat us so bad!” bullshit, alright? I treat you just fine. If anything, I treat you too well, so that might not be a string you want to pull too hard on. To see how new albums by Legacy artists like Wednesday and Janelle Monae did? Yeah, you’ll have to check the rankings on the master post. Like I say, I already treat you too well, so be careful what you ask for. And did you read what I thought about that Janelle album?? Probably not breaking into that top three, is it?
So it’s time to say goodbye to my already world renowned list of the greatest Manic Street Preachers songs by providing a statistical breakdown of the scientifically peer reviewed list that literally dozens of people are still buzzing about. Why? I don’t fucking know, I feel like I just have to by this point. Plus Necessary Evil 2021 will be starting in December (put yo hands in the aye-yer!!) and I feel that if I don’t conduct this largely meaningless counting exercise done before then, I might end up never doing it. And you know what will happen then, my friend? That’s right: Arma-fucking-geddon.
Also, with delightful serendipity, unbeknownst to me when I began planning my list the wonderful New Chart Riot blog began compiling votes for their quinquennial (there you go, your new word today) top 50 of the greatest Manics songs, so along with putting the top half of my list forward for suggestion, I have also used data collected by the blog so far to reach some conclusions toward the end of the post. Are those conclusions sweeping? Why, yes. Are they unfair? How could they not be? Are they needlessly offensive? My dear, what would be the point otherwise?
Quick note: this post is unlikely to be 30’000+ words.
The Manic Street Preachers are the greatest rock band ever. That’s not an opinion, it’s a conclusion that I’ve reached and am now saying it loudly and not listening to any dissenting voices, which in 2021 counts as a ‘fact’.
Their greatness is… complicated… and not easy to explain in a simple intro to a blog post… These 100 tracks aren’t necessarily the greatest songs ever. Even as a pathetically dedicated Manics stan*, even I would argue that they’ve only ever released one indisputable, stone cold classic record from front to back (see if you can guess which one after you read the list!). They may have supernatural control over melodies and how best to ensure a chorus hits just there, but at the end of the day they’re just a rock band. They have never really challenged the very boundaries of music, never pushed things forward or necessarily introduced anything new sonically. I would argue that only one of their albums is truly challenging and experimental, rather than just being a break from what the band usually produce (yeah, it’s the same album…). I mean, Jesus, they once shamelessly released a song including the lyric “The world is full of refugees/They’re just like you and just like me“. That’s unforgivably bad, isn’t it? They can’t come back from that, artistically.
“You stand there and you think about what you’ve done”
(*I may occasionally use cool, groovy, young person lingo like ‘stan’ so you think I’m a hip young gunslinger. Not, y’know, old enough to be a Manics fan)
I’m not able to explain their magic here, but over the next one hundred (!) entries you’ll hopefully all have a better idea. It’s not as dominated by the 90’s as I was worried it might be, and every album is represented (apart from one. Because their tenth album is worse than Hitler). I’ve been wanting to find the time to do this for ages, partially inspired by the great What is Music podcast covering their entire discography and reminding me of how many big veiny stonkers this band had bulging out of their collective musical swimming trunks. They’re talking about Muse on that podcast now, a band for morons, so you only need to listen to the last season. My major blind spot is I don’t think they’ve done a decent b-side since 2001. Now, I’m sure I’m wrong, so please correct my ignorance in the comments. Tell me how wrong I am. Post your top tens. Your top hundreds. The Manic Street Preachers’ fan community is one of the greatest in the world, and no other band are as connected with their fanbase and feed off their adoration as much as The Manics. So let’s celebrate that by calling me a fat slut in the comments because I didn’t choose Little Baby Nothing.
Yeah, you know how JPEGMAFIA’s album was just a collection of singles from the previous year? Well, Burial sees that effort and raises it by releasing a collection of singles and EPs from the better part of the last decade. Might have made sense to split the two albums up on the list. This list isn’t about aesthetics and sensible ordering though. It’s pure science. And if the science states that they should be placed next to each other, perhaps both fitted with a secret microchip so Bill Gates can track their movements, then who are we to argue?
Sigh… I’m going to have to start with an embarrassing confession. I know, many of you reading this already think all the things I write are shamefully embarrassing, but this is a distressing mark against my musical knowledge which, come on, up until now was unimpeached. In November of 2019, roughly a month before this collection came out, I wrote this:
You might not believe this- considering it sounds so much like a slogan that would have been scrawled over the shirt of an awkward looking Sean Moore in 1991*- but the Manic Street Preachers haven’t actually released an album (or even song) called ‘resistance is futile’ before!
thankfully, it says ‘broken algorithms’ on the inner sleeve
(*some classic Manic Street Preachers t-shirt slogans from the early 90s:
You’re the Spitting Image of Your Father When You Make That Face!
(poo emoji)!
Mao That’s What Zedong Music!
Rick and Morty Reference That I Honestly Believe Makes Me Smarter Than You! Seriously, What The Fuck Is Up With That Shit?! It Makes Me Want To Hate the Show Because Its Fans Are Such Cunts!
USSR! Fuck Yeah!
OK, we’re done here…)
‘Resistance is Futile’ is absolutely a treading water, ticking boxes, Manic Street Preachers album. And that’s absolutely fine, not just because the absolute riproaring success of ‘Futurology‘ means the band are allowed to put their feet up for an album or two (you Millennials don’t appreciate how much doing something decent really takes it out of you at a certain age), but also because the lack of talking points means it’s given me a chance to finally rate all the Manics albums!!
Necessary Evil 