2. There are no wars or anything (real wars, that is).
3. Ummm. Very little continental drift going on (that’s probably normal).
4. Somewhere, the president’s daughter is “like, totally wasted” right now.
There. One minor problem. Otherwise, things are swell. I haven’t really researched this much, but if something major was going wrong, I’m sure someone would have told me. So what are these Manic Street Preachers bitching about?
I discussed the Manics’ 2001 commercial hari kari ‘Know Your Enemy’ at length in my 50’000 word list of their 100 greatest songs published last year. I mentioned that it all started when an aging British revolutionary folk icon turned his nose up at the band’s private Portaloo at a Scottish festival. I mentioned how Manics bassist/lyricist Nicky Wire would later confirm that he wouldn’t have that same folk icon’s “Dick pissing in my toilet for all the money in the fucking world”. I mentioned how that shot of verbosity occurred during a T in the Park performance that acted as an reinvigorating reminder of the band’s routes as angrily political agitprops. I mentioned how people had mostly accepted they would never be that exciting again after the morose and Phil Collins infused ‘This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours‘ had sold roughly seventy two squillion copies, making the band Britain’s biggest rock band after Oasis had politely taken their dog out of the fight with ‘Be Here Now‘. I discussed at length their line in the sand statement single The Masses Against the Classes*, the scuzz punk call to arms that became the first new UK number one of the 21st century. I noted how this moment – along with them playing the song live to 57’000 people at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium at new years eve 1999 – represented the absolute peak of their commercial success. For the benefit of the TL:DR generation, I then explained the release of their sixth album a little over a year later in meme form:
And despite everything I’ll discuss in this review, I still absolutely stand by that visual point. It’s simply inconceivable that the band ever believed that ‘Know Your Enemy’ would be a commercial success, and it’s likely that they correctly assumed that it would cut ties with the mainstream to such an extent that they would never again experience anything close to the success that they enjoyed in the late 90s. Their previous album, 1998’s ‘This is My Truth…’ sold five million copies worldwide (!), while ‘KYE’ sold 500’000. Nicky Wire would later even concede in Mojo Magazine that much of those sales were to dissatisfied customers, and also remark on how it marked the band’s commercial downturn: “To this day, you see ‘Know Your Enemy’ at service stations for £2.99, because they bought so many thinking it was by one of those commercial bands! In retrospect, it sold half a million copies. Imagine what we’d give for that now.”
So, yes: commercially, it was ritual suicide. But was it any good?
We’re all friends here. This is a safe space. Let’s start this first blog post since March off by just putting all our cards on the table. When you’re from Europe, or Britain in my case (with perhaps a few notable exceptions) it’s really annoying to hear American people talk about dance music.
The inventor of dance music
Completely unfairly, of course. They can’t help it, it’s not their fault, it’s just how they were brought up and the slight to significant social differences they have encountered. I feel like criticising the majority of Americans’ knowledge about dance music is like making fun of their monster truck rallies, school shootings or cowboy hats – it’s a central and important part of their culture, and mocking it seems insensitive. It’s just… infuriating… isn’t it? Even their insistence on calling it Electronic Dance Music/EDM – while being functionally completely sensical (the vague term ‘dance music’ rarely suitably describes what most people using it are referring to) – is really annoying. Whenever somebody refers to something as ‘EDM’ it’s a quick assurance that they probably think the greatest ever electronic dance album was ‘Purpose‘, that they believe Avicii and The Chainsmokers were the legendary originators, and that they’re unlikely to even get the Blackout Crew reference I made in this blog entry’s title.
Dance music has one of the most popular and successful genres in Europe since the early 90s at the latest and even well into the 80s. Growing up in that era (a ‘Cultural Boomer’) in Europe meant dance music being a constant background And absolutely not just critically- sure, there were always the likes of Orbital/Chemical Brothers/Faithless/KLF/Leftfield who married critical praise with moderate to huge commercial success. And the superstar DJs like Carl Cox, Paul Oakenfold, Eric Prydz and Armand van Helden, who would combine huge influence and talent with the odd number one single. But we also had the true sign of full cultural integration – the terrible dance acts that would clog up the charts and pollute local radio stations. Before you criticise an American’s perceived ignorance on dance music, remember that they likely grew up in a world without either The Venga Boys or 2 Unlimited.
And, yes, while, being English, my obvious and natural response would be to condescendingly smirk at those silly little colonies, raise an eyebrow as I take a sip of Earl Grey through pursed lip and drily remark how I very much doubt that most Americans even have an opinion on A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules from the Centre of the Ultraworld, but we really have no room to talk. Perhaps the US had less time for the likes of Urban Cookie Collective because it was, y’know, inventing and popularising hip-hop, a genre which I’d argue didn’t properly break through in the UK until (seriously) Puff Daddy’s 1998 number one I’ll Be Missing You, a tribute to one of the most notable rappers of all time in the US, whose only charting album in the UK peaked at number twenty three. And we completely skipped grunge, Nirvana might have had a couple of top ten singles and some festival headliners, but otherwise rock music refused to truly comeback in the UK until Oasis started breaking records in 1993. There have since been attempts at revisionist history in the UK music press, arguing that Nirvana were as big a deal here as in the US, but… no… We try and pretend otherwise now, but we were all about Oasis. I’m sorry. When Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ historically and meaningfully knocked Michael Jackson’s ‘Dangerous’ (it was just an album title back then, not an official legal status) off the top of the US charts in January 1992, the UK charts were topped by very much our Nirvana – Wet Wet Wet, with their legendary third album ‘High on the Happy Side‘. So are we really so culturally and morally superior?
Yes, we are. But it’s still interesting innit?
And I’m referring to the general American consensus here. The USA is a big country – more than a million people – and there has always been pockets of massive dance music fans, as well as America contributing some (perhaps… most??) of the most influential and important dance music producers and DJs of all time. There’s an argument that San Jose’s DJ Shadow’s 1996 album ‘Endtroducing‘ is the most influential dance album of the 90s. New Jersey… sorry…Nuu Jooooysie‘s James Murphy – electronic music’s tramp sage – is among the most notable electronic producers of the modern era. And, holy shit, our blinkers here are so discriminating that we’re failing to see what a complete revolution to music that hip-hop was, especially on the electronic means of dance music, from Grandmaster Flash through Timbaland, The Neptunes, Tyler the Creator and countless other notable names. And, pretty much unanimously cited as the most important DJ of all time, the sadly departed Frankie Knuckles is, as the ostentatiously cool name suggests, from Weston-super-mare
sorry, I mean The Bronx. Which is in America. Not sure which part. Maybe in the middle somewhere. In fact, the very foundations and practices that define everything that the world recognises as ‘Dance Music’ (and the US as EDM) came from the gay scene in Chicago (that’s in America), the black suburbs of Detroit (that’s also in America), clubs in New York (in America) and New Jersey (also in America. The Sopranos live there). Unarguably, America invented dance music. It just then decided to ignore it for a few decades. The first dance album to go platinum in the USA was – and you’ll like this – the soundtrack to the 1995 movie adaptation of the popular computer game Moral Kombat. The hip American daddios who have been into dance music these past few decades, who were sweating out their Quaaludes down next to the speakers in Chicago clubs in the mid 80s, might be similarly kissing their teeth and rolling their eyes at wider American culture’s laughably belated appreciation of dance music. Or maybe they’re just happy that the sort of boundary pushing artistic revelations are now finally being widely appreciated? But that seems needlessly unresentful to me. Are the Americans not into needless spite or something?
To the wider culture though, much like punk music finally broke America in 1991 – when the Dead Kennedys played Too Drunk Too Fuck at the Superbowl halftime show – dance music finally got noticed in America with a similar multiple decade delay, though the exact year isn’t agreed upon nor easy to pin down. Some time around 2010, there were numerous mainstream dalliances, largely through hip-hop artists tipping their hat to the genre. Beyoncé herself (I am getting round to her eventually, I promise) played a notable role, with her 2011 banger Run the World (Girls) sampling both Diplo and Major Lazer, two contemporary and soon to be huge dance acts. A huge, huge, huge figure was David Guetta, whose collaborations with the likes of Nicki Minaj, Fergie*, Kid Cudi, Adam Rickit and Akon did much to popularise the genre. And, sorry, but we have to acknowledge Deadmau5 and Skrillex as being notable figures in dance music’s evolution’s both commercially and – I’m sorry, you’re going to have to admit it – artistically. Some might point to the humungous drop in Justin Bieber/Skrillex/Diplo’s 2015 Where Are U Now as a particular high watermark in terms of commercial notability (and artistic quality. Come on, don’t be pathetic, it’s a fucking banger). It’s also impossible to talk about the genre’s emergence in the USA without mentioning the importance of Daft Punk. Personally however, as a true line in the sand, I think the ultimate turning point came in late 2011, and was assisted by some 30 year old jabroni born in Dumfries. Calvin Harris and Rihanna’s We Found Love isn’t just one of the most perfect and gorgeous hit singles of the last twenty or so years, but it is 100% and unmistakeably a dance song, featuring all the tropes and features of the type of banger you’d be chewing your cheeks off to down the front at Manumission back in 92. The build, the drop, the repetitive but exhilarating synth beat – this wasn’t a hip-hop or R&B artist taking cues from dance music, this was a dance track that Rihanna provided vocals for. She was playing the same role that Loleatta Holloway performed on Black Box’s Ride on Timetwenty years earlier. Except of course Rihanna was considered attractive and famous enough to appear in the video for We Found Love. Also, she wasn’t dead, which Black Box mistakenly assumed Loleatta was. It’s a long story. Oh, and We Found Love was also the biggest thing ever, so that was nice for everyone involved, and in my opinion truly inspired the (possibly racist/homophobic. Much bigger issue, no time to discuss it now) levee that America had built to suppress dance music’s wider acceptance to finally break, and the outpouring still continues to this day.
(*as in the legendary former manager of Manchester United Sir Alex Ferguson, not the Black Eyed Peas singer, with whom he is often confused)
In 2022, America, God bless them all, seem to have discovered House Music. The aforementioned Frankie Knuckles (born Francis The Echidna) would have been overjoyed to see his country embrace the genre so quickly, just forty years after he invented it and eight years after he fucking died. The increased interest in the genre even inspired Rolling Stone, who generally believe ‘Songs of Innocence’ to be the most recent and noteworthy musical evolution, to compile a list of the 200 greatest ever dance songs, which – uuuurgh – I’ll get to later. Lot’s of people started bringing up Kaytranada, the Canadian born in 1992 who apparently invented house music. The renaissance
was instigated by two of the legitimately biggest musicians/celebrities/celestial beings in the world, Beyoncé and Canada’s perma-pursing feels navigator Drake, both released previously unannounced hugely house music inspired projects so close to each other. Drake released ‘Honestly, Nevermind’ on June 17th, and Ms Carter’s seventh studio album was released two days ago. Two days ago when I’m writing this, I mean. If you’re reading this next week, then it was released about a week ago. If you’re reading this in 2056, then it was released a long time ago. July 29th, if you’re using this post to conduct proper research and plan on citing it in your thesis. Which you all absolutely should. Before I talk about the Beyonkadonk album, we may as well quickly compare the two projects and say who comes out top in this unexpected House Off:
And, yeah, Beyoncé. It’s not even close. Firstly, I don’t think either album is a radical reinvention of the artists’ sounds. Both have frequently incorporated dance and house music influences on their records in the past, even more so than the natural shared lineage of hip-hop/R&B and dance production. Is there a track on ‘Renaissance’ significantly more house music influenced than something like Blow from Bee’s incredible self-titled 2015 album? Also: Ha! I’ve only just noticed that song is called ‘blow’, that’s fucking amazing. Also… is there a song… significantly… better…? We’ll get to that discussion soon.
Artistically, and just in terms of general quality, ‘RENAISSANCE’ far outperforms ‘Honestly, Nevermind’, but let’s just put that to one side. One major difference between the two artists’ homage to sweating themselves out at The Warehouse in 1992 is the differing understanding – or perhaps a refusal to understand – of house music’s central conceit, and what I would say is the genre’s main aspect of importance.
I’ll let Padiheh Aghanourny and Unathi Nkhoma – two people whom I will uncharacteristically accept know more about the subject than me – explain it in more detail, but the importance of house music to LGBT history cannot be overstated. Was Drake aware of this? Is this why the video of the lead single sees Drake marrying forty women at once? Was he aware of the homosexual connotations and so really wanted to prove to the world that he’s definitely not a gayer? Look, everyone, I’m so straight that I’m fucking, like, all the women! Not that there’s anything wrong with that. ‘Drake’s ‘No Homo House’ can’t help but feel a little listless.
Beyoncé, however, does not shy away from the obvious connotations, and fully embraces house music’s gay as a window origins, and ‘RENAISSANCE’ sounds like a legitimate and faithful celebration of both house music and the queer black culture that was so central to it. A really faithful celebration. A admirably legitimate commemoration. A respectful homage. An assiduously studied pastiche.
Sigh. I’m sorry everyone, but I might just have to shit on this album a tiny bit. I know that a lot of people have taken this record to their heart. I know that Beyoncé’s paean to hot girl summers and careless partying has resonated with large sections of the populace. The album’s wholehearted urge/demand that the listener do anything and ignore any barrier between them and embracing pleasure. Lead single BREAK MY SOUL implores the listener to ‘Release ya job’, which really resonated with a society suffering under the decaying effects of late stage monopoly capitalism, and will I imagine be partnered with Ms Carter redistributing her $450mil wealth to support all of those workers to seize the means of production. A lot of the response to the record has highlighted – occasionally as the album’s main selling point – how much ‘fun’ Beyoncé is obviously having. Which is a valid point. She is legitimately one of the most powerful people in the world. I imagine it’s rather straightforward for her to have ‘fun’.
Remember ‘Lemonade’? Six years ago, Beyoncé released what I honestly believe will forever be remembered as one of the most important albums of the century. I named it album of the year. Later, I named it album of the decade. Looking back, I probably prefer Hotelier’s 2016 album ‘Goodness‘, but that’s neither here nor there. It was an event, it explicitly referenced and celebrated African American history, culture, and highlighted aspects of the struggles they’ve had to endure over the past, y’know, few hundred years. It did all this – all this sociological analysis and cultural celebration, presented alongside quotations from Malcolm X and underground black American poets like Warsan Shire – while still spinning a narrative of a betrayed woman learning to heal herself and her relationship after infidelity. Fuck, man, shall we just drop everything now and go and watch the ‘Lemonade’ visual album again?
This is the follow-up. Six years later. And the central message, the important memorandum that the artist wishes to impart on the listener and the world, is
just, like, party down my dudes, yeah? Live, laugh, love. Hashtag #GirlBoss, ammi right? Oh! But there’s a song called AMERICA HAS A PROBLEM, so I bet that’ll talk about some hot button issues like… Ah, no, that’s just the name of the sample from Kilo Ali’s 1990 song Cocaine (America Has a Problem). It’s actually about how loving someone is, y’know, a bit like a drug, which is an analogy I don’t think anyone has ever used before, so props for originality.
‘Originality’ is the main problem with ‘RENAISSANCE’. In the sense that there isn’t any. Perhaps it’s a matter of age. I am two years younger than Beyoncé (Ha! In your FACE, you old hag! Sorry, it’s very rare that I write about artists that are older than me…), we’re both old enough to remember a lot of this stuff first time around. A lot of her fans are a) younger than me, and b) more American than me, so unlikely to have grown up surrounded by Show Me Love and… erm…
It looks like I’m arching my back, but I’m just that fat
Right Said Fred…? Weird flex sampling I’m Too Sexyon Alien Superstar, but OK. I know all these samples, I’ve heard all these basslines, these piano chords soundtracked thousands of popular songs all through my youth. Beyoncé repeats them, she centres them respectfully, she samples and builds around them, she pays repeated homage. She adds nothng to them. A lot of reviewers are hearing celebrations of black joy and subtle politics in its musical emphasis and reaffirmation of the queer beginnings of club culture. OK. It’s art. You can read whatever you want into it. All I can say is that such topics are barely evident in the actual text. ‘RENAISSANCE’ is a very decent album. It’s also slight, uninspired and would likely be forgettable if it weren’t released by the biggest pop star of the 21st century.
And listen, the reason I rarely do reviews so close to the release date is because I seriously don’t believe a couple of days is anywhere near enough time to properly absorb and understand a piece of musical art. Even if you have listened dozens of time as I have, musical art needs days, weeks, months to truly ingest into your soul. If you’d asked me to review the latest Kendrick Lamar record on the day of its release, for example, I would have told you it was a dull as dogs cock overlong and overimportant dirge. Now, I’d say it was… fine, I guess. I dunno. And like Kendrick on ‘Big Pumpin’ the Big Sleepers‘, or whatever it’s called, on ‘RENAISSANCE’ Beyoncé could be facing up to her status as a cultural icon and expected preacher. Perhaps this mantle of cultural spokesperson that has been thrust upon her is the ‘job’ that Beyoncé is so keen to ‘release’.
Again though, the main difference is that these allusions are actually present in Kendrick’s lyrics, while with Beyoncé we might just be searching for distinction in a text that so often seems shallow and superficial.
No way are they too sexy for those shirts
It’s the first part of a trilogy, which I am unbelievably excited about, and I have full faith in Beyoncé’s artistic ability to believe that it will all make mistakes at the end. And I can truly imagine that the love for this album amongst certain sections of society may lead to something magical and it could really be looked back upon as an important and notable cultural moment. But on it’s own terms, artistically?
I’m sorry, but #188 is ridiculously low for Snap’s The Power. That shit owned 1990. Yeah, I was six years old, so what? I still fucked to that song (metaphorically, please do not inform social services)
Brown Paper Bag by Roni Size as low as #183?? Listen, dudes, either place it top 50 at least or just don’t put it on the list and pretend you’ve never heard it, you chose the most embarrassing option
Argh!! OK, so Back to Life’s importance and influence on black soul and dance music in this country might be me talking through a British lens, but simply taken artistically #182 is actually a hate crime against one of the greatest songs of the late 80s of any genre
Either you don’t consider One Nation Under a Groove as dance music, or you rank it much higher than #178 (personally, I’d favour the former)
We Are Your Friends should probably be higher than #174, but… I’m not that passionate about it. Higher than fucking Back to Life though?!?!
Little Fluffy Clouds at #169 (dude) is wrong. It’s, like, #84, or something, easy
Nobody has ever called Smalltown Boy (#163) a ‘dance song’. Are we just gonna count all 80s pop music?
Soft Cell (#170), Human League (151), Frankie Goes to Hollywood (#123), Madonna (#91 & #11), Grace Jones (#84), Pet Shop Boys (#65)… Yeah we’re just doing that. RS are retconning the 80s to try and prove that the USA was into dance music way before it actually was? I’m going to start say that Alexei Sayle’s Ullo John Gotta New Motor actually proves that the UK was into hip-hop way back in 1982
Losing My Edge(#155) is a little hard done by, did I just imagine how big a deal that was in 2005?
Alright, respect for including Squarepusher’s Red Hot Carat #153
I’m sorry, I know I’m supposed to be all respectful and culturally sensitive, but putting 3am Eternalas low as #147 is actually emblematic of a rot at the very core of that nation’s society
No, I’m sorry, I’m not letting you have YMCAby The Village People (#139), nor Stayin’ Aliveby the Bee Gees (#129), nor the fucking Weather Girls (#88), nor Diana Ross (#42), nor Gloria Gaynor (#42), nor Sister Sledge (#34),nor Chaka Khan (#27), nor James Brown (#15). And Michael Jackson (#57). For, erm, various reasons…
However, possibly hypocritically, I am absolutely letting you have Erotic City by Prince (#135). Fucking b-side that, by the way. God, I love Him so much.
As previously alluded to, I think Where Are U Now is a little more important than its #111 placing would suggest
Fuck, not even into the top 100…
Firestarter doesn’t even make the top 100 (#110)!?!?
I’m the bitch you hated, filth infatuated. Just thought I’d let you know
OK, we all agree that Get Ur Freak On is one of the most wonderful pieces of art that has ever been presented, but a dance song?? The criteria for this list is all over the place. And on any list you decide to make, it should be top ten, not #92.
Holy shit, not only do they include Blindby Hercules and the Love Affair, but the stick it in the top 100 (#90). Forget anything I’ve said, all is forgiven, I love this list
Wha…? Bu…? How…? The motherfuckers put Born Slippy (Nuxx) as low as eighty nine?!?! This. This was my main takeaway from first reading the list. Is America really so confused as to not automatically consider this verified classic a top ten (or even… number one…??) contender?? I’m not angry, I’m not upset, I’m just… confused… One place below It’s Raining Men by The Weather Girls
The Chemical/Dust Brothers absolutely need to be in there, but are Chemical Beats (#32) andSetting Sun (rooooow, wa-doo-wa-da,rooooow… Fuck, and I can’t remember what number it was. Eighty something?) really the two greatest examples of their talents? No Block Rocking Beats? No Hey Girl Hey Boy? No (gasp! Be still my beating bosom!) Private Psychedelic Reel??
The Rolling Stone website is an absolute fucking mess. It’s not easy for most computers to handle 50+ music videos on one page you absolute turnips!!
Sure, Red Alert by Basement Jaxx is a bit of a tune, but the songs it’s ranked higher than at #80 just baffles me
I don’t care if I’ve probably already argued that it shouldn’t be eligible, Buffalo Stance is such a fucking choon that seeing it at #71 just makes me happy
OK, guys, listen, either you don’t consider Planet Rockeligible, or you rank it top five. #67 is a joke
The top 50 is making me less annoyed… I can’t decide what I think about Azealia Banks at #42… I guess that cunt gets an eating?
OK, putting Turned Down for What as high as #27 is actually a bit of a flex, and I appreciate it. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but the size of its influence…? It’s a debate starter. Good on you, Rolling Stone, contributing to the marketplace of ideas.
Nobody has ever called Can’t Get You Out Of My Head a ‘dance’ song. Interesting take, RS. Marketplace of ideas etc.
Controversy by Prince at #19? Probably breaks all of my rules, but I don’t care, it deserves to be everywhere.
A synthesised orchestra bursts into life. And I mean bursts. If this were in a Disney movie and meant to signify the first buds of spring in some fantasy netherworld ruled by a giant and intimidatingly amiable field mouse, you’d still ask them to tone it down a bit. The orchestra repeats itself for a few bars, as if sweeping its arms across the landscape. Isn’t it beautiful?, it says, this world you believe to know? Isn’t life just idiotically charming when you don’t know any better?? Then, the orchestra stops, to be replaced by a single foreboding organ while the sounds behind it seem to be dripping out the last of their good will. Drip. Drip. Drop. Drip. The droplets seem to both become sparer and start to resemble a ticking clock, winding down to some unknown but anxiety inducing conclusion. The same music that had previously swept its hands in overt astonishment as the landscape that is now starting to melt away, now grabs you roughly by the collar and pulls you forward. It opens a hand to you containing a red pill and a blue pill. Before throwing them both in rage at the still deforming landscape.
“Nah, fuck that”, they say. “That trope has been done to death to such a point where it now somehow represents Men’s Right Activism. There aren’t just two routes anyway, there are an infinite ways to comprehend reality, let me show you them all“.
Jesus, everyone, Jordana was twenty one years old when she released this incredible record back in December 2020 (Making it. Eligible. For this year’s. List. So sick of having to explain how this works), isn’t that just terrifying?
For her, I mean. This isn’t one of those “Whaaaaa! They’re so young and I’ve comparatively failed in life!” takes. Partially because – Jesus fucking Christ – those mournings are so boring. We’ve all failed in life, that’s what connects us so beautifully as people, and even the ones we assume haven’t still think they have, let’s not create divisions by imagining any one of us is making a better go of this shitshow we call existence. Mostly because, seriously, you eventually get to an age where fucking everyone is younger than you (except Caroline Shaw, of course), you stop being such a big baby about the whole thing (“Malala Yousafzai was only fifteen years old when she was shot in the face by Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan gunmen?! Lucky!! What had I done by that age??”) and instead switch to being in constant mortal dread of your own imminent demise. It’s honestly a cool transition.
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.
Hey! Top forty ! This is a nice, normal, manageable list isn’t it? Should I maybe have just limited 2020’s best songs to this workable and succinct top 40 list? What, and not mention Wock in Stock or I Don’t Know, Burn Stuff? I’m not sure I’d ever be able to forgive myself.
That’s all the introduction you’re getting, parts oneand two were more than enough foreplay, there are some absolute modern classics in this final countdown, and if you’re as half as surprised as me at what comes out on top…
A very ‘Fiona Apple’ Fiona Apple song, but that is obviously entirely a Good Thing. Lyrically, it’s untouchable, with Ms Apple taking issue with dinner party conversation and refusing to be silenced (“Kick me under the table all you want/I won’t shut up…I would beg to disagree/But begging disagrees with me”). Amongst the barbed and often hilarious response to tension, she also manages to squeeze in some absolutely amazing lyrical asides:
I’d like to buy you a pair of pillow-soled hiking boots
To help you with your climb
Or rather, to help the bodies that you step over, along your route
So they won’t hurt like mine
I’m going to be really noncommittal and say that Under the Table is definitely one of the best lyrics of the year. Don’t make me choose. No, seriously, don’t make me choose, you know I’d just give it to a 1993 Manics’ lyric and ruin the legitimacy of the whole operation.#
You want an intro? You got that in part one! Let’s get down to the dirty, sticky and dangerously unhygienic business:
1997
This was an important year for me, this was when shit got real. Yeah, Labour won the election, which I was aware I was supposed to celebrate but not yet conscious enough to know exactly why, just that ‘our team won*. Princess Diana died, inspiring a nationwide reaction that even 13 year old Alex Palmer recognised as being a bit fucking much**. All that was meaningless background noise though, as most importantly 1997 was the year that I became really switched on to new music. Before this point, most of the albums I’ve listed would have been discovered by me later and posthumously lusted after in the kind of nostalgic necrophilia that I would later grow to despise. Yeah, sorry if you’ve already imagined me as an incredibly cool seven year old bopping his head to Soonby My Bloody Valentine. From this point on, these important albums in my life and personal development were pretty much all discovered as contemporaries. Seriously though, ‘It’s Great When You’re Straight… Yeah’ was the first CD that I ever owned. Yeah. I’m that cool/weird.
“Dad, this is why you’re only allowed to see me one weekend every other month…”
Yeah, sorry, no more Bumble Rumble. Possibly… ever…? Listen, I’ve pretty much decided that I hate Zero Hour dating- I happen to still believe that I’m relatively attractive, so to have an app on my phone that frequently reminds me that I’m actually not is not good at all for my already inflated yet easily pricked sense of self-esteem. For now, my official stance is that I know that I’m a highly fuckable piece of hunky man meat who could grind genitals with pretty much any woman he wants, but I just choose not to, OK?? The official stance is that I’ve decided to concentrate on the more important things in my life, such as this blog- which has never been more popular- and my actual job- which I’m technically supposed to be doing now*. Remember this blog? It used to be about music, didn’t it? I mean… kinda… Let’s do that again. Basically, it’s time for:
Just wanted a photo with my eyes in it. Have they always been that colour? More after the jump!!
Yeah, that title was a pun when I reviewed the american poetry club album. Makes less logical sense now, admittedly, but I like it. Hey! Two album reviews this year! Getting into some real Lestor Bangs territory now! This blog is fucking legit, yeah?
We* far too readily accept that whatever we do is simply good enough. We** accept what we are able to do at a scandalously young age. At the very latest when we’re about 18 or 19 and first enter university believing we’re already the finished article and want to spend the next few years convincing other people how fucking amazing we are, usually under the assumption that it’ll lead to increased opportunities to rub our genitalia against somebody else. Often though, it happens much, much younger. Many of the people you pass on the street, many of your closest friends and family, many of the people weird and/or dumb enough to read this very blog, basically decided at about 13 years old that you know all the things you can and can’t do, your likes and dislikes. You*** decided at that age that you shouldn’t really waste time overloading your dumb brain with any new talents or inspirations, so decided to spend the rest of your life getting angry and other people for not accepting you for who you are (and have been for decades).
Phew, that last entry was a bit of a mess, wasn’t it? Barely mentioned the (excellent) song and just flew off into TMI land. It won’t be the last time that happens, I’ll often have something to get off my chest that I feel can’t wait until December, but I always feel that there has to be some overarching ‘point’ to each entry and this series is literally the only outlet I have for that. At least until I get around to starting ‘Sing of the Thrill’ [TITLE TO BE CONFIRMED], my long promised/threatened King of the Hill episode by episode retrospective that’s currently the second most eagerly anticipated literary operation behind George RRRRRR Martin’s ‘No, No, No, This is What Was Supposed to Happen!’. To make up for Entry #4, this time around I’m actually just going to talk about one of the greatest songs ever for a thousand words or so, all tangents and flights of fancy will be kept to an absolute minimum, and if anything I’ll be undersharing, yeah? We cool? We cool.
This post contains a lot of information cribbed from Simon Reynolds’s fantastic Pitchfork article from last year. I might call him a ‘contributor’, but the fact is that he’s very likely to sue me for royalties once the money starts rolling in.
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