OPO - Manic Street Preachers

I have had "Motorcycle Emptiness" stuck in my head for three days now.

Faster. Towers over anything Nirvana did.

Was playing the double-punch of "Die in the Summertime"/"The Intense Humming of Evil" last night.

I always loved this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGYnEtqU8u8

I am probably going to be ridiculed for this, but when it first came out, I thought it sounded like Cheap Trick covering a Scorpions song... Still do!

Wanted to introduce my 15-yr old son to this band, as he keeps playing Green Day albums, and the obvious choice to play him was Faster

How does that get received? I can't imagine I'd've been too happy about that when I was fifteen.

Democracy Coma

4st. 7lb

I have had "Motorcycle Emptiness" stuck in my head for three days now.

― ENBB, Friday, March 11, 2011 5:08 PM (1 year ago)

What really annoys me about the video for 'Motorcycle Emptiness' is that the time shown on the clock on the ferris wheel in the background keeps jumping backwards and forwards.

When I was in Tokyo I thought of making a trip to Yokohama to see it, but thought better of it as it seemed a bit indulgent. Yokohama's meant to be pretty good though.

The hilarious thing about the Motorcycle Emptiness is James Dean Bradfield trying to put himself in this "rock god" role (which was par for the course for the Manics in those days), when he looked about 12.

He had some fluff going on in fairness

From Despair to Where. I think I based a five year obsession on them on this one song. That and Little Baby Nothing.

Not really tunes I'd ever thought would inspire devotion

Little Baby Nothing is amazing

'Life Becoming A Landslide'...as good as song that's ever been written on the fragility of the male psyche....

'From Despair to Where' is abt the only one i can stick these days

the 'faster'/'pcp' single is def their high point imo.

I disagree. The Holy Bible and Everything Must Go are both equally strong records IMO, even though they're obviously different records. They still managed to put out Journal For Plague Lovers and Send Away The Tigers, too, both of which I'd rather listen to than the first two.

i don't disagree with that! i just think that one single has everything i ever wanted from the manics -- both songs have such an incredibly tight, compressed, almost claustrophobic sound (in a way they remind me of 'instant karma!' and some of the other lennon tracks from that era), and the lyrics are richey at his skirting-the-edges-of-madness best.

Came here to say exactly what I see I said a decade ago; La Tristessa and Motorcycle Emptiness. Really good singles band; picked up Forever Delayed at the weekend for pennies. No interest in the albums, really.

Under neon loneliness / motorcycle emptiness...

Although choosing those two, I now have Kevin Carter buried in my cerebellum.

https://www.stereogum.com/2014517/manic-street-preachers-this-is-my-truth-turns-20/franchises/the-anniversary/

Wow, I guess I was 10 when this was released

made a huge impression on me, must have listened to it a thousand times

never really came back to it

production is cool on it, very 90s, kinda Orbit-y

I still love all the big blurry overlong slow songs that muck up the album (Be Natural, I'm Not Working, SYMM) even though I'm sure the band considers them some kind of nadir. The production/length/arrangements are very 1998/99 but the sense of depression and disorientation feels real and the melodies are lovely. Hell, even the meta conceit of "SYMM" works for me now. Daresay also JDB's peak as a vocalist and guitarist, if nothing else.

Little Baby Nothing. What an enormous, absolutely uncompromising song.

So easy to make fun of this band, but the joke is often on yourself.

‘Life Becoming A Landslide’...The musical version of a Terrance Davies film...just devastating

motorcycle emptiness

For some reason, reading this (from the NME) made me chuckle:

Frontman James Dean Bradfield can be heard in the opening moments of the album teaser singing the lines “We live in Orwellian times” from the new song ‘Orwellian Times’ ...

I found the typo in this a bit tragic:

The song also featured some political lyrics: “Don’t let those boys from Eaton suggest that we are beaten, no, no, no…can be free and equal.”