I can’t listen to music too often. It affects your nerves, makes you want to say stupid, naïve things and stroke the heads of people who could create such beauty while living in this vile hell. And now you mustn’t stroke anyone’s head, you might get your hand bitten off.
– V.I. Lenin
Terrified of saying the “stupid, naïve things” that Vlad mentions above, I’m going to be quiet about my relationship with the music (and associated culture) of the Manic Street Preachers. How could I possibly sum up the amount of influence they’ve exerted on me over the past twelve years? Yes, I was a reader before I listened to their music, but the Manics made me realize that literature could be dangerous, exciting and even sexy. This is a band whose mainstream breakout hit began “libraries gave us power.” For me, the Manics promoted literacy over rock and roll excess, and it doesn’t feel over the top to announce that I came to literature through their music/culture. Sorry Vladimir, I just can’t help it. Anyway, this isn’t meant to be autobiography, but in reviewing Simon Price’s biography of the band Everything: A Book About Manic Street Preachers, one can’t help but be a little bit confessional. Really, that personal introduction was just a warning that what follows is intensely coloured by my own connection to the music, the band and how they changed me.
It’s rare to see music biography reviewed on book blogs. I think that these books are usually seen as puff PR pieces, cut and pasted from the media releases and not given to criticism or careful analysis. Everything doesn’t fall into this category, it’d be impossible to get away with doing so given how keenly literate the band itself and Manic Street Preachers fans tend to be. That’s a generalization of course, but a band that references Valerie Solanas, Primo Levi and Octave Mirbeau among others isn’t going to be given the same treatment as other music biography publisher friendly unit shifters.
[on Motown Junk] This was rock ‘n’ roll patricide (the Manics had once described themselves as ‘four baby Hamlets’): the clearest expression of their impulse to destroy history, both musically and culturally. As they told the NME: ‘By denying ourselves a past we are trying to find a worthwhile present out of this junky wreckage of life.’
The band’s history is anything but straight forward – outrageous statements, messes of eyeliner and spraypaint, the darkest (and best) contemporary rock album ever (The Holy Bible), the tragic disappearance of key member Richey Edwards, the comeback album, and the comfortable segue into the league of rock and roll royalty. It’s a history fraught with tension, depression and contradiction. No matter how familiar you are with the trajectory of the band, hardcore Manics fan and music journalist Simon Price brings his enthusiasm and first hand insight to make it interesting. Even the sections discussing the music itself don’t resort to the clichéd language of rock journalism. Price carefully portrays the energy of the music, as well as analysing the meaning without coming across as ostentatious. Thankfully, he’s also not afraid to call out the truly awkward moments on their albums as overblown, dated, or impenetrable. However it is a criticism that is clearly couched in love.
Price’s criticism isn’t limited to the music. Interspersed throughout the traditional band history are essays on various topics: one for each member of the band – the politics and contradictions of their public persona, the devotion of the fans, how they interacted with all levels of popular culture, ruminating on the lack of success in America, the implications of the bands Welshness and the casual racism of the music press, sex and gender as embodied by Richey Edwards, self-harm and mental illness and the band’s continuation after the disappearance of Edwards. It is these essays which help raise Everything above the bog-standard music biography format, instead offering a new way of looking at and thinking about the Manic Street Preachers and their music.
[Also, this book possibly has magic powers as while I was reading it the Manics announced their first Australian tour since January 1999. To say I am excited is understating it just a little.]
1999, August 2010, book review, Everything: A Book About Manic Street Preachers, non-fiction, Simon Price
I know this post was made months ago, and you may not care about your blog anymore if your recent inactivity indicates such, but I felt I should say that I fucking loved this book. I don’t want to add any more other than to say that as someone who found identification with the band members (especially Richey), the literature they read, and most of their music, this book was one of the most fascinating reads of my life. Maybe that’s because I’m an aspiring photojournalist, and this book encouraged me to think that there are still journalists out there willing to risk their monetary well-being to commit to major projects like these, or maybe it’s because I’m a massive Manics fan, but either way, it touched me in a profound way that most journalists don’t once they tread away from pure reporting into gonzo journalism (I find most journalists too manipulative in their words, too quick to resort to puns and past events, too….old).
Also, I saw the Manics last year when they performed in Brisbane. To date, my favourite gig ever. Felt like the audience went ape-shit at A Design for Life, and my best friend became a big fan after that gig, even though he didn’t give much of a shit before.
Finally, even if this blog is dead, I commend you on what seems to have been a string of amazing posts. I don’t really ever find anyone who can discuss literature on an amazingly thoughtful level other than 2 of my uni teachers, so to find this blog was a god send.
In a world in which most blogs start off dead, you’ve been a rare flower.
A late fan,
Matt