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Owen Hatherley on the Manic Street Preachers

🕑 Added 2025-06-11 05:10:01 +0000 UTC

Comments

Paul Brewer

My ears perked up on hearing of the idea of the 1990s as a bit of a fraud. Although the 'ERM Years' were pretty crap, after 'White Wednesday' (or whatever day of the week it was) things got pretty good for me. I'd be quite keen to hear an episode on the false promises of the 1990s, if you can find someone to talk about it. Also, for me, I like these culturally-themed episodes a lot. More, please.

Politics Theory Other

Agree re. the shirts but I think there's a distinction between the sort of mini-era of New Art Riot/Motown Junk/the Heavenly version of You Love Us and then the Generation Terrorists era proper. As you say, in the earlier period they're much more under the influence of the Pistols and the Clash - less so on the album itself.

Hand ov Doom

Cultural commentators are fond of movements being 'killed off' when really fashions just fade as their fans age and new audiences emerge and find their own thing. If anything replaced hair metal it was the ascendance of Metallica, peaking with the Black album (same year as Nevermind and outselling it). Black cover, black t-shirts, no (visible) make-up. Nirvana were never taken up by metal fans the way, say, Alice in Chains were to an extent. I remember the Manics saying they wanted to be as big as Guns n Roses and over time this seems to have mutated to everyone saying they wanted to emulate those sorts of bands aesthetically which they never really did. Their early stencilled shirts were always more Jamie Reid than Nikki Sixx.

Politics Theory Other

Yes, it's true! I remember in 1992 they did a set on the Tommy Vance Rock show on Radio 1 and I think Simon Price mentions in his book that the Manics were delighted to be doing that rather than a Peel session.

Kieran Curran

Great listen. On a ROCK related tangent, my brother and I were avid readers of Kerrang magazine in early/mid 1990s west of Ireland - that's where I first heard of the Manics. They gave The Holy Bible 5 stars, iirc - so the metal love-in wasn't entirely one sided!