The Manic Street Preachers were never supposed to make it to fifteen albums. When the band formed in Blackwood in the late 1980s – an unlikely time and place for a glam-rock-punk band to form, by their own admission – they intended to release just one album, split up at the peak of their powers, and bask in the glow of the anarchic social and political revolution that they felt sure their music would cause. Such is the optimism and naivety of youth. Their first album, Generation Terrorists, succeeded in making them Britain’s most hated band, but it didn’t cause a revolution. The Manics decided they might as well keep going. The rest is history – but the reality isn’t quite so simple.
The story of the Manic Street Preachers from where they began to where they are now is a long and complicated one, and it’s been told many times before in more suitable surroundings than this one, but the short story is that this much-lauded Welsh band isn’t just a group of rock legends – it’s a group of survivors.
Prologue to History
The Manic Street Preachers as they exist today are framed and shaped by the disappearance of Richey Edwards, the band’s chief lyricist and rhythm guitarist, in 1995. Edwards was the band’s most visible member, always at the front in photoshoots and responsible for the sharp soundbites that earned the band so much column space and courted so much controversy in their early years. The Manics were a socio-political band, and most of their rhetoric came from Edwards. Edwards had things to say, and the rest of the band ensured that those things were said loudly.
A band that has “a message” can make a point and perhaps even a difference if they’re given the spotlight, but they tend to burn brightly and fade away. Revolutionaries eventually get old. That first incarnation of the band would never have made it to fifteen albums – they’d have run out of protest songs and ideas. The vanishing of Edwards ripped the heart out of the band and the people who loved him, but also paved the way for the Manics to last for another thirty years.
Endless Introspection
So, then, we arrive in the present, with the band’s fifteenth album, “Critical Thinking,” slated for release in early 2025. We’ve already heard two singles from the album, and they’ve reinforced everything we already believed about the band’s current direction. Gone is the anger. Gone is the rage that the Manic Street Preachers used to direct at the world around them. Instead, we have introspection, reflection, and self-awareness. The first single from the album, “Decline and Fall,” isn’t about the collapse of society – it’s a very self-referential song about the end of the band’s time as a famous, mainstream act. “I know our time has come and gone; at least we blazed a trail and shone,” notes Nicky Wire in his lyric. Even the most ardent Manics fan would have to say it’s not one of his best.
The presence of Wire, who took over most of Edwards’ lyric-writing duties after his disappearance, looms large over the album. The second single, “Hiding in Plain Sight,” is the first-ever Manics single to feature Wire on lead vocals – surprising new ground for the band to be breaking this far into their career. Again, though, the song is introspective. In its chorus, Wire expresses a wish to keep the curtains closed all day and a fear of his own reflection, seemingly no longer able to connect with the young firebrand he once was. Worryingly for the many fans who’d like the band to last forever, he also expresses, “Yes, I knew this thing would end – I did not know where or when.” With apparently nothing left to say unless it’s about themselves, is this the end of the road for the Manics?
All Good Things Come to an End
When is a band not a band? Perhaps it’s when it’s the Manic Street Preachers. Everything about the original band, save for the name, has gone. They no longer want to change the world. They no longer want to start a revolution. They admit as much in their words. The band’s original identity and purpose are long gone. In a real sense, the Manic Street Preachers that we grew up with ceased to exist a long time ago. This current version can play the old songs, but they can no longer do it with the same conviction.
The Manics aren’t a jukebox rock act. While some of their peers and even their idols – Guns n’ Roses, for example – have essentially turned themselves into a purely capitalist enterprise by lending their name and likeness to everything from whisky and cheese to online casino games, the Manic Street Preachers are unlikely to do that. When the new casino sites 2025 list comes out, you’re not going to see the Manics connected to it. Wire may once have described them as, “the band that likes to say yes,” but venturing into the world of online casinos is probably a step too far even for them. As such, when they decide they’ve recorded their last song and played their last set, that’s likely to be the end.
Perhaps that’s for the best. The early Manics didn’t want to go on forever. These old Manics may already have gone on for too long. With the greatest of love and respect, nobody wants to hear a once-great band write and play about how they’re old now, and they’re not as good or famous as they used to be. The Manics are in danger of drifting into naval-gazing if they’re not there already, and that would be no way to end. If Critical Thinking is to be the last act of these long-tenured legends, let’s hope it’s a fitting way to end. The first couple of singles haven’t given us much hope, but perhaps they’re quite literally saving the best for last, and their best work is on the album itself.
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