Everything Must Go

We've re-traced our steps in terms of what happened to Richey so many times and at the end of the day Richey was surrounded by people who cared about him and who were quite sensible and still we couldn't help.

The Manic Street Preachers were always one of "those bands" for me. Growing up as a teenager, I did it all Manic style... the eyeliner and the combat wear (at the Friday night dance in Portree that was a bit on the... well, daft side), and letting Nicky Wire convince me that hoovering was as much fun as going out and getting wasted... okay, almost as much fun. A bunch of us really loved the Manics, although there wasn't much in the way of hysteria when Richey disappeared. More a sense that here was another great band that was about to disappear.

And they didn't. Instead they released the material they'd been working on, and it was their biggest hit to date. Everything Must Go thrust them resolutely into the mainstream, turned them into rock monsters instead of of spikey outsiders... from thereon in, hundreds of pissed up britpoppers would be out on a Friday night, shouting out that Libraries give us power when they hadn't been in one since they stopped reading Spot the Dog... (or the Big Bad Bus from Luss, that being the Highlands). The followup, This is My Truth, Tell Me Yours was big rock with big rock gestures, and by now the band were among Britrock's elder statesmen; and I felt like I'd moved on - and so had they. Since then I've revisited that record, and it's a lot better than I thought it was at the time, but it's still the visceral power of The Holy Bible or the soaring power of songs like "A Design for Life" that I think of when I think of the Manics. The last couple of records I haven't really listened to, as they strayed more and more into a melodic, MOR territory where Nicky Wire's lyrics just get a bit too clever for me; yet in all this, a quarter of the royalties from those records continues to go into a bank account in Richey Manic's name.

James Dean Bradfield has just done a pretty candid interview in the face of the impending release of his solo album, The Great Western; you can read it here on the BBC.

As for the solo album? Well, I had no great expectations for it, given that I've not been that keen on recent Manics output. And that was doing it a disservice, because it's actually bloody good. Freed from the ever-increasing complexity of Wire's lyrics, Bradfield is able to concentrate on what he does best, and put guitars and melodies together with his distinctive, still angry sounding voice. I expected to find maybe one or two decent songs, so I started writing a list so that I didn't forget which ones were good: seven of the eleven tracks got added; from the sha la la's of first single "That's no way to tell a lie" to "Say hello to the Pope", this is a clever, articulate, and meaningful record.

It's not the Manics; but perhaps this and Wire's solo record will give them a chance to refresh and recharge. It certainly seems that that's the case so far. The Great Western is out in the UK on the 24th of this month.

Manic Street Preachers - ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart