Manic Street Preachers Cover Rihanna

Ella Ella Ella! Thanks for the tip, Culture Of Me. I'm speechless on this one.


MP3: MSP - Your Love Alone Is Not Enough

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Retro Clip: Manics Visit Jools Holland, Circa '97

Watch the band's performance of mega-single, 'A Design For Life', in the video below.


MP3: Manic Street Preachers - A Design For Life [alt link]

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Manics Named NME's 2008 Godlike Geniuses

MSP bassist Nicky Wire had the following to say about the honor: *“When our manager told us about it I just genuinely felt humbled and excited. We’ve won four BRIT Awards, Ivor Novellos, but it’s vindication. It feels like the best one because the NME is what I grew up with and for all its faults it still means a lot to me. It’s so fucking brilliant, honestly. It’s really made me feel fantastic.”*

MP3: Manic Street Preachers - Rendition

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Manic Street Preachers Respond To Radiohead's 'Rainbows'

Yet another voice has spoken out. This time, Manics bassist Nicky Wire exclaims: *"Fair play to Radiohead for doing something different. It's certainly great for publicity but I think it kind of demeans music. Music used to be a market, now it's all gone digital. It's worrying and it seems to be the way of the world at the moment. Sales are doing well everywhere else. Cinema is doing well, video games are doing well but music isn't. The free download phenomenon is ruining the industry."* Yikes! Manics MP3 below.

MP3: Manic Street Preachers - Indian Summer (via Interfunt)

Posted on 9:20 AM / 0 comments / Read More

Manics Release Free Xmas Tune

I love this new trend. Full details courtesy of the band's official site. *Here we go, a Manics Christmas tour is upon us. A fine and worthy tradition - To celebrate this season of goodwill we will be giving away our Christmas single 'The Ghosts Of Christmas' on our website, and newsletter, from 1 December completely free. So to anyone who has bought our records, seen our gigs, read our reviews, joined our website or given us awards: Thank You for a special year. The song is old school Christmas, the anti X Factor, for us it's actual fun. Hope you enjoy the song and the tour. Merry Christmas - Nicky Wire, James & Sean* Download the tune here.

MP3: Manic Street Preachers - Indian Summer (via Interfunt)

Posted on 7:15 AM / 0 comments / Read More

Fflam Festival Canceled!

This is getting out of control!

Here's the official statement: *"It is with great regret that we confirm the cancellation of the Fflam Festival for 2007. After the initial postponement due to torrential weather conditions, we have made every possible effort to try and secure a new date for the festival this summer. Unfortunately, we cannot find a date that suits all parties and due to artist availability, we are not in a position to deliver the brilliant line-up of bands we always intended if we go ahead.

At this stage, we are left with no option but to cancel the festival for 2007 and put all our efforts into making it a huge success in 2008. We would like to thank all the people in the local community who have stuck by us and supported us throughout the past couple of months. For those who bought tickets, full refunds will be available from point of purchase."*

What a bummer. Manic Street Preachers, Keane & Placebo were just some of the acts to be included on the stellar bill. Download some tracks from the bands below.

MP3s: Manic Street Preachers - A Design For Life + Keane - This Is The Last Time + Placebo - Nancy Boy (via Chodorowski)

Posted on 10:35 AM / 0 comments / Read More

New Manic Street Preachers Album Cover: Love It Or Hate It?

The new Manics album, Send Away The Tigers, is already a top 10 hit in the UK, but the album doesn't get released here in the States until July 24th. Hop over to The Tripwire for the LP's full tracklisting; in the meantime, do you love or hate the album art?

MP3: Manic Street Preachers - You Love Alone Is Not Enough (feat. Nina of The Cardigans)

Posted on 1:41 PM / 0 comments / Read More

Manic Street Preachers: Everything Must NOT Go!

Seems like our Manic boys are out to save some music!

More from NME: Manic Street Preachers have added their weight to a campaign to save the world's oldest record shop. Spillers in Cardiff has been trading since 1894, but is set to fall victim to a substantial rise in rent.

A petition has been created, calling for the landowners to recognise Spillers' contribution to Cardiff's musical heritage and keep the rent at a more realistic level. A statement signed by James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire and Sean Moore said: "Spillers was a lifeline, it gave us our musical education. The only record shop in Wales where we could find the music that made us who we are." The street outside Spillers was the site of early busking gigs by James Dean Bradfield and Nicky Wire.

Do we think Interpol would do the same for Other Music?

MP3: 'A Design For Life'

Posted on 12:06 PM / 0 comments / Read More

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

Posted on 8:43 AM / 0 comments / Read More

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

Posted on 8:43 AM / 0 comments / Read More