A Design For Life – Manic Street Preachers (1996)
The Manic’s first recording after the disappearance of Richey Edwards was a lush, stirring anthem that came as a ray of light from a dark place.
I have talked on several occasions about the mid-90s being a bit of a dead zone for music for me on account of the arrival of my children and their inability to sleep through the night. When I saw that Everything Must Go, the fourth album by Manic Street Preachers was released this week in 1996, it suggested that not everything went by me without making an impact. I’ve been listening to the album this week for the first time in quite a while and have been struck by just how instantly familiar all the tunes were to me.
The band formed in Caerphilly in Wales in 1986 and I became aware of them in the early 90s through the music press who loved their androgynous art-punk style and controversial behaviour. I picked up on the band through their early singles You Love Us, Stay Beautiful and the wonderful, wide-screen Motorcycle Emptiness. Their driving drums and guitars set to Richey Edwards and Nicky Wire’s dark, politicised lyrics began to sell records and these singles crept into the UK top 40. Notoriety followed when the troubled Edwards responded to a question by then-NME journalist Steve Lamaq asking how serious he was about his art by carving the words “4 Real” into his forearm with a razor blade.
I bought their second album, Gold Against The Soul in 1993 but, with a couple of exceptions, its polished-up hard rock sound is now a distant memory. The glam-punk sound of 1994’s The Holy Bible has stuck with me much more but by this time Edwards was in the depths of depression, alcohol abuse and anorexia. Musically exciting but lyrically it is far from a cheery listen – with song titles like She Is Suffering, Archives of Pain and 4st 7lb, a review in Q magazine suggested that “even a cursory glance at the titles will confirm that this is not the new Gloria Estefan album”. Add the extract from Octave Marbeau’s The Torture Garden and the Jenny Saville painting on the sleeve and you, quite literally, get the picture. Faster is a blisteringly great single, though.
Edwards disappeared on 1 February 1995, on the day when he and singer James Bradfield were due to fly to the US on a promotional tour for The Holy Bible. There are a myriad of theories and apparent sightings in the days after this but on 14 February his car was found abandoned at a service station near the Severn Bridge where it is widely believed that he committed suicide. Edwards was legally presumed dead in 2008 but I have read that the band continues to set up a microphone for him at every live performance.
After a six-month hiatus where they considered giving up, the band reconvened to tentatively rehearse as a three piece and explored songs that Edwards had written and co-written. Wire began writing new lyrics himself and, together with Bradfield and drummer Sean Moore, the band sought a new direction with a desire to let their music breathe after the persistent snarl of The Holy Bible. They had planned to name the new LP Sounds In The Grass after a series of Jackson Pollock paintings – he has a quotation in the inside sleeve – but opted to use the title of the track where Wire’s lyric seeks absolution for the band changing in a world without Richards: “And I just hope that you can forgive us, but everything must go”.
A Design For Life was the first song the ‘new’ band wrote and recorded. It is an elegant string-drenched epic where producer Mike Hedges adopts his own wall-of-sound production style. He had honed this when producing the terrific top ten debut single Yes for McAlmont and Butler the previous year. Wire’s lyric is driven by his interest in history and politics and Bradfield claims his music was inspired by Ennio Morricone, R.E.M. and Phil Spector and he wrote it in ten minutes. Hidden beneath that radio-friendly tune is a triumphant, raging hymn to British working class identity and solidarity. The song opens with the line “Libraries gave us power”, inspired by Wire seeing ‘Knowledge is Power’ engraved in a stone above the window of the library in Pillgwenlly, Newport.
The single was released in April 1996, a month before the album and the anticipation was such that it entered the UK singles chart at No2. It was the first in a run of eleven singles to chart at No 11 or higher, right up to the Know Your Enemy album in 2001. The Manics had gone mainstream and their significant commercial success in the UK was reflected in Europe. However, America failed to take the working class lads from the valleys to their hearts, which is probably not hugely surprising. Here they are performing their career-defining song with full string section on Later in 1996 where Sean Moore’s drumming really stands out.
Last Word
Even though I’ve gone for something more familiar this week, I feel that the early weeks of the single-song blog have lacked the diversity of sound that I enjoyed mixing together in the days of the six-song playlist. Next week’s challenge is to resolve this and re-balance the Master Playlist at the link below.
AR
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