When the Manic Street Preachers first reared their pretty-boy faces in 1990, they stuck out from the rest of the pack like a sore thumb. While the music press were still enraptured with the laddish, E-fuelled "Madchester" scene, these Welsh punkers represented a complete antithesis to that whole dumbed-down culture. Sounding like the mutant love child of Public Enemy and Guns N' Roses (with a healthy dose of The Clash and New York Dolls thrown in for good measure), the Manics burst in to the public's consciousness: a devastating cocktail of glamour, aggression, arrogance and intelligence. With a machine gun rattle of fantastic quotes (e.g., "We will always hate Slowdive (early 90s shoegazers) more than Hitler" - Richey Edwards, "I detest every other musician I've ever met" - Nicky Wire), and bile-filled, often "shocking" lyrics (e.g. "I laughed when Lennon got shot" - "Motown Junk", "Repeat after me, fuck queen and country/Repeat after me, death sentence heritage" - "Repeat"), the Manics looked, acted and sounded like no other band around. It was this dislocation that made them so essential, flying in the face of a wave of worthless, drugged-up no-marks like Northside and First Offence with elegance and poetic grace.
Perhaps the band's greatest boast (and soon enough, contradiction) was their claim that they would split up after the release of their debut album, and that this album would sell around 16 million copies worldwide. "No one has ever sacrificed themselves" said "rhythm guitarist"* and co-lyricist Richey Edwards (AKA Richey James)." If we become huge and just throw it away, that is a big statement."
Released in 1992, Generation Terrorists was the album in question. A mammoth 18 tracks and 73 minutes long, it certainly seemed like the group were shooting as much of their load as they could muster, just in case they really WERE going to experience a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The record opens with "Slash 'N' Burn" (which, as journalist Simon Price once stated, would have been more appropriately titled "Slash 'N' Axl"), a balls-y, swaggering track that pits an anti-Third World exploitation lyric against G'NR riff-age. It's a good opener, but not great by any standards. The lyrics read too much like 6th Form poetry, and the music sounds very dated. The same could be said for the next two tracks, "Natwest-Barclays-Midlands-Lloyds" and "Born To End". It's only with the gorgeous "Motorcycle Emptiness" that the record really takes off. Strings and a piano underline a beautiful, mournful guitar motif as JDB sings of the cheap dreams sold by consumerism. This was the song that made many of the band's critics eat their words - an absolute classic.
"You Love Us" follows next, an equally brilliant slab of old-school punk: a cocky statement of intent - "We are not your sinners/Our voices are for real/We realized and won't be mourned/We're gonna burn your death mask uniforms". The track concludes with a classic "rock out" ending, displaying some of the LP's best guitar work.
"Love's Sweet Exile" is similarly self-obsessed, but not quite as good. "Little Baby Nothing" is an all together more intriguing affair. A duet with controversial porn-star Traci Lords, the track explored female exploitation, delivering a "sometimes clumsy,...but ultimately powerful" message, set to music which is a little too much for my liking.
The rather pointless remix of Repeat ("Repeat (Stars And Stripes") comes next. It's not too bad, but it sounds totally out of place, throwing the album out of sync. It's purely filler, as is "Tennessee". Things pick up greatly with the perversely catchy "Another Invented Disease", a song about the conspiracy theory that the HIV virus was created by US germ-warfare scientists. "Stay Beautiful" is similarly up beat (in musical terms at least - the chorus lyrics of "Don't wanna see your face/Don't wanna hear your words/Why don't you just (fuck off)" betraying the music's "feel" somewhat), serving as something of a summary for the band's ideology ("We're a mess of eyeliner and spray paint/DIY destruction on Chanel chic/...This is a culture of destruction"). "So Dead" rages against Western Culture, containing the ear catching line "No one f**ks as good as Marilyn", while "Repeat (UK)" is a breath-taking, blistering anti-monarchist anthem, contrasting sharply with the mellow morbidness of "Spectators Of Suicide". A cover of "Damn Dog", a song by the ficticious band in early 80's movie "Times Square", The Sleez Sisters, is OK, but the track screams "b-side". "Crucifix Kiss" is much better, a savage hymn to atheism in which Christ is referred to as "Fuhrer Nazarine". Live favorite "Methodone Pretty" opens with a Marx quote that perfectly encapsulates the early-Manics spirit: "I am nothing and should be everything".
The record closes with "Condemned To Rock N' Roll" which, despite it's title, is an over-long, somewhat dull ending to an erratic, but promising debut album. As Richey himself stated: "Everybody knows the first album would have been better if we'd left out all the crap". This LP contains some great songs, some good ones, and several "cock-rock"-ing shit ones. If they had got rid of all the filler, and included the irresistible "Motown Junk", then the Manics would have created arguably the greatest debut LP of the 90s. As it is, Generation Terrorists stands as a good, often enjoyable debut. The band did not split after it's release and went on to bigger and better things, specifically The Holy Bible and Everything Must Go - two of the best albums of the past decade. 1. Slash N' Burn
2. Nat West-Barclays-Midland-Lloyds
3. Born to End
4. Motorcycle Emptiness
5. You Love Us
6. Love's Sweet Exile
7. Little Baby Nothing
8. Repeat (Star and Stripes)
9. Tennessee
10. Another Inventes Disease
11. Stay Beautiful
12. So Dead
13. Repeat
14. Sepctators of Suicide
15. Damn Dog
16. Crucifix Kiss
17. Methadone Pretty
18. Condemned to Rock 'N' Roll
More about: Manic Street Preachers
