Know Your Enemy 20 scheduled for 2021 release

[VCK]

Like people have said there's an album in there somewhere - Found That Soul and Intravenous Agnostic are both brilliant and, controversial as this may be, but Wattsville Blues and Miss Europa Disco Dancer are two of the better songs on it. The problem is, there's no cohesive flow to it. Half the songs just seem lazily written and I've never been quite sure what they were setting out to achieve when they wrote the album. Were they wanting to do something a bit more raw than TIMTTMY and EMG, were they wanting to still do something poppy, or were they wanting to just do what they want and subvert people's expectations of them?

It's really odd how their career took quite a nosedive when this album came out, when Oasis have put out some albums that were even more critically panned and the general consenus was that they too were past their best at the turn of the millennium, yet they were still headlining festivals and selling out arenas and stadiums towards the end of their tenure. The Manics went from headlining Glastonbury to accepting support slots at festivals within the space of a few years.

But then the Manics' rejuvenation with SATT and then JFPL (there was quite a lot of hype surrounding the band around 2007-09) was stopped dead in its tracks with the awful PFAYM. I think that album did as much damage as KYE did.

[richeysite]

Originally Posted by VCK

Like people have said there's an album in there somewhere - Found That Soul and Intravenous Agnostic are both brilliant and, controversial as this may be, but Wattsville Blues and Miss Europa Disco Dancer are two of the better songs on it. The problem is, there's no cohesive flow to it. Half the songs just seem lazily written and I've never been quite sure what they were setting out to achieve when they wrote the album. Were they wanting to do something a bit more raw than TIMTTMY and EMG, were they wanting to still do something poppy, or were they wanting to just do what they want and subvert people's expectations of them?

I seem to remember that the intention with KYE was to go against the previous two albums, EMG and TIMTTMY, because the band felt they had become too radio-friendly, too accessible, that they had lost their punk edge, which they wanted to return to. They had become their own enemy, hence the title of the album.

[Tim]

Originally Posted by Suicide Aldi

The early 00s was the golden age of band websites in my opinion. I miss the old internet.

To paraphrase someone on twitter - i'm old enough to remember when the internet didn't consist of five giant websites each sharing screenshots from the other four.

[tomd2103]

Originally Posted by VCK

Like people have said there's an album in there somewhere - Found That Soul and Intravenous Agnostic are both brilliant and, controversial as this may be, but Wattsville Blues and Miss Europa Disco Dancer are two of the better songs on it. The problem is, there's no cohesive flow to it. Half the songs just seem lazily written and I've never been quite sure what they were setting out to achieve when they wrote the album. Were they wanting to do something a bit more raw than TIMTTMY and EMG, were they wanting to still do something poppy, or were they wanting to just do what they want and subvert people's expectations of them?

Think the feeling at the time was that it had become a bit too big and overblown (certainly from Wire) and they wanted to do something a bit more raw. It has become clear over the years, however, that commercial success is important to them and I think the somewhat confused nature of KYE reflects the dilemma they were going through at that time.

[hummingbird]

Bumpity bump bump

[UEF]

Originally Posted by tomd2103

Think the feeling at the time was that it had become a bit too big and overblown (certainly from Wire) and they wanted to do something a bit more raw. It has become clear over the years, however, that commercial success is important to them and I think the somewhat confused nature of KYE reflects the dilemma they were going through at that time.

Well, people said it was cool when The Beatles had Within You Without You next to When I’m Sixty Four on a record. It can be done.

[everlasting]

I said to my brother yesterday KYE was getting a 20th anniversary re-release next year with hopefully some cool stuff and his reaction was "20 years? It only seems like a few years since it came out!" I was like "Aye, it's scary where times goes." Hope the set does have some cool stuff on it, and is jam-packed as they can make it, including a DVD or Blu Ray!

[jac185]

Originally Posted by everlasting

I said to my brother yesterday KYE was getting a 20th anniversary re-release next year with hopefully some cool stuff and his reaction was "20 years? It only seems like a few years since it came out!" I was like "Aye, it's scary where times goes." Hope the set does have some cool stuff on it, and is jam-packed as they can make it, including a DVD or Blu Ray!

I know what you mean! I still think of this as the start of 'latter-day' Manics when in reality we are twice as far from Know Your Enemy today as Know Your Enemy was from Generation Terrorists.

Really looking forward to this. I always forget how many songs on this album I genuinely love. I just rarely put it on from front to back these days. In a way, the muddled nature of the record does make it potentially a more exciting prospect for a deluxe version so curious to see what they do with it.

[Europa Gluten Free]

Going to revisit this album this weekend. One of my favourite Manics eras.

Want:
1. Original 2 album idea track listing
2. Vinyl
3. T-shirt
4. More polaroids from the era
5. More lyrics artwork as in original
6. Kieran Evans thingy
7. B-sides all together (joint best b-sides era for me with TIMT and SATT)

WHAT WE'LL GET
1. None of the above but we are suckers!

In all seriousness, would love a HD version of the Reading/Leeds gig as well. Think only the shitty stream exists on YouTube.

[centralscrutiniser]

I love KYE - one of my favorites. I don't think it suffers from a lack of cohesion at all, it just feels varied to me. In another year it might have been a more condensed album with a load of excellent B sides, but even still there were plenty of great B sides. Fabulous era for the band and a reissue I've been looking forward to for a while.

[Glyn]

KYE is the one era I think they'd be fully justified in messing about with. It's such a strange and ,in the true sense of the word, manic explosion of an album ('what a mess' sums it up nicely) that it's perfect for chopping up and mixing about, so hopefully Wire has some fun with it.

I just hope that the amount of already released material doesn't mean that they scrimp on any rarities. To be fair GT was the same situation and is probably their best boxset so something similar would be fantastic.

[Dancing Kirby]

There’s still no way to split this album in two distinctive halves like they describe, and the latter b-sides weren’t even recorded when it was released, but screw it, here’s my KYE Vols I + II.

KNOW YOUR ENEMY I
Found That Soul
Intravenous Agnostic
Dead Martyrs
Pedestal
My Guernica

Ballad of the Bangkok Novotel
Wattsville Blues
The Convalescent
Baby Elian
Freedom of Speech

KNOW YOUR ENEMY II
So Why So Sad
Ocean Spray
Locust Valley
Let Robeson Sing
His Last Painting

Miss Europa Disco Dancer
The Year of Purification
Groundhog Days
Masking Tape
Epicentre

Locust Valley and Pedestal could have been swapped but LV’s production is too shiny for the first half.

YOU DIDN’T MAKE THE CUT FOR VARIOUS REASONS BUT ONE OF YOU IS UNDERDOGS LEVELS OF BAD*
Little Trolls*
Just a Kid
Fear of Motion
Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel
We Are All Bourgeois Now

[starfucker]

Kind of on topic - there's a fantastic two part documentary on Cuba and Castro on iPlayer at the moment if anyone needs a refresher course on some of the politics a lot of KYE deals with.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...o-vs-the-world

[hummingbird]

There is a gorgeous acoustic top of the pops performance of Ocean Spray I would love to see included in a deluxe set. They never include those do they?

[darkanddivine]

Originally Posted by VCK

Like people have said there's an album in there somewhere - Found That Soul and Intravenous Agnostic are both brilliant and, controversial as this may be, but Wattsville Blues and Miss Europa Disco Dancer are two of the better songs on it. The problem is, there's no cohesive flow to it. Half the songs just seem lazily written and I've never been quite sure what they were setting out to achieve when they wrote the album. Were they wanting to do something a bit more raw than TIMTTMY and EMG, were they wanting to still do something poppy, or were they wanting to just do what they want and subvert people's expectations of them?

The band said around the time that they wanted to do something deliberately imperfect, and return to their punk roots. This was a reaction to the gloss of EMG and TIMT. But they later admitted that led to a form of self sabotage. When the producers and others asked them to keep going to improve an idea on the record, they'd push back and keep it as it was. So in a way they were quite bloody mounded about the rawness, and arguably they achieved what they set out to do. It also meant that it was difficult to pull a cohesive album out of the rubble so to speak.

Originally Posted by VCK

It's really odd how their career took quite a nosedive when this album came out, when Oasis have put out some albums that were even more critically panned and the general consenus was that they too were past their best at the turn of the millennium, yet they were still headlining festivals and selling out arenas and stadiums towards the end of their tenure. The Manics went from headlining Glastonbury to accepting support slots at festivals within the space of a few years.

To me this is all about relative size once a band gets big.

The Manics enjoyed huge success, and arguably filled the void left by Oasis in 1998 and 1999. They did seem to be the guitar band of that moment. That said, not long before that in 1996, MSP were playing theatres. Oasis were already playing football stadiums.

Oasis also had the benefit of coasting on the fumes of the first 2 albums which, in many ways, still eclipse the flaws of their later work to this day. The Manics never had that fuel to coast on, since their breakthrough came later. And though the public undeniably took to EMG and TIMT, they were still never quite as universally liked as the first few Oasis records. I think you could see that in the way that the EMG tour sold really well in comparison to the other anniversary events.

So when their relative stars began to wane, they waned from different points. Compared to Oasis, the Manics were in many ways half way up the mountain. So even though the Manics fell down a peg from 2001 onward, the fact that they still gained good mainstream coverage for a good while shows the level of their work ethic, and that almost none of their successes has fallen in their lap. And on that note, fair play to them for plugging away when it would have been much easier to play the hiatus card.