The quest to reclaim PFAYM

[tzb]

So I've recently come back to the band for the first time since 2009 and the fantastic Journal For Plague Lovers. Rewind The Film is a really good record, not my favourite by them but the kind of thing I'm keen to hear from the band at this point in their lives, and to be honest it's nice to feel I've got "my band" back after the debacle that was the entire PFAYM project. Many people who stuck with them during that time or even liked the album can't understand why so many longstanding fans were put off the band at the time of PFAYM's release, so I thought I'd try and elucidate for anyone who might be genuinely interested. After that I'm putting together "my" version of PFAYM from all tracks of the era. Feel free to skip the rest, between the dashes!

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When It's Not War was first played I was as eager as everyone else. I downloaded a radio rip the day it came out, played it maybe 10 or 15 times and got to know it. I accepted it wasn't going to be one of my favourites by the band, it has a distinct daytime TV feel in the strings and relatively shallow melody, but it was OK. Having had the postcard through my door from the band asking us to prepare for "one last shot at mass communication" I knew shallow and radio friendly was the order of the day, and INWJTEOL was certainly that.

Next the album was streamed... and my god, it was a fucking mess. It started reasonably well - the run of INWJTEOL, PFAYM and SKON was OK although I wouldn't have pictured either of the other two becoming singles - I assumed the other singles were still to come, later on the record. The Descent was... not great. Definitely the worst of the record so far, especially as it nicked the ultra-familiar start of The Everlasting for it's intro, but it was just about saved by the relatively strong chorus hook. And then the rot set in.

Hazelton Avenue was a dismal re-purposing of Lenny Kravitz' 1991 MOR hit It Ain't Over Til It's Over, and that was really not OK. Crap lyrics, no hook and strings we'd been hearing on Magic FM for the last two decades... I know the song has it's fans and of course that's fair enough, but for me that was one of the biggest musical turn-offs in the band's history. Auto-Intoxication arrived next, a more upbeat number but one which borrowed very heavily from previous album highlight All Is Vanity and which really suffers in comparison. The heavier choruses and solos were spoiled by a chummy upbeat inflection to the harmonies, and what could've been a cool guitar tone soon revealed it was less QOTSA and more Eagles. This kind of song was what a good slab of the previous (classic) album had been made up of - it was simply weird to hear that one year later, it had gone so wrong.

Beyond that the whole thing just merged into one long slog to the end of the record, and to this day I can't hum a bar of any song after Auto-Intoxication. The record just merges into one dull, lifeless mix of shallow numbers which are far, far below the lowest bar any previous record had set. This stuff made Autumnsong sound like a game-changing classic. I gave it two more listens and that was all it took - if this was what the band wanted to be, I didn't want to hear it.

The first time I was aware of the band was as a 10 or 11 year old watching Top Of The Pops in 1994 wondering what the hell was going on with these weirdos in balaclavas and facepaint surrounded by flames, but I became a fan in 1996 with the release of (the single) Everything Must Go. I saw the video on ITV's The Chart Show and I vividly remember some on-screen text about a radical new direction following a member of the band going missing, which made me want to know more. They seemed different, neither cheesy pop songs about love nor the exaggerated posturing of rock. They looked tired and sad, like they'd just lost a friend. They were unique, outsiders making music videos about loss and mourning which were still getting shown on ITV.

From there my interest snowballed and they were quickly my favourite band, a position they maintained fairly consistently for the next 14 years. I met my wife because we were the two Manics fans at our school, and I sang her a Manics-inspired song at our wedding. We went to Manics gigs together and I ended up doing 18 in 8 years. I got a Manics tattoo as soon as I was old enough to convince a tattoo artist I was "of age" to have one. The band gave me a wider culture, and listening to and reading interviews with them encouraged me to read, watch great cinema, seek powerful art and opened me up to politics and history. They inspired me to write songs and form a terrible band. They put me on the path that led me to university, where they got me through the death of my grandfather, a man who was like a dad to me. I was (probably over)invested in them, but those few listens of PFAYM told me the band had turned their back on what it was I loved about them: Intelligent, heartfelt lyrics; an intrinsic gift for melody; an attitude of purpose and self-belief. What I heard was complacency, navel-gazing, a distinct lack of effort which felt like a belief the band could auto-pilot themselves back onto the radio with songs about... not much.

On all their former records they'd pushed themselves on to make something of value, they'd worked hard to craft good songs and great singles (even if they didn't always release them). It went beyond a shitty album, it felt like a shift in the way the James, Nick and Sean themselves were approaching the band. The Manics have always had an image problem, and that's something I love them for. They're intelligent, angry and nostalgic, and people don't like that. I've spent most of my time as a fan defending them against detractors who say they make bland music, easy music, obvious lyrics and worst of all bad pop songs, something which is simply not true. Emotive and extreme to say, but PFAYM came out and it felt like a betrayal - the band had become the thing I'd spent the past 14 years telling all-comers they weren't, the thing I'd spent over a decade believing they'd never be: dull.

The PFAYM project rumbled on and saw the band playing Strictly Come Dancing and cooking on daytime TV, exactly what you'd expect from the band if all you'd ever heard of them was PFAYM - their daytime TV, Strictly Come Dancing record. But that's not what I want from this band. They didn't have the fire which made them different, the passion and sincerity and strangeness anymore. They were just another band, plugging a crap record on shit TV shows. I won't say I think they should still be making the music they were making when I first set eyes on them on TOTP in 1994, even if they absolutely still could. JFPL came a year before PFAYM, it was (at times) loud and angular and angry, and it was still amazing. It's probably my favourite album by the band. But I absolutely respect the fact they feel they'd rather make gentler stuff, melancholic or elegiac pop like TIMTTMY, Lifeblood and Rewind The Film. PFYAM was something else entirely.

Not only had they become dull, they'd made a conscious decision to do so. They'd even sent me that fucking postcard telling me as much. "One last shot at mass communication" meant they'd stopped trying to be different. It meant they'd consciously decided to make this album, an album which is the same as all the other MOR shit. Worse still, knowing this was where they ended up, knowing they gave up the fight and became just another band even killed my love for those fantastic old albums. How could I care for the deep melancholy of Lifeblood or the impassioned anthems of EMG when the same people had used the same medium to make something of such little worth, something demonstrating such a lack of care and respect for those values which I'd previously adored. It's not that the songs became bad, just that my desire to hear what this band had to say had utterly died. Perhaps I was due a break or backlash after 14 years of rabid fandom? Perhaps it was the contrast between the truly brilliant JFPL and then this, one year later? Perhaps as I said before I was just over-invested in the band, and what seemed like a small thing to everyone else felt massive to me? Probably all of those things, but whatever it was, it took the Manics out of my life for three years.

It's come as a huge relief to me that Rewind The Film is as good as it is. I'll admit, I was ready to hate it. I was ready for PFAYM pt II and a final confirmation they were no longer "my band". What we got has actually given me the band I loved and love back. The songs are strong again, the melodies are there and gratifyingly the band are trying something new with some passion and fire again. Despite comparisons to TIMTTMY or EMG, this album isn't really the same as any previous one they're produced. It continues the Manics trend of making each album distinct and most importantly, it once again resumes the feeling that the band care, that they want to make an effort and are pleased to be sad and intelligent and nostalgic - different. It has purpose and crucially, it rings true. It's great pop music and it's getting airplay. It's made me "rewind the film", dig out my old records and to my immense relief they sound great. They're back to being outsiders in the midst of the mainstream. They're the Manic Street Preachers again.

Not sure why any of you will have read this far, but if you did, thanks!

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[/TL;DR]

Anyway, in the spirit of returning to the band I wanted to revisit PFAYM and I have done, I've listened 10 or so times in the last month and I've also had multiple listens to the b-sides, which I'd totally missed out on first time around. In doing so I'm frankly baffled why the band picked the second half of the album they did, because they had much, much better songs at the time. Stuff like Broken Up Again deserved to be heard but I guess it didn't fit the bland tone the band had decided on for the record. As such I've had a go at putting together a better album with the songs they were kicking around at the time. It would obviously require many of the b-sides to be produced differently or given fuller sounds to fit with the ambience of the better album tracks I'm retaining. I should also say that even like this, the album would still be my least favourite by the band. But it wouldn't have "kicked me out" of things in the same way PFAYM did. It remains cheerful and chummy and a bit crap, but it becomes a creative dip rather than grounds for divorce:

1 It's Not War (Just The End Of Love)
2 Broken Up Again
3 Ostopolitik [recorded with lyrics - musically it's great but for me it feels like a backing track, incomplete and repetitive as an instrumental]
4 Some Kind of Nothingness
5 The Descent (pages 1 & 2)
6 Distractions
7 Lost Voices
8 Red Rubber
9 I'm Leaving You For Solitude
10 Postcards From a Young Man
11 I Know The Numbers
12 The Girl From Tiger Bay
--
13 (hidden) Time Ain't Nothing

Complete album youtube playlist

I would've released Broken Up Again, Some Kind of Nothingness and Distractions as singles, in that order. I reckon as a record this has considerably more variety than the finished article had, and it also has more emotional range and depth... as well as a whole load of better songs. Broken Up Again is one of their best b-sides, that it was overlooked for this album is just sad given what actually made the cut.

[mar]

Really nice to read this. I can agree with most of it. I have to say that I loved this part:

From there my interest snowballed and they were quickly my favourite band, a positioned they maintained fairly consistently for the next 14 years. I met my wife because we were the two Manics fans at our school, and I sang her a Manics-inspired song at the wedding. We went to Manics gigs together and I ended up doing 18 in 8 years. I got a Manics tattoo as soon as I was old enough to convince a tattoo artist I was "of age" to have one. The band gave me a wider culture, and listening to and reading interviews with them encouraged me to read, watch great cinema, seek powerful art and opened me up to politics and history. They inspired me to write songs and form a terrible band. They put me on the path that led me to university, where they got me through the death of my grandfather, a man who was like a dad to me.

It's a lovely story about you and your wife being manics fans, meeting and going to gigs together, is or was she around here? Also love the tattoo and the blue rose, very Twin Peaks! I never got to see you leaving the forum or the 'band', but it's good to have you here! <3

[sculptureofabloke]

Each to their own and all that, but I strongly disagree with this bit:

Originally Posted by tzb

Not only had they'd become dull, they'd made a conscious decision to do so. They'd even sent me a postcard telling me as much. "One last shot at mass communication" meant they'd stopped trying to be different. It meant they'd consciously decided to make this album, an album which is the same as all the other MOR shit. Worse still, knowing this was where they ended up, knowing they gave up the fight and became just another band even killed my love for those fantastic old albums. How could I care for the deep melancholy of Lifeblood or the impassioned anthems of EMG when the same people had used the same medium to make something of such little worth, something demonstrating such a lack of care and respect for those values which I'd previously adored. It's not that the songs became bad, just that my desire to hear what this band had to say had utterly died. Perhaps I was due a break or backlash after 14 years of rabid fandom? Perhaps it was the contrast between the truly brilliant JFPL and then this, one year later? Perhaps as I said before I was just over-invested in the band, and what seemed like a small thing to everyone else felt massive to me? Probably all of those things, but whatever it was, it took the Manics out of my life for three years.

Alright, they're my favourite band and I presume they have been your favourite band in the past, and are one of them now? I suppose because we love them so much, we expect more from them and I think that's both unfair and unrealistic. They've always been full of shit, they were going to sell 10,000,000 debut albums and split up, they were going to set fire to themselves on Top Of The Pops, Lifeblood was the Holy Bible for 35 year olds, they were going to do Springsteen-esque sets on the Tigers tour, they were making one last shot at mass communication... They've been a sensationalist band from the start, trying to be controversial and coming out with stuff they don't necessarily mean in the name of column inches.

I think there are only really extreme circumstances of when someone's behaviour or output should be able to tarnish the previous appreciation of the audience. People like Gary Glitter being a paedophile and Phil Spector being a murderer. Maybe if Clement Attlee stood up one day and said you know what, forget the NHS, forget welfare, maybe the fascists are right. But yeah.. as far as the arts go, it's hard but I do try to see a book, a film, an album or whatever as separate from its creator and its creator's other work. Especially when it comes to a band like Manic Street Preachers who are always reacting against themselves anyway. I think in a similar way that Everything Must Go could be seen as an apology to the Richey brigade for carrying on, All We Make Is Entertainment is maybe an apology to people who for want of a better way of putting it, expect them to stand up and be counted, stick to their guns etc. That said, "why do anything when you can forget everything", "I know I believe in nothing but it is my nothing", in the greater scheme of things they're pointless. Yes, they've been a very important influence on my life, gave me a much higher interest and insight into history and politics than school ever did but first and foremost they're only a band, they're entertainers, they're not world changers and they're human.

Also, I never got the postcard, I never get anything from the official site, so if you don't want it I'll gladly take it off your hands.

[MoMoney MoJunk]

Excellent thread. The pictures are brilliant (especially that leopard print shirt).

I guess I could never really experience what you (and other long-term fans) felt when PFAYM came out. As you said, you were a fan since the EMG era whereas I only got into them around '08. For me, the band's whole back catalogue was still fresh and exciting, so with PFAYM I never felt disappointed with it. There was still 10 year old b-sides to look for! I'm glad Rewind The Film is bringing fans back into the fold though, it really is a great album.

Nice playlist too.

[Dancing Kirby]

The music was awful.

The lyrics were awful.

The production was awful.

The cover was awful.

The videos were awful.

Nicky's interviews were awful.

Apart from that it had a lot going for it.

[Europa Gluten Free]

Originally Posted by Dancing Kirby

The music was awful.

The lyrics were awful.

The production was awful.

The cover was awful.

The videos were awful.

Nicky's interviews were awful.

Apart from that it had a lot going for it.

Post of the Year. Shite album from a shite period.

[UEF]

Originally Posted by Dancing Kirby

The music was awful.

The lyrics were awful.

The production was awful.

The cover was awful.

The videos were awful.

Nicky's interviews were awful.

Apart from that it had a lot going for it.

SATT?

[RND]

tzb,
Your post >> PFAYM

And PFAYM is not that bad as you portray it.
It is good for 6yr olds who later move on to like bands like Imagine dragons.
Anyways, what happened to Golden Platitudes?

edit:

Nicky Wire has said, "We've always been about infiltrating the mainstream. It was a conscious decision this time to want to hear ourselves on the radio. Our mantra at the start was, 'If you've got something to say, say it to as many people as possible'."[16] In pre-release interviews, Wire also compared the album to the Aerosmith album Pump, saying that "it's going to be an amazing album... Send Away the Tigers was Permanent Vacation; this next one is our Pump."

: )

' my unhappy mantra...'

[Nature's Discontent]

I'd probably agree with most of this, except it didn't turn me off the band completely (thankfully). I barely touch PFAYM nowadays, and haven't heard it in ages. I was once a pretty big fan of Auto-Intoxication and Golden Platitudes, but even those songs now sound dull and stale to me.

I do definitely agree about the second half. Nothing on there I can really stand listening to, except (ironically, regarding Wire's singing talents) The Future Has Been Here 4Ever, on the odd occasion.

[UEF]

I always think you can only truly understand a Manics album when the subsequent tour has happened and the album after that has come out

Manics albums can only be understood retrospectively, but they must be lived... whatever

[Corkie308]

Originally Posted by UEF

I always think you can only truly understand a Manics album when the subsequent tour has happened and the album after that has come out

Manics albums can only be understood retrospectively, but they must be lived... whatever

My exact thoughts about RTF. Once it nestles in alongside the rest of the back catalogue it somehow makes sense. As does PFAYM, for me! (And SATT).

[Radiomanic]

You have hit the nail on the head tzb, thanks for such a great read. I can absolutely relate to what you are saying...

PFAYM really put me off them as well, i didn't listen to them as much after it was released and i wasn't too excited about seeing them live (although i did and thankfully they were still the old MSP we all love on stage). It convinced me that was it, that i couldn't get excited about a new release by them ever again. The Singles Collection didn't help matters either, releasing it after such a bad album and not containing any new material wasn't the best move the band could've made. Had it come after JFPL (an excellent album) it wouldn't have felt so bad i guess. The main issue with PFAYM was that it was rush-released after all their effort had gone into making JFPL, it didn't sound like the same band at all. All previous Manics albums have had that 'edge' to them (the intelligence, the musicianship, the outside feel), even their weaker albums had it...but PFAYM had nothing. Nothing at all. It was just...there. Any band could've recorded it, it's probably the least 'Manics' of all their albums because of this, because for me it doesn't stand for anything. There is no point to it, it didn't need to exist like the rest did. I'm no fan of GT and GATS, but at least those records had passion behind them and they were ambitious if flawed...they moved things on. SATT ok didn't really move things forward but it had it's fair share of good songs at least. PFAYM played like a tribute band making an album that stole from the band's previous work and royally fucking it up. PFAYM means nothing to me, it's one of the worst albums i own and apart from Golden Platitudes and Some King of Nothingness...i have no desire at all to ever listen to it ever again.

I go through my posts on here from that era and recall how betrayed i felt by PFAYM, everything i loved about the band had disappeared and i thought that would never happen. I kept defending them back in 1998/1999 when they'd apparently 'sold out' telling everyone how wrong they were...little was i to know that actually do such a thing in 12 years...and do it deliberately. It angers me a bit that the band slag off Lifeblood so much, ok not everybody's favourite (it's one of mine) but it still took them in a new direction and the idea behind it was fantastic. It was a new side of the band that had to be explored, why would they slate that? That's what the band is fucking all about!

Rewind the Film has brought back all the passion i felt for them when i first discovered them, it feels like a rebirth. I'm ready for the next album...and the one after that. It feels like they are at the top of their game again and nothing can bring them down, they are once again one of the greatest bands on the planet. This is the band who recorded the forward-looking THB, EMG, TIMTTMY, KYE, LB and JFPL, not the band who recorded PFAYM, it can't possibly be!

Once again i can confidently say, i fucking love this band... and It feels great to do so!

[Mr.Selfdestruct]

As soulless as Postcards is, it did come only a year after their second best album of their entire career. So i wasn't overly worried that the band wouldn't be able to regain some good form going forward.

What annoyed me most about that album, and again this relates to it coming shortly after Journals, is that it just felt like an album(for the most part) that they just couldn't possibly want to make, never mind being able listen back to it themselves and enjoy it. The success of SATT and the failure of Lifeblood I'm sure must have played a part in how Postcards turned out.

It sounds like lessons have been learned. Be natural, lads, as you're always at your best when you write music that feels right.

There is some good songs on Postcards, but the singles ruined it. Postcards(the song), to me, sounds like the most forced song they've ever written.

[bachelorette]

Originally Posted by Mr.Selfdestruct

What annoyed me most about that album, and again this relates to it coming shortly after Journals, is that it just felt like an album(for the most part) that they just couldn't possibly want to make, never mind being able listen back to it themselves and enjoy it. The success of SATT and the failure of Lifeblood I'm sure must have played a part in how Postcards turned out.

this, especially the highlighted part. I started really getting into the Manics in 2009/10, so by the time Postcards came around I didn't have much in the way of expectations. I was just discovering the band for myself, even though I had been aware of them for over a decade. Ironically, after EMG Tigers was the next album I picked up - mostly to figure out whether the Manics of the 2000s were really as shit as everybody (well, my most trusted music magazine) claimed. And I found myself really captivated by the album, the indecipherable lyrics, the melodies and a strange kind of comfort the album gave me. Speaking of the lyrics, I was never quite sure where the line between idiosyncrasy and stupidity went, well, except for the bloody gospel choir going on about haircuts, I found that cringe-worthy or whimsical, depending on my mood.
Postcards seemed to be a direct continuation of Tigers with its anthemic melodies and over-the-top soundscapes. Again, I wasn't so sure about the lyrics - but I have to say that at that point I did not really think Wire was ever more than a "competent" lyricist. Even from just listening to EMG, Forever Delayed and Tigers it was clear that moments of genius and lines bordering on the inane always sat cheek-to-jowl in Wire's lyric-writing. I have grown to appreciate Wire's lyrics more once I dived deeper into the Manics, but at that point the lyrics on Postcards really didn't seem that bad.
I was very convinced of Postcards, with the title track, Auto-intoxication and "Entertainment" as examples of being shamelessly populist but sustained by real emotions and convictions.
And then, two things happened. I started to dig further into the back catalogue, realising just how important the band was becoming for me. And I figured out that the shamelessly populist Manics I had at first admired for infiltrating the mainstream with intelligence hidden in simple-sounding anthemic rock songs were not the version of the band that could sustain my interest. It was the darkness of the Bible and JFPL, the sprawling, incoherent mess of KYE (equal parts genius and insanity) and the glassy yet comforting beauty and intimacy of Lifeblood that really captivated me.
For all their redeeming qualities, Tigers and Postcards appeared shallow and pale in comparison.
And secondly, the band gave up on the album, no more than 3 or 4 months after its release. That has detached me from Postcards more than anything. No decent promotion and embarrassingly bad videos for the 2nd and 3rd single, the three singles being the only album tracks played on the 2011 "Postcards Tour" - it was obvious that the band were finished with it. The gigs were brilliant, but a promo tour for Postcards it was not.
Two years on I've delved into every aspect of the Manics, digging up the most obscure songs, going to gigs, collecting official releases, researching the band's history, and for better or worse, I'd call myself a fan. But ironically enough, Tigers and Postcards, the two albums I initially played so often have all but disappeared from my conscious mind. I don't share the hate for Postcards, but it doesn't mean anything to me anymore, writing this I realise that that is true. It is irrelevant to me. Of the Tigers era I keep a few album tracks in my heart and the b-sides, which make up the best album the band never released. Of Postcards there is the title track and not much else. Some of the b-sides are beautiful, but somehow many of them feel unfinished and don't seem to pass the test of time. Slow Reflections/Strange Delays and Broken Up Again being the only b-sides I can remember really loving.
As for RTF and the Manics of now, I am still in love, but not as much as before. A lot of it has to do with the fact that I always looked at the Manics as an extremely close-knit unit of individuals. They seemed to embody a sense of unity and belonging that was intimate and it made them unique. And that is why I cannot get around the amount of guest vocalists. To be cruel, 2 songs sung by (to me) totally random guest vocalists doesn't equal "Nebraska-eque intimacy", it equals "Tom Jones Reload". I feel the band are not widening the spectrum, they are watering down their identity. And that impression clashes painfully with the sheer beauty of the music and intensity of the lyrics on RTF. There will be at least one duet on Futurology, so this does not seem to be a passing thing. So for me time will have to tell whether I can truly reclaim my band from the estrangement I feel about the "James is bored of his voice"-idiocy, whether the strength of what they come up with outweighs the alienation - as it did in the end in the case of RTF - or whether I will be the one bitter party-spoiler who loves everything pre-2013 "before they decided to become the Tom-Jones-Reload-Preachers".

[Littlesue]

I lost all hope after PCFAYM and was looking forward to RTF but I find it equally as shite! if the next one is as poor I won't bother buying anything new again from them and have lots the will to see them live anymore.