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#1
08-09-2010, 10:56
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The "You can't please everyone" thread...
So, it seems there is a lot of mixed feeling about PFAYM and the Manics in general on here at the moment. I thought I'd start a thread for all the people who are disappointed with the current state of the band (for whatever reason). I'm interested to know what you would have liked them to have done differently at this point to make you happy? I'm after serious suggestions, and constructive criticism, so no "They shld play a gig in my front roomz, LOLZ!!!1!one!" or "They're shit!!1!! ROFL" comments if at all possible, please.
If you don't like PFAYM, for instance, why is that? And what would you have liked them to have recorded instead? Another Lifeblood style album? The Holy Bible Pt. 2? etc. What would hold or win back your interest? Go!
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#2
08-09-2010, 10:58
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#3
08-09-2010, 11:06
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I'd change nothing. I'm happy with the state of Manic Street Preachers at this particular period.
I'm pretty safe in the knowledge that they won't be beating The Holy Bible or Everything Must Go as they were much younger and had a lot more to prove going into making them two albums.
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#4
08-09-2010, 11:07
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i've never been one to really think i could tell any artist or musician what they should create just because i happen to like their earlier stuff, really. i wouldn't know where to start making an album or writing a song, so don't presume to tell those who can how to do it.
not heard PFAYM yet (note, please, Sony), but if i don't like it that's my tough luck, if lots of people do not like it then that will be the band's tough luck surely?
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#5
08-09-2010, 11:37
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i've only heard a handful of the new songs, but i do really like them, it's good to see the manics are still progressing after all these years
but on the matter of subjects dealt with on the album, like fame being hollow and easy to get and the internet being a big bad bastard etc..i think pretty much everyone knows that already. i might be wrong, but usually with a manics album i'm taught something new but this time round it's just a reminder i don't really need. did anyone else think this?
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you'll be fine for 31 minutes, you'll be dead in 32 minutes.
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#7
08-09-2010, 11:48
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The one thing missing from the new album is a James acoustic slow number, every album should have one really nice emotional slow song, PFAYM is too shiny and gleamy for not having one. Apart from that the band have my continued support.
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European Spoon, European Moon
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#8
08-09-2010, 11:50
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I don't mind PFAYM at all, it's just a shame it took them two attempts to not make it shit and they wasted YLAINE on the shit first attempt three years ago. And because of the shit first attempt whose name will never again be mentioned by me because it no longer needs to exist, most of these songs sound like they've already been done.
Other moans. 1. A star-studded video for the single should have seen them grab over a million views on YouTube in the run up to the single's release. It currently has around 15,000, which is significantly fewer than the views Dex's radio rip with a still of the album cover got before Sony forced it down. Because it's shit. Moreover, the video is not only so boring but so uncomfortably inappropriate for the song that music channels have been left with no option but to ignore it. This video is a fundamental fuck up on the scale of Underdogs. 2. Live. I can't really complain because I got so bored of seeing them live that I haven't been for four years or so. And it's not like I went often back then, but there's nothing that makes me want to see them in the autumn or ever again. Is there anything they could actually do about this? Well, James' voice is a ticking timebomb, as is Nicky's back, but rearranging songs they've been playing for almost 20 years would be a start. And including the outro of You Love. Do you see Arcade Fire leaving off the end of Wake Up? No, it's the bit where everyone gets a rush. Same with GNR's Paradise City. They've got enough three minute songs that end abruptly! 3. Interviews. Fuck off with your raging against the dying of the light. Throw away that godawful script and tell us something we don't already know and mock you over. 4. Verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-chorus inside three minutes in a song that incorporates a famous riff of chord structure. You said this is your last shot at communication, now you've no excuse not to stop it for once and for all! 5. Oh, I'll think of something else. This is a placeholder. 6. Placeholder 7. Placeholder 8. Placeholder 9. Placeholder 10. Repeating the same verse in a song. Don't do that, but especially don't try to hide you doing it like in Autumnsong and It's Not War. ... 50. Placeholder Last edited by Dancing Kirby; 08-09-2010 at 11:58.
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#9
08-09-2010, 11:54
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I like what I've heard and I'm waiting for the album. I don't think I have any criticisms of the music, they need to make what they want. My annoyance right now is with the way this record has been managed, it seems a bit haphazard and doing things like the hammersmith gig seem poorly managed at best (let's not drag all that up again). Then they price their deluxe box as hugely inflated given the contents, compared to say that Springsteen boxset, which can only be seen as a marketing ploy designed to rip-off the hard core fans...who they have over a barrel, as they know we are the kind of obsessive fans who buy anything....I doubt these decisions are the bands own decisions, but it seems to me they could do with some better promotion that connects rather than alienates at least some of the fanbase.
That and although I still love the band, their records and their gigs  , they need to mix up their setlists a little more and stop playing just so many of their 'hits', when they have so many more fantastic songs. I don't want them to do the new album in full and then a hits set though, because I get bored with too much predictibility and it made the hits factor of the setlist massively magnified in the second set.
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#10
08-09-2010, 13:02
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They're not underdogs. That's what gets me, they don't have to flex their muscles any more. They've had number 1 singles and albums, they've played a massive televised gig stretching over into the new millennium. They're made critically acclaimed records on a massive level. They've still got a very very loyal, and even expanding fanbase. They're not underdogs, not even in terms of popular music - they're on the biggest record label in the world. They're not underdogs.
When they say that they are, it doesn't scream humility and admirable determination - just desperation. And funnily enough, when they perhaps were actually 'underdogs' at the beginning of their career, they released 'You Love Us' which said 'fuck you' and 'we know we're good' in such a fantastic way. When I hear 'Postcards', I just feel like they're putting commercial success ahead of well crafted and thought provoking music. The production is such a dead give away, it's massively overblown; I can see such a great tune and sentiment behind 'Nothingness', but I dunno If I ever want to listen to it again - I think it sounds a bit... crazy. I think 'A Billion Balconies' and 'All we Make is...' are the worst offenders though, because while they're not especially bad tunes, they offer nothing really of interest to me. I've heard those songs a million times before. I wouldn't mind so much if it meant they were just dry of ideas, which would be normal for any band on their 10th album, but they're clearly not. In fact, I'd pretty much given up on Manic Street Preachers until I heard 'Journal', which I think has real genuine class, and is a pleasure to listen to. It now just frustrates me to know that there is so much inventiveness and craftsmanship left in them when they go out and produce an album as bland as 'Postcards'. For truly great bands, commercial success should come by the way, like a shooting comet through the sky, not in such a contrived and uninspired way as this.
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#11
08-09-2010, 13:07
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Manics Shows
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#12
08-09-2010, 13:15
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Not going to quote you Daniel, for space purposes but I can see what you're getting at, it does seem naive for them to try and make a 'commercially successful record' but I suppose it worked with SATT and they just want to return to being that kind of band after the intense period of JFPL. I can see them taking a big gap between this album and then making something slightly more interesting in a few years time. It's easy for us to criticise because we all love their slightly more experimental phases but if you were in their position I'm sure you'd quite like a return to the highs of EMG and SATT.
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European Spoon, European Moon
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#13
08-09-2010, 13:22
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'Contrived' sums it up perfectly. I find their whole approach rather patronising. They seem to think if they chase after a certain 'sound' then the great british public will be powerless to resist the radio-friendly tones, when in actual fact that sound they're coming out with is so out of place, so dated that it sounds quite embarrassing. I would not play Postcards in front of any of my friends! JFPL doesn't sound like any contemporary bands, in a good way. Postcards and SATT just sound weird. The whole thing they've got going on with those awful synthy sounding strings at the moment is terrible. Everything I hear lacks imagination. It's like Manics by numbers. It reeks of desperation.
And I agree with Ben about them having nothing to say. I think everybody's grown up a bit since the early 90s, and Nicky Wire's rhetoric is a wee bit embarrassing now. They're only a band after all. Show you're still relevant by doing something interesting, a la JFPL.
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#14
08-09-2010, 13:25
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I'm sure this album will be greeted by much praise from a music press eager to relive their youth though, and smug that they might also be acquaintances of the band by now. "Oh another return to form after the 'dark' JFPL, and the bland Lifeblood" etc etc
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#15
08-09-2010, 13:26
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I feel that all the possible feeling has been sucked out of the songs by the overblown production and this album has made them sound like a band at the end of their creative tether, with nothing left to give but bland tunes and unremarkable lyrics. I don't believe this is the case which begs the question, why on earth have they released an album filled with forgettable, boring, songs? Purely for commercial success? laziness? I honestly don't know. TL;DR: Pretty much reiterating what Daniel's already said.
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