Send Away The Tigers - a success?

[IntlDebris]

Yeah, KYE sounds like a band who aren't sure what to do. It's not your typical "White Album" type record, which is all over the place but sounds like a fascinating scrapbook; instead, it feels a bit impotent, as the rawer stuff is underplayed by the bigger production values of some songs, and the stranger moments are underplayed by the more simple tracks.

In hindsight, something like RTF/Futurology might have been a better strategy for them at the time: release a relatively poppy record with some of the weirder touches they'd been playing with - So Why So Sad, Year of Purification, Miss Europa Disco Dancer, The Convalescent, etc. - followed a year or so later by a raw rock album

Instead, what they managed was following up their first number one album with a period of five years in which one fairly jumbled album was released, followed by an underwhelming best of which, in itself, was fairly confusing for the fans (proposed and scrapped single releases of Forever Delayed and the Motorcycle Emptiness re-recording); then following that up with an album that a lot of fans hated because it was so far from the Manics they were used to, yet was too late to keep ahold of the mainstream fanbase EMG and TIMTTMY got them.

So yeah, obviously an era where they were unsure of what they were doing. It's a shame, because there are a lot of brilliant songs on KYE, and Lifeblood is a tremendous album for what it is, but they're sadly tainted from the band's perspective. I'm the same with my own music: some stuff I've recorded I can't listen to because it was made during a time of personal and/or artistic difficulty.

[sculptureofabloke]

Originally Posted by tomd2103

I watched that EMG film last month and was thinking after just what a steep curve of success they experienced in the next three years. In the UK alone, they went the success of EMG - Brit Awards - MEN gig - number one record - another massive album - more Brit Awards - arena tour - headlining Glastonbury - Millennium Stadium gig - first number one of the new century. They were a massive band at that point, so it's not surprising that they felt conflicted.

I've always thought that would have been the ideal time for a 'back to basics' approach and there is a good 'back to basics' album in KYE if it were stripped down a bit. I can imagine that there was a definite conflict at the time between trying to recapture the raw sound of previous albums but still maintaining the levels of success they had experienced. I think that is where that 'rudderless' feeling that you mention came from and resulted KYE being a bit of a confused album overall.

Aye, when you list it like that it is bloody impressive. And to be fair, quite hard to sustain for a bunch of misfit valley boys. If they wanted to sustain it.. They do seem to have a career long habit of wanting to get as far from their last album as they can... Wonder if it were Know Your Enemy instead of This Is My Truth that came out in 1998, whether that'd have rode the tide just as well. Think a lot of Truth's success was down to who they were rather than what the album was.. I love it, but listening to it now and looking back, I just think it feels a bit weird for a hit.... The run of number one singles around the time.. Spice Girls, Boyzone, Manics, All Saints. What... Spanish Civil War in the middle of that..

"Success is an ugly word" eh, think sometimes they're a bit embarrassed by their success sometimes. I struggle to think of a band as conflicted as they are at times. To this day, the question of whether they should've carried on without Richey divides the fanbase, never mind what's going on in their own heads.

[AK47]

Originally Posted by sculptureofabloke

Aye, when you list it like that it is bloody impressive. And to be fair, quite hard to sustain for a bunch of misfit valley boys. If they wanted to sustain it.. They do seem to have a career long habit of wanting to get as far from their last album as they can... Wonder if it were Know Your Enemy instead of This Is My Truth that came out in 1998, whether that'd have rode the tide just as well. Think a lot of Truth's success was down to who they were rather than what the album was.. I love it, but listening to it now and looking back, I just think it feels a bit weird for a hit.... The run of number one singles around the time.. Spice Girls, Boyzone, Manics, All Saints. What... Spanish Civil War in the middle of that..

"Success is an ugly word" eh, think sometimes they're a bit embarrassed by their success sometimes. I struggle to think of a band as conflicted as they are at times. To this day, the question of whether they should've carried on without Richey divides the fanbase, never mind what's going on in their own heads.

It's also a shame that the next record sounds like it is going to be SATT MK2.

[tomd2103]

Originally Posted by IntlDebris

Yeah, KYE sounds like a band who aren't sure what to do. It's not your typical "White Album" type record, which is all over the place but sounds like a fascinating scrapbook; instead, it feels a bit impotent, as the rawer stuff is underplayed by the bigger production values of some songs, and the stranger moments are underplayed by the more simple tracks.

In hindsight, something like RTF/Futurology might have been a better strategy for them at the time: release a relatively poppy record with some of the weirder touches they'd been playing with - So Why So Sad, Year of Purification, Miss Europa Disco Dancer, The Convalescent, etc. - followed a year or so later by a raw rock album

Instead, what they managed was following up their first number one album with a period of five years in which one fairly jumbled album was released, followed by an underwhelming best of which, in itself, was fairly confusing for the fans (proposed and scrapped single releases of Forever Delayed and the Motorcycle Emptiness re-recording); then following that up with an album that a lot of fans hated because it was so far from the Manics they were used to, yet was too late to keep ahold of the mainstream fanbase EMG and TIMTTMY got them.

So yeah, obviously an era where they were unsure of what they were doing. It's a shame, because there are a lot of brilliant songs on KYE, and Lifeblood is a tremendous album for what it is, but they're sadly tainted from the band's perspective. I'm the same with my own music: some stuff I've recorded I can't listen to because it was made during a time of personal and/or artistic difficulty.

Agree with a lot of that. Easy in hindsight, but I've always thought that if they had gone with a more raw and stripped back approach to KYE (and there definitely is a good 10 / 12 track album like that in there) on the back of Masses it would have been a good step and would have also silenced a few of the "gone soft" claims. I can only guess of course, but I think the panning KYE got in some quarters probably shook them a bit.

I still think one of their biggest mistakes was not having 1985 as the lead off single to usher in Lifeblood. It was back in the era when people would buy an album off the back of the first single and I think it could have carried Lifeblood.

[tomd2103]

Originally Posted by sculptureofabloke

Aye, when you list it like that it is bloody impressive. And to be fair, quite hard to sustain for a bunch of misfit valley boys. If they wanted to sustain it.. They do seem to have a career long habit of wanting to get as far from their last album as they can... Wonder if it were Know Your Enemy instead of This Is My Truth that came out in 1998, whether that'd have rode the tide just as well. Think a lot of Truth's success was down to who they were rather than what the album was.. I love it, but listening to it now and looking back, I just think it feels a bit weird for a hit.... The run of number one singles around the time.. Spice Girls, Boyzone, Manics, All Saints. What... Spanish Civil War in the middle of that..

"Success is an ugly word" eh, think sometimes they're a bit embarrassed by their success sometimes. I struggle to think of a band as conflicted as they are at times. To this day, the question of whether they should've carried on without Richey divides the fanbase, never mind what's going on in their own heads.

I go back to This is My Truth quite often and I still like it, even though I think it gets bogged down a bit towards the end and SYMM shouldn't have been on there. It spawned some pretty big singles and was a big album at the time, even though as you say, looking back it seems out of place with everything else that was around at that time.

[sculptureofabloke]

Originally Posted by AK47

It's also a shame that the next record sounds like it is going to be SATT MK2.

Wasn't that PFAYM? Don't know what to expect from the next album, been quite out of the loop and not heard much mention about new stuf at all.

Originally Posted by tomd2103

I go back to This is My Truth quite often and I still like it, even though I think it gets bogged down a bit towards the end and SYMM shouldn't have been on there. It spawned some pretty big singles and was a big album at the time, even though as you say, looking back it seems out of place with everything else that was around at that time.

I still think This Is My Truth is more experimental than people give it credit for, it makes Everything Must Go sound like a celebration. It's full of sitars, harpsichords, melotrons and other stuff I can't remember the names of and probably couldn't spell anyway. Think the singles sound like they could've all came from different albums too. Everything Must Go has more "Match of the Day" type songs, This Is My Truth has Be Natural and You're Tender And You're Tired - which I love, but they don't sound like big album songs to me.

[tomd2103]

Originally Posted by sculptureofabloke

Wasn't that PFAYM? Don't know what to expect from the next album, been quite out of the loop and not heard much mention about new stuf at all.



I still think This Is My Truth is more experimental than people give it credit for, it makes Everything Must Go sound like a celebration. It's full of sitars, harpsichords, melotrons and other stuff I can't remember the names of and probably couldn't spell anyway. Think the singles sound like they could've all came from different albums too. Everything Must Go has more "Match of the Day" type songs, This Is My Truth has Be Natural and You're Tender And You're Tired - which I love, but they don't sound like big album songs to me.

I agree with and as I said, it is still an album I go back to quite often. I agree that some of the album tracks are great - I especially like Ready For Drowning, My Little Empire, Tender and Tired, Born a Girl, Black Dog on my Shoulder and Nobody Loved You. I just think the second half of the album slows down a bit in places (Not Working in particular) and SYMM shouldn't have been on there or should have been a hidden track.

I've always wondered whether some of the B Sides - Prologue to History, Montana Autumn '78 and Black Holes in particular would have fitted in and could have been included.

[IntlDebris]

Originally Posted by tomd2103

Easy in hindsight, but I've always thought that if they had gone with a more raw and stripped back approach to KYE (and there definitely is a good 10 / 12 track album like that in there) on the back of Masses it would have been a good step and would have also silenced a few of the "gone soft" claims.

Yeah, there's some very obvious "we're still a rock band" stuff around KYE - and then they release So Why So Sad, Ocean Spray and Let Robeson Sing as singles, which definitely pushed the more mellow side of the album and made the whole thing very confusing.

I still think one of their biggest mistakes was not having 1985 as the lead off single to usher in Lifeblood. It was back in the era when people would buy an album off the back of the first single and I think it could have carried Lifeblood.

It or Empty Souls would probably have been better choice than Nixon. That said, I absolutely love Nixon, and the really electronic sound of it made me so excited for the album. But I would have bought it anyway, so...

Originally Posted by sculptureofabloke

Wasn't that PFAYM? Don't know what to expect from the next album, been quite out of the loop and not heard much mention about new stuf at all.

They're talking about it being a big melodic rock album. Of course this doesn't mean it has to be another SATT, it could have a more melancholic streak with some subtlety.

I still think This Is My Truth is more experimental than people give it credit for, it makes Everything Must Go sound like a celebration. It's full of sitars, harpsichords, melotrons and other stuff I can't remember the names of and probably couldn't spell anyway. Think the singles sound like they could've all came from different albums too. Everything Must Go has more "Match of the Day" type songs, This Is My Truth has Be Natural and You're Tender And You're Tired - which I love, but they don't sound like big album songs to me.

I was down on TIMT for years, but at some point I revisited it and realised what a gorgeous album it is. The production is very strange in places, and the whole thing is layered and atmospheric. I'm Not Working in particular is a really spacious track, I can almost imagine it being produced by Eno. You're Tender and You're Tired really strikes me as proto-Lifeblood, too. It's actually my favourite Manics album these days.

Originally Posted by tomd2103

I've always wondered whether some of the B Sides - Prologue to History, Montana Autumn '78 and Black Holes in particular would have fitted in and could have been included.

It would have been great to have Prologue on the album, but at least one of those other two would definitely have needed to be on there too just to stop it sticking out like a sore thumb. But yeah, take off SYMM and maybe Be Natural and replace them with Prologue and Black Holes and you've got a more dynamic album that might have satisfied some fans a lot more.

[Suicide Aldi]

TIMT is my favorite manics album after THB

[IrelandCalling4]

Anyone know what the working title of SATT was?

There was a post last year I think on all of the working titles to the albums, "Litany" being a favourite of mine, the working title to Lifeblood.

[sculptureofabloke]

Originally Posted by tomd2103

I agree with and as I said, it is still an album I go back to quite often. I agree that some of the album tracks are great - I especially like Ready For Drowning, My Little Empire, Tender and Tired, Born a Girl, Black Dog on my Shoulder and Nobody Loved You. I just think the second half of the album slows down a bit in places (Not Working in particular) and SYMM shouldn't have been on there or should have been a hidden track.

I've always wondered whether some of the B Sides - Prologue to History, Montana Autumn '78 and Black Holes in particular would have fitted in and could have been included.

Suppose it's bound to kinda slow down in the second half, given all the singles are on the first half. To be honest, I think The Everlasting and SYMM work great as bookends, does sum up the mood of the album. I think there's just I'm Not Working and Be Natural that they've never played live off that, and I'd love to see em. But aye, overall a weird album to put out at your commercial peak, and a tough one to follow up.

Love the b-sides too, especially those three. I wonder if they'd try to make them fit into a potential reissue like they've just done with Welcome To The Dead Zone. I've got the original Japanese Everything Must Go which has No One Knows What It's Like To Be Me and Black Garden chucked in the middle of the album rather than the end like all the others with bonus tracks. Dunno why that was, seems so weird listening to that one when you're so used to the normal tracklisting.

Originally Posted by IntlDebris

I was down on TIMT for years, but at some point I revisited it and realised what a gorgeous album it is. The production is very strange in places, and the whole thing is layered and atmospheric. I'm Not Working in particular is a really spacious track, I can almost imagine it being produced by Eno. You're Tender and You're Tired really strikes me as proto-Lifeblood, too. It's actually my favourite Manics album these days.

Yeah, I think spacious is the right word there. Had a similar thing about 12 years ago, I mean I already loved the album anyway, but with the help of a bit of LSD it did kinda feel like a rediscovery at the time... much more atmospheric..

[darkanddivine]

It's interesting that there's such a diverse range of opinion about the previous 3 albums (before SATT) and the commercial and critical problems that were associated with them.

Lots of "old" fans were turned off by Truth because they'd lost their rock roots or "sold out." At the same time they picked up a load of new fans by becoming the biggest band in Britain at the time - although that in turn turned the press against them. That continued as the press critically panned the next few albums, which only helped strengthen the bond between the band and the "new" fans. That (in part) explains the love for KYE and Lifeblood, but basically, they couldn't win whatever they put out!

It's also worth remembering that the Manics last activity together before this particular album was the Past, Present Future tour which had a certain symbolism about it. Because Lifeblood was only the 3rd album they'd made entirely without Richey, those albums featured musical directions that wouldn't have ever been entertained back in 1994 or before. So if Truth, KYE & Lifeblood were the sound of a band let off the leash, PPF was a hard reset for the band. And SATT was the sound of a band trying to (perhaps literally) bring the best of past and present together.

Of course, SATT has nods to the glam punk of GT, and the sweeping orchestration of EMG. It put the band back in arenas for a brief moment, and it also got critical and fan acclaim. The guys just seemed comfortable with where they were for the first time in a while. I can pick plenty of critical holes in SATT, but the band were on such good form from 05-08, that it was super fun to be swept up in their enjoyment of a well deserved return to the limelight.

[Porco]

Originally Posted by darkanddivine

It's interesting that there's such a diverse range of opinion about the previous 3 albums (before SATT) and the commercial and critical problems that were associated with them.

Lots of "old" fans were turned off by Truth because they'd lost their rock roots or "sold out." At the same time they picked up a load of new fans by becoming the biggest band in Britain at the time - although that in turn turned the press against them. That continued as the press critically panned the next few albums, which only helped strengthen the bond between the band and the "new" fans. That (in part) explains the love for KYE and Lifeblood, but basically, they couldn't win whatever they put out!

Excellent analysis of the insanity of the music world. lol. Be good and successful! Ok we're trying... Be good and successful! OK We're trying! Oh, you're good and successful... YOU SELL OUTS. Oh for crying out loud...

[darkanddivine]

Originally Posted by Porco

Excellent analysis of the insanity of the music world. lol. Be good and successful! Ok we're trying... Be good and successful! OK We're trying! Oh, you're good and successful... YOU SELL OUTS. Oh for crying out loud...

Thanks man! PS: tangent comment alert:

On that note about the music press, I remember a distinctive ageism about "old" bands back in the 90's too. There were a few "dinosaur" comments about the Manics even at the time of Truth. I suspect that was partly because the knives were out because of their success, but their age was leveled at them as a problem as well. Which is absolute madness, since the band were in their late 20's and early 30's when they hit their commercial peak.

If anything, the one positive thing about music in the years since, is that bands are (generally) not vilified for committing the crime of ageing. But now that has actually flipped on its head completely, and we're seeing the fragmentation of music listening habits, so it's harder for a young band to break the mainstream.

In a way, there's a new model of creating a musical empire that is totally different to the 90's. Back then, like the Manics, bands would just go on forever and ever to build their fanbase. Bands now look for an initial burst of commercial or critical peak, then quit at their peak. I'm thinking of bands like At the Drive in System, Rage etc. Then all they need to do is return to much fanfare to play old songs and re-issue the old records perpetually - in effect becoming their own cover band. NoWaySis were ahead of their time

In a way, the interesting thing is that this kind of thing was snarled at and vilified in the music press - and now nostalgia pays the bills of practically every festival, music publication and record store. I sometimes wonder if the Manics could have taken a hiatus, and what kind of shape they'd be in today if they did.

/end tangent.

[tomd2103]

Originally Posted by darkanddivine

It's interesting that there's such a diverse range of opinion about the previous 3 albums (before SATT) and the commercial and critical problems that were associated with them.

Lots of "old" fans were turned off by Truth because they'd lost their rock roots or "sold out." At the same time they picked up a load of new fans by becoming the biggest band in Britain at the time - although that in turn turned the press against them. That continued as the press critically panned the next few albums, which only helped strengthen the bond between the band and the "new" fans. That (in part) explains the love for KYE and Lifeblood, but basically, they couldn't win whatever they put out!

Agree with that. I think by 2000 the knives were well and truly out in the music press for any bands associated with what they viewed as 'Britpop'. In many quarters, I think the Manics were seen as a 'Britpop' band and were therefore fair game for a kicking. From what I remember, both KYE and Lifeblod were fairly well received by the less sensationalist music magazines.