Rate Futurology

[socialist cook]

Originally Posted by taxexile

Dreaming of a City is AMAZING

I very much agree!! I like instrumentals though. Futurology is one of their strongest albums for me.

[Bobafettish]

Re-listened to Futurology yesterday. I still don't know what I think of it. At times brilliant, at times jarring, and at times absolutely beautiful (Divine Youth!).

[LA ex]

I'd say it's their best album of this century.

[Son of Stopped]

I still love RIF. I also love how this is a pro-EU album released before Brexit! Imagine the albums swapped around?
I'm playing Futurology more than Lifeblood. And even then if I ever called it Lifeblood done right, it isn't. It's more outward looking than Lifeblood.

Lifeblood looks outwards: OK, what's out there, twin towers collapsed in a terror attack. So... Back to me a second

Futurology looks outwards, uses bridge imagery. Collaborations. Music recorded in the same room.
It's hard to think what direction they could have taken from this if they "left the tap running".
Between The Clock And The Bed is the great should have been a single. Imagine that song's ending as your brushing your teeth after a dump or having your breakfast and it plays on the radio?

Of course Walk Me To The Bridge really should get more airplay as well.

[ForeverDelayed.com]

easy 8/10. best when listened to all the way through.

[whiterevolver]

Superbly inventive album musically and a great companion to RTW (which I also adore). I take them as a duo and think this is the best collection of Manics recordings this side of KYE. I give it a 7.5 but clicked on 8 because I've had a glass of red wine and am feeling warm.

[Noisy Cat]

For me it's probably their weakest album. It lacks any real depth or coherence – it doesn't sound like an album. I get what they were going for, the whole European icy sheen thing, but I don't think they pulled it off.

Highlights for me are The Next Jet To Leave Moscow and Between The Clock And The Bed, although the latter is too short.

Let's Go To War, SPLAM and the title track are almost embarrassingly bad, and the two instrumentals would be B-sides in most other eras. Europa Geht Durch Mich is just annoying.

I loved RTF by the way.

[ron the little seal]

Originally Posted by Bobafettish

Re-listened to Futurology yesterday. I still don't know what I think of it. At times brilliant, at times jarring, and at times absolutely beautiful (Divine Youth!).

That's exactly how I feel, I love the themes running through the album and often James and Sean are perfection to wire's lyrics. The aesthetic of the album is great, just nice to see Nicky having a full sense of control rather than half hearted. I just feel the album is uneven in song quality and vocalist preference on my part. I'm not opposed to other vocalists duetting or instead of James but found them grating. I think the demos of black mirror and divine youth are far superior to the album cuts. Overall though futurology and rewind the film were exceptional albums, their best since lifeblood (I'm excluding journal for plaque lovers, while brilliant it exists outside modern manics catalogue for me).

[Europa Gluten Free]

Funnily I've been listening to this album recently after Between the Clock and the Bed popped into my head.

RTF and Futurology passed me by at the time for various reasons. But I remember preferring the demos of many of the songs over the final versions. I remember Futurology had a weird tracklisting. And some of the songs are just terrible. Also the artwork is probably their worst.

I might revisit this era again to miss what I missed.

[everlasting]

I popped the CD on last week and forgot how great it is overall. Still puzzles me why they thought Futurology was a good choice for second single, though. I re-watched their Jools Holland performance of it a few nights ago and baffles me how they could perform that song knowing that basically every other song on the album is superior haha. Black Square and Misguided Missile and Lets Go To War are my favourites I think.

[Lee]

Originally Posted by everlasting

I popped the CD on last week and forgot how great it is overall. Still puzzles me why they thought Futurology was a good choice for second single, though. I re-watched their Jools Holland performance of it a few nights ago and baffles me how they could perform that song knowing that basically every other song on the album is superior haha. Black Square and Misguided Missile and Lets Go To War are my favourites I think.

Interesting point.

I think it’s a belter live - it’s a completely different beast to the album version which is lame in comparison.

A really good album though and some excellent live shows and sessions around that time. Loved it.

[blackflower]

Futurology was my way back in to loving the Manics (or at least the beginning of it). I really didn't like PFAYM or RTF, but finally they were making interesting, exciting music again. I love so many of the tracks - if I were a singer and were given the chance to duet with the Manics, I'd pick "Europa Geht Durch Mich" in a heartbeat over "Little Baby Nothing". "Let's Go To War" is such a breath of fresh air and "Dreaming A City" is the greatest 80s detective drama theme tune that never was - there's nothing better than striding the streets of London with that on your headphones.

Unfortunately I went to the Rough Trade East gig and signing on release day, and that put me off the Manics again for another couple of years, as they made me stand like an idiot in front of them for minutes on end while they held a conversation with someone else (not another fan, some mate of theirs behind the desk). So I ended up skipping the THB tour and only really became a fan again properly with the EMG one. But it might not have happened at all without Futurology, so I love the album for that!

[tomd2103]

Originally Posted by whiterevolver

Superbly inventive album musically and a great companion to RTW (which I also adore). I take them as a duo and think this is the best collection of Manics recordings this side of KYE. I give it a 7.5 but clicked on 8 because I've had a glass of red wine and am feeling warm.

In Olympic boxing terms, Everything Must Go and Holy Bible contest the gold medal (think the former just edges the latter for me) and it's Futurology and Journal for Plague Lovers going for bronze. My only real sticking point with Futurology is the omission of Empty Motorcade and Last Time I Saw Paris, which I would add instead of Sex, Power, Love and Money and Between the Clock and the Bed (which I like, but feel might have been more at home on Rewind the Film). Oh yeah and View From Stow Hill would have been the perfect ending with no need for Mayakovsky.

Taken as a duo, Rewind the Film and Futurology are indeed a very strong body of work. Apart from a Between the Clock and the Bed though, I think the themes of the two albums are quite different even if the titles suggest differently. For me, Resistance is Futile is the follow up to Rewind the Film in terms of theme. I've always thought the line in Builder of Routines "How I hate middle age / in between acceptance and rage" summed up where they were at that time. I think even the title Resistance is Futile suggests that they had moved further towards acceptance, but like the samurai on the album cover still had that sense of pride and identity in a world that had changed.

[slop101]

For me, it's their most hit & miss album.
It has a couple of my favorite Manics songs, and a couple of my least favorite, with everything in between!

[Phil C]

Futurology is my joint second favourite Manics album along with KYE and JFPL. I don't like Divine Youth (those horrible 80s keyboard stabs), Empty Motorcade should definitely have made the track-listing, and I can never decide whether the two instrumental b-sides should have been chosen instead of the album instrumentals, but it's their album that I've probably listened to more over the last few years than any other.