Rate Futurology

[Bathtub]

Had they sequenced the album better I would have given it an 8. Futurology isn't an opener and the last three tracks feel like a real dip after a good run of songs.

[Europa Gluten Free]

Originally Posted by Bathtub

Had they sequenced the album better I would have given it an 8. Futurology isn't an opener and the last three tracks feel like a real dip after a good run of songs.

Despite all the banter last night after my first few listens, the last few tracks are seriously cack. The demos of them are much much better.

[Dancing Kirby]

Originally Posted by Bathtub

Had they sequenced the album better I would have given it an 8. Futurology isn't an opener and the last three tracks feel like a real dip after a good run of songs.

The critics must have had the CD on the shuffle. Everyone should do the same.

[Bathtub]

Mayakovsky is just really boring. They've thrown away far better instrumentals as bsides so how this made an album I have no idea.

[Donkey]

Originally Posted by Takk

I guess the 80% of people who think it's 8 or more must be drinking with james huh

and the rest is simply high
I really start to think JFPL is a fraud. They must have had the songs ready since 1995. Secretely.

[amaitheanhorn]

I tend to need to listen to an album a few times before I decide whether I like it or not. I've listened to the sampler 4 times so far. Overall I like the sound of the album, several really catchy songs and I love that the band are trying to do something different again. I think it'll definitely grow on me, so I'm rating it an 7 with a bit of room for growth.

[amaitheanhorn]

Originally Posted by Donkey

and the rest is simply high
I really start to think JFPL is a fraud. They must have had the songs ready since 1995. Secretely.

A friend and I actually came to this conclusion after Postcards came out. I think a lot was worked on back then, ready for them to pick up and modify.

I love the Manics and never want them to stop gigging and bring out music, but I think it would have been phenomenally beautiful if they had stopped after JFPL. I’d have been gutted but understood. They started as a 4-piece, ended as a 4-piece sort of thing.

[AK47]

I don't like Mayakovsky at all. It is not a good peice of music apart from the riff later on. They should have saved that riff for another time.

[beautifuldistortion]

Originally Posted by Donkey

and the rest is simply high
I really start to think JFPL is a fraud. They must have had the songs ready since 1995. Secretely.

So you've heard Futurology in full then?
Let me guess you hate every song?
Would this be because Richey didn't write any of it?

[beautifuldistortion]

Originally Posted by amaitheanhorn

A friend and I actually came to this conclusion after Postcards came out. I think a lot was worked on back then, ready for them to pick up and modify.

I love the Manics and never want them to stop gigging and bring out music, but I think it would have been phenomenally beautiful if they had stopped after JFPL. I’d have been gutted but understood. They started as a 4-piece, ended as a 4-piece sort of thing.

OMG! That's truly ridiculous. Have you not seen the documentary on the making of the album? Seeing as Wire in particular is always singing Richey's praises, why would they hide it if they had loads prepared whilst he was still around?
Richey wrote a lot of songs - a lot of really brilliant ones - but who wrote the music? And the rest of the lyrics?
You honestly think that they couldn't of written some music to a set of half finished Richey lyrics without him being there?
Totally bloody idiotic viewpoint!

[Marat Sar]

I don't want to pick a fight, I just want to express a viewpoint. With that said, for me JFPL is part of the Tigers-Journal-Postcards nadir. And I know I'm not the only one. The small country I live in and the small following the manics have here, we lost all hope with them back then. And we couldn't get anything out of JFPL either. Short, desolate songs (THB was never desolate, it was rich), with SATT-era muscle rock disguised as wiry THB post-punk by an overrated producer, via the magic of underproducing. While the lyrics read as notes and scribbles, unintelligible notes, in a journal. Which is a cool idea, but those notes are nothing special.

I really think it's Richey's mythic presence that got you guys aboard for that one, not the music or the lyrics. It's a feeling, or a presence, that - for me - is not as integral to the manics. That whole darkness thing, the madness thing, the tortured intellect. I love Futurology. I liked RTF, but I love this one. It's like they've won now. For all their talk of failure, Futurology is a triumph. "An unlikely wildcard of a triumph", just like that corrupt drinking buddy of mine, Simon Price proposed. You know, when the two of us + Nicky were coaxing this deceptive media strategy over pints the other day...

Admittedly, it's the three bonus tracks - especially Empty Motorcade and Last Time I Saw Paris - that push it up there. Without them - 8, with them - 9.5. And if Anti Social Manifesto and Kodawari are as good as I think they will be, it might go up to a ten and top both Lifeblood and THB (1st and 2nd).

It could happen. They say Anti Social Manifesto almost made it to the album.

http://www.clashmusic.com/features/m...-clash-readers

They also mention a third instrumental which they would have included, but couldn't, just because it's a third instrumental. I'm guessing that third instrumental is "Kodawari". After four lyrics tracks, a closing instrumental would be perfect. There are exactly four inbetween Dreaming A City and Mayakovski, and it works for me.

The mistake they did with the original tracklist was not the sequencing. It works as well as it can, there is no optimal running order for stylistically uneven stuff like this. Just like there wasn't one for KYE. The mistake was not making it a sprawling epic, llike KYE. Only this time - with interesting sonics, large choruses, and actual creativity in technical songwriting. A mistake easily corrected by stringing the two special editions ontop the original. Fingers crossed.

All and all, these are interesting times. 2014 and I'm waiting for a japanese edition of a new mancics album to see if it is one of the greatest albums ever made. Back in 2010, listening to the moribund trail end of PFAYM (the memory of A Million Balconies makes me shutter), who would have guessed? I really feel sorry for those of you, my fellow Manics fans, who can not share this excitement. It's like someone said on the other Futurology thread, in reply to someone who would wait until monday, when the physical copy arrives, to have a proper first listen: "Don't. Just get it now. Believe me, everything seems so much better after you've listened to it"

[amaitheanhorn]

Originally Posted by beautifuldistortion

OMG! That's truly ridiculous. Have you not seen the documentary on the making of the album? Seeing as Wire in particular is always singing Richey's praises, why would they hide it if they had loads prepared whilst he was still around?
Richey wrote a lot of songs - a lot of really brilliant ones - but who wrote the music? And the rest of the lyrics?
You honestly think that they couldn't of written some music to a set of half finished Richey lyrics without him being there?
Totally bloody idiotic viewpoint!

You have made a lot of assumptions based on one sentence. I would suggest that you make sure that you actually understand the opinion of other people before you are so rude to them.

“Have you not seen the documentary on the making of the album?”
Yes, I have seen the making of documentary.


“Seeing as Wire in particular is always singing Richey's praises, why would they hide it if they had loads prepared whilst he was still around? “

I did not say they hid anything, or that they ‘prepared loads’ while Richey was around. What I said was “I think a lot was worked on back then, ready for them to pick up and modify”. This is very different from what you are stating I said.


“Richey wrote a lot of songs - a lot of really brilliant ones - but who wrote the music? And the rest of the lyrics?”

I don’t understand how this is a question… we know who wrote the music and the rest of the lyrics.


“You honestly think that they couldn't of written some music to a set of half finished Richey lyrics without him being there?”

I said nothing of the sort. It appears YOU have decided what I believe for me, but you are wrong. I did not say anything about them needing Richey there to complete the songs, or that they wrote the album while he was there… I don’t believe that at all. I believe they wrote/completed the songs prior to recording them, just as they have stated.
I think if they wanted to, they could create an album with a similar feel, but they would need to draw heavily on past work or inspirations again to provoke the same vision and style. As individuals and as a band they are very different to what they were 20 years ago. It can’t be easy at all to write from a past perspective without looking deep into past inspiration.


Again, what I said was “I think a lot was worked on back then, ready for them to pick up and modify.”

So, by this I do not mean that they had completed or near completed lyrics and music from that time lying around and they literally picked it up to record for the album (or that they worked on a lot of the album back then). I mean that the band would have been noting down concepts, ideas, sources of inspiration, licks, chord progressions, lines of lyrics all the time. Musicians tend to be working all the time on these things, regardless of whether they need to write the next album yet or not. So from this, I think they were able to create the concept of JFPL and blend two eras of their career perfectly, resulting in a single cohesive, flowing album. I don’t think they would have found it easy to create such a balance between old and new without drawing heavily from past inspirations, ideas and work. I did not mean that they had the material there for them. I did misread the poster I quoted, but I don’t think my comment conflicts with what the band, themselves, have said about JFPL.

[amaitheanhorn]

Originally Posted by Marat Sar

I don't want to pick a fight, I just want to express a viewpoint.

I don't think it seemed like you were picking a fight Certainly no fighting going on from me.

I hope I come to like Futurology as much as you do! It's not appearing on my Spotify yet, so I'm still in the dark about it really. Can't wait to have it on reallly loud in my car

[Mr Richey]

Woken up at 6:30am by a sneezing fit (bloody hayfever) so I'm having my 5th listen to the album in full. Lots of little details in the instrumentation that are popping up with each new listen. The rhythm section really is very strong throughout the album, Sean providing his usual excellent percussion and Nicky once again proving that he CAN play the bass very bloody well. I'm also enjoying the guest vocalists a lot more than I originally did, with the exception of Nina Hoss whose vocal I loved from the moment I first heard it.

So far, Futurology is proving to be a very rich and rewarding album on repeat listens.

[Geranium Terrorists]

Originally Posted by AK47

I don't like Mayakovsky at all. It is not a good peice of music apart from the riff later on. They should have saved that riff for another time.

My copy of the album hasn't arrived yet, but listening to the sampler it seems that the best bit of the song is when Nicky shouts the title.