15 years of Lifeblood

[everlasting]

Got it on day of release from HMV... Jesus, 15 years ago, I'm scared where time goes I just picked up my CD and removed the booklet and it's still as glossy and nice smelling as it was when I first got it I think it's a beautiful album on the whole, very different, an icy coldness throughout (still think maybe it had to do with the time of year it came out and been so cold when always listening to it haha), but I do still enjoy listening to it. It brings back a lot of memories of a wonderful time in my life. I'm gonna listen to it now, and then watch the ASFD performance on Jools Holland

[Son of Stopped]

Grey on white label explaining how it includes the singles The Love Of Richard Nixon and Empty Souls. Then an ominous blank space before in a much, much smaller font something that ends in a year, but the 4 made more like a 6 on the yellowy faded top left corner.
Directly underneath the word MANIC there is a crack in the case that goes up through the EET PRE part of the cover.
The hinges of the CD are missing. I can still see it falling from my hands into my sister's woodpanel floor at a Petsitting weekend in 2005. EDIT: OK, IT WAS THE SAME FUCKING MONTH OF RELEASE! You got me!
I have since reconciled with fact if it dropped into carpet it would have broke at least one hinge anyway.
What the hell was I doing to have it in my hands anyway? Oh that's right, the booklet!
No! It does! From all angles! Nah, it's just because you read about it and are reacting subconsciously. It couldn't possibly be the same in November 2019?
It DOES!!! THE BOOKLET STILL SMELLS AMAZING!!

[tomd2103]

Probably the biggest "what if?" album of their career for me. What if 1985 had been the lead off single? What if some of the other songs included on compilation albums around that time (There by the Grace of God, Forever Delayed and Door to the River) had been on there? What if some of the B sides had replaced some of the weaker tracks?

It is not one of my favourite albums and I don't think it is anywhere near their best, but it is an album I go back to and the Japanese double album is one of my favourites. Rather than an album, I look back on it more as an era including the previously mentioned songs that were released at the time. There is a brilliant album there with that material, but they just didn't quite nail it. 1985, Empty Souls (particularly the heavier live version from the Isle of Wight Festival), A Song For Departure, To Repel Ghosts, Solitude Sometimes is and Cardiff Afterlife are particular favourites though.

[Vancouver]

Originally Posted by IntlDebris

I was a regular poster on the At Ease Radiohead board at the time, and everyone over there was so excited about it. It was great to be part of a group of people who thought it was an incredibly produced, beautifully written album, when everybody else seemed to have the juvenile "it doesn't rock therefore it's shit" attitude.

Yeah, I was on At Ease, too. And here I think? Anyway, I remember the response being far more positive on AE than FD.

Personally, I still love this record, though not as much as I did at the time. A couple songs stick out and annoy me a TOUCH but 1985 remains one of my absolute favourite Manics songs ever.

[ForeverDelayed.com]

The best smelling cd/booklet the manics have ever released.
15 years later it still smells fantastic

[Son of Stopped]

Lifeblood lives on in People Give In?

[IrelandCalling4]

Lifeblood came to mind an hour ago out of the blue, was totally unaware it was released at this time in 2004.

I rate it very highly, was blown away a few years ago when for the first time I listened in full. Exquisite melodies, some very compelling songs. Solitude remains an absolute favourite, was amazing to see it live last May in Dublin. 1985, Richard Nixon, Live to Fall Asleep, Solitude, Empty Souls, To Repel Ghosts - beautiful album with plenty of magic. Top 5 Manics for me.

[usagainstyou]

Even though it’s one of my least favourite Manics albums, I really like The Love of Richard Nixon, A Song for Departure and To Repel Ghosts.
Quarantine and Dying Breeds are two of my favourite MSP B-Sides (Edit: and two of my favourite MSP songs in general)

[River Boy]

Originally Posted by IntlDebris

I was a regular poster on the At Ease Radiohead board at the time, and everyone over there was so excited about it. It was great to be part of a group of people who thought it was an incredibly produced, beautifully written album, when everybody else seemed to have the juvenile "it doesn't rock therefore it's shit" attitude. I still love it, and the 2CD Japanese version - the closest to a deluxe edition we'll ever get, I'm sure - is a prized possession.

One of the reasons I didn't even buy SATT until the deluxe version came out - aside from it being a bit rubbish - is that I felt totally betrayed by them going out and making this daringly electronic record and succeeding, only to smart from the critical reception and low sales and respond with such an early-Manics-by-numbers record. The post-Lifeblood U-turn actually made me hate the band for a long time (it took until Futurology for me to regain my interest).

This pretty much sums up my perspective also. For me, with Lifeblood and Futurology, they're working by artistic instinct and it feels very natural. Shame they're too affected by what critics think as, even though Lifeblood wasn't successful, they could have continued to follow its story into works that earned a wider appreciation - like a lot of Bowie's obscure stuff ended up doing.

Also a great time for live performances. I saw them in Birmingham and Derby, with the latter remaining the best Manics gig I've been to.

Also love Firefight and Picturesque, which I see as part of this era.

[IntlDebris]

Yes, the God Save the Manics EP material was planned for the third single's b-sides, wasn't it? Would that have been 1985 or A Song for Departure, I wonder...

[Marat Sar]

Originally Posted by IntlDebris

I was a regular poster on the At Ease Radiohead board at the time, and everyone over there was so excited about it. It was great to be part of a group of people who thought it was an incredibly produced, beautifully written album, when everybody else seemed to have the juvenile "it doesn't rock therefore it's shit" attitude. I still love it, and the 2CD Japanese version - the closest to a deluxe edition we'll ever get, I'm sure - is a prized possession.

One of the reasons I didn't even buy SATT until the deluxe version came out - aside from it being a bit rubbish - is that I felt totally betrayed by them going out and making this daringly electronic record and succeeding, only to smart from the critical reception and low sales and respond with such an early-Manics-by-numbers record. The post-Lifeblood U-turn actually made me hate the band for a long time (it took until Futurology for me to regain my interest).

Favourites:
The Love of Richard Nixon
A Song for Departure
To Repel Ghosts
Always/Never
Solitude Sometimes Is
Everyone Knows/Nobody Cares
Everything Will Be
Dying Breeds

Sums up my feelings too, even the fav tracks selection is mine, one for one. (I also love the darker b-sides that continue TLORN's achingly dark "march of history" sound). With one exception -- All Alone Here. I think this could've been one of the greatest Manics songs ever, had it been given the extra attention it needs. 2nd and 3rd verse lyrics, more varied structure, fuller production. The chorus lyrics of "The Bethlehem radio is loud and clear / we're all alone here" are, in my opinion, on par with how stuff like Tolerate takes off.

What can I say about Lifeblood that I haven't said about it before? Maybe, if there are others here who rate the album as one of their all time top 3, as I do -- it would be interesting to hear what else is in that summit for you?

Mine goes like this:

1. Kent -- Du & Jag, Döden (I'm not even swedish, it's that good)
2. Einstürzende Neubauten -- Perpetuum Mobile (I'm not even german, it's that good)
3. Manic Street Preachers -- Lifeblood (It's more enjoyable than Perpetuum Mobile but not quite as musically gigantic and serious).

Also, an end note. The lukewarm reception of LB by the fans, the media and also the band themselves, really skewed how I view the world. For a long time it contributed to me thinking that people just don't see the world as I (and my friends who love it) do. And that I will never be successful in communicating what I feel about the world we're in. It was just hard for me to see that something so colossally, spectacularly well done -- both technically and emotionally -- can be discarded by history in such an offhanded way. As if emotion, concept and technique (the things I have always thought I need to have to be a successful artist) don't mean a shit. It took achieving a measure of success as an artist myself to overcome this feeling. Now I just see it as a strange fluke.

[Glyn]

Originally Posted by Marat Sar

With one exception -- All Alone Here. I think this could've been one of the greatest Manics songs ever, had it been given the extra attention it needs. 2nd and 3rd verse lyrics, more varied structure, fuller production. The chorus lyrics of "The Bethlehem radio is loud and clear / we're all alone here" are, in my opinion, on par with how stuff like Tolerate takes off.

I feel a bit bad posting on this thread as Lifeblood just isn't my thing (I just can't get on with the 'cold & detached' feeling of almost all of the album and when they later explained that a lot of of it was recorded by them working at different times in different rooms to each other that explained a lot to me) but I fully agree about how great All Alone Here is.

Probably my favourite chorus from that entire period and gives Solitude Sometime Is a good run for its money as the best track from that time.

I did wonder if it came from the abandoned 'Cities' album which was talked about pre-Lifeblood (of which I think we only ever got Cardiff Afterlife). One of the tracks mentioned for that was 'Stockholm Alone' .It wouldn't take much of a lyric change and it starts with the mention of 'this city', is there a Bethlehem Radio Station in Sweden ? Pure guesswork on my part though so I could be talking complete bo#&ocks there !

[Donkey]

Ach, Lifeblood.

The best thing about Lifeblood is, that I told them personally (separately to each one of them) in 2012, that it's great they had played Nixon and that Lifeblood is great. The responses:
James: ehm, I'll tell Sean, he appreciates the album more than me
Nicky: yes, I'll tell Sean, he appreciates the album more than me
Sean: I know it is!

I was in love with the album from the very beginning, simultenously I was very upset, that there are no rock-elements on the album. Love/hate one could say. A few years after that, the love came back, the hate didn't. Now I see it a bit different:

Lifeblood is a very strange album:

1) It's the first album by them you can clearly say James's voice is beyond the best times. I consider his resonation peak GATS and the best times 1992-1999. KYE is the breaking point. Lifeblood was the first time he started (possibly not intentionally) to use different singing techniques, which make up for missing resonance. This damaged a few songs like Always/Never or ES, the voice sounds too pushed. Many songs keys were significantly lower than before. It's logical, but James's voice doesn't offer anything special in lower register...

2) It confirmed the problem showed on KYE - that the genius is completely gone. GT, GATS has genius on, but not fully developed, THB - genius fully developed, EMG - genius + a bit of filler, TIMTTMY - the melancholic sound of a leaving genius, KYE - genius gone.
If you want to examine that, I recommend b-sides. It doesn't necessarily mean all the older b-sides are better than all the new ones, but you can clearly hear, how easily the guys wrote the songs then and how hard it became with the years. Songs like Masking Tape, Groundhog Days or Fear of Motion - musically they are so empty and senseless.

3) yes, the b-sides. With an exception of THB, which practically didn't have b-sides, it was the first time, the b-sides were really mostly shit. Quarantine, Voodoo Polaroids, Everything Will Be, Askew Road(!!!!, horrible vocals), Antarctic, Soulmates, All Alone Here, No Jubilees, Nicky's stuff, Picturesque(!!!!!!), that's all really very bad and unnecessary.

4) the Isle of Wight showed us, that the production of ES and SSI was very bad. The songs were practically destroyed. I would still pay hundreds for a better recording of SSI@Isle of Wight. Later, the Lifeblood songs live didn't work either, but that was the general problem persisting to today. Either the band enjoys the music and plays or it uses backing tracks and plays with metronome. I live to fall asleep live (for example) is just a joke. ES and SSI were like a parody on Isle of Wight performace. They should have played really LIVE versions of the songs. A bit Radiohead-style. It would have worked.

5) by other songs there is no comparison. But I tend to believe the production did work by most of them. They chose the right direction. The anger and speed was gone. The managed to create a beautiful atmosphere and songs like Emily, 1985 or Nixon have really nice sounds in.

6) Lifeblood contains only songs without genius, meaning there's no way you can hear something as good as the THB songs, but the songs are fucking good. Almost all of them. Glasnost is a filler (try to play it on a guitar and imaging playing it to John Lennon asking for his opinion), but the rest really works. Pathos? yes! All the problems I already mentioned? yes. But you must accept, those are MSP 2.0 (actually already 3.0) and not to wait for any genial things. (I still don't understand, how did they do Journal)
It's like with Pink Floyd. Once you don't try to find anything as special as Piper is, you can enjoy the later albums too :-)

7) I believe it was the last time they did what they really wanted to do and they believed it would be a huge success. And you can hear it. There is no trying to do something because of this or that (Rendition? Imperial Bodybags? Postcards album?).

8) I know I said otherwise, but there is actually a litte bit of genius on Lifeblood. Where? In Nixon. A bit. I can't describe it, but it's there. It's the way how the melody goes and touches the harmony a bit and goes. Hard to access, but it's there :-)

9) It would be a great gig, when they took Nick Naysmith and played the album it its entirety - without backing tracks, without anything. but I'm afraid it would be too late. I have a feeling, they would have to play the songs a lot and certainly develop them a bit - and that should have been done in 2004

10) I always think it came to late. Released in 2000 I would have had more success.

11) We got Futurology 10 years later, songs like The Next Jet to Leave Moscow and the Black Squary sound like Lifeblood2 and are great :-)

so:
Lifeblood has a lot more inside than some think
but
Lifeblood doesn't reach the 90s standards.

[Europa Gluten Free]

Ah, Lifeblood. In my top 3 Manics albums. I started a few Lifeblood anniversary and appreciation threads on here over the years under a different alias.

One of my favourite eras for many reasons:

- The Lamacq session is their best radio session: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aUpEjL6CzU
- Loved the white guitars and the leather
- Sean's best hair era
- The Belfast gig on the day that THB10 was released was fantastic (was this the last era Wire got routinely trashed?)
- The album is absolutely gorgeous - from booklet to fonts to imagery to the sound itself
- Most importantly - IMO the last album that they committed to an "idea" without thinking "career"

[Europa Gluten Free]

Just for fun:

1985
The Love of Richard Nixon
Forever Delayed
A Song for Departure
Empty Souls
To Repel Ghosts
Automatik Teknicolor
I Live to Fall Asleep
Solitude Sometimes Is
Door to the River
Cardiff Afterlife

That would have been divine.