How do you rank the studio albums?

[Geranium Terrorists]

Another revision!
1. THB (same position)
2. EMG (same position)
3. KYE (same position)

4. GT (prev. position 5)
5. GATS (prev. position 7)
6. LB (same position)
7. RTF (prev. position 4)

8. TIMT (same position)

9. JFPL (prev. position 10)
10. F (prev. position 9)

11. SATT (same position)
12. PFAYM (same position)

[Marat Sar]

1. Lifeblood. Well aged, flawless quality, sonically gorgeous. Becomes more and more topical each year (regretfully). The warm vein that pulses through my experience of reality. Popular music doesn't get more complete than Lifeblood.

2. Futurology. Heroic, interesting. Few works of art celebrate art itself in such a mature and honest, yet entirely optimistic manner. (If any.) A thoroughly believable ode to the act of creation, from three people who've proven extraordinarily capable at it.

3. This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours Glorious, hard to listen to. The first five songs are unbearably historicist, the rest a tattered ghost. If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next is the greatest hit single ever recorded, an embodiment of the possibilities of mass culture, an inside out and upside down Nuremberg Rally.

4. Know Your Enemy. Manic Street Preachers. A lot of Manic Street Preachers. An entire box-full of them. Don't leave home without it, take the Manic Street Preachers with you when you go out. Who cares if some of it is gaff, it's the Manic Street Preachers.

5. The Holy Bible. Fun, bad ass extremist statement in favor of extinction. Over-rated, but sometimes when the album rises to the level of it's insane prestige, a truly special feeling. Like I have something unexplainable that cannot be taken away from me. Something that is not pride and smells like spring snow.

6. Everything Must Go. What a story! What a great, horrible story. At what cost the context for "No Surface All Feeling"! A true, grand narrative, with horrendous production. Really, really should be mixed again. (With drums this time, please).

7. Rewind The Film. Pretty, miserable defeatism, like Lifeblood without the sparkle and wisdom, like This Is My Truth without the glory. Beautiful analog sound. Benefits greatly from the adventurous sequencing also heard on superior Futurology. Interesting and uneven. Some heartbreaking moments in there.

8. Gold Against The Soul. Stupid soft metal album. Has way more atmosphere than it ought to - mostly thanks to the endearingly dated sound. Amazingly elastic shouty vocals from JDB, true perfection on the mic. Cool singles, really weak filler.

9. Generation Terrorists. Sound not so endearingly dated. Motorcycle Emptiness is youth itself, pure, sad and free. Saves the album and then some. Some of the other stuff manages to be interesting. Generally trash though. From here on (and GT included) I could compile over five b-sides compilations that are better than the bottom-most albums. (And so could you!)

10. Send Away The Tigers. Blargh. Began the hat trick of failures that almost made me give up on them. The concept was naff, but I understand now. Better to have a work ethic and plough through the uninspired years with some half-decent radio play, than "split - reform - dissappoint". We wouldn't have gotten the Rewind/Futurology renaissance had they started hibernating. Better to stay in shape and stay together for the kids.

11. Journal For Plague Lovers. I just don't get it. Makes me feel a bit stupid when I see people place it 1st or 2nd. Must be more than Richey-fanaticism at work there, but I don't feel a thing when I listen to Journal. I understand the concept, but for me the music just isn't there and neither are the texts.

12. Postcards From a Young Man Daytime soap opera. Dryness. Nuisance. A really bad SATT. Pity about the production and unnecessary dueting on Some Kind Of Nothingness, though. Closer observation of the lyrics and melody indicate an absolutely gigantic anthem underneath the shit-sheet.

[Glass Angel]

1. Journal for Plague Lovers - because it's everything it should be, massive and grim, but more mature and more melodic than The Holy Bible.

2. Everything Must Go - my introduction to the Manics, with Britpop but not of it, the album that expanded my musical horizons.

3. Generation Terrorists - yes, it's too long, it's too ambitious and pretentious, but the lyrics are genius and no band ever has or ever will better Motorcycle Emptiness.

4. Futurology - It's fair to say the Manics have had some poor albums over the years, and the phrase 'return to form' has been very overused, but it really is and I love it. Still not decided whether Let's Go To War is the best or worst song on it though!

5. The Holy Bible - it's their masterpiece, no doubt, and melodic compared to those it is compared to (Nirvana, Joy Division), it's just a bit heavy going to be my favorite.

6. Gold Against The Soul - guilty pleasure, I love it! I recently read someone call the Manics 'Bon Jovi with a politics degree'. Well, I quite like Bon Jovi.

7. Postcards From A Young Man - I'm not sure how coherent it is as an album, but there are so many great songs on this album.

8. Lifeblood - I know JDB doesn't like Lifeblood, but I think it's been unfairly dismissed, the music is beautiful and the lyrics are clever, although it's not the most memorable or sing along album.

9. Send Away The Tigers - it's okay, enough good songs, but also a bit mainstream for my taste. Ignore what I said about Bon Jovi just now!

8. Rewind The Film - it just doesn't really sound like the Manics, and I'm not a fan of the duets.

11. This Is My Truth, Tell My Yours - Tolerate and Tsunami are two of my favorite Manics' songs, but the rest of the album is pretty boring. I think Nicky might have been struggling with solo lyrics at this point, and SYMM is just dire.

12. Know Your Enemy - I'll admit not having listened to it much, but the album struck me as incoherent, and turned me off the band for years, sad to say.

[culture slut]

my latest rating:

1. The Holy Bible

2. Know Your Enemy

3. Everything Must Go

4. Journal for Plague Lovers

5. Gold Against The Soul

6. Generation Terrorists

7. This Is My Truth, Tell My Yours

8. Lifeblood

9. Postcards From A Young Man

10. Futurology

11. Rewind The Film

12. Send Away The Tigers

[Lord Revan]

GATS seems to be either brilliant or horrible, depending on my mood.

[MoMoney MoJunk]

Originally Posted by Lord Revan

GATS seems to be either brilliant or horrible, depending on my mood.

Was it Nicky who said it has four great singles, and the rest is garbage? Aside from Sleepflower he's pretty much on the money.

[Lord Revan]

I guess it depends on which songs I'm able to ignore on any given day, hahaha.

Now imagine if they had made GT a normal 10-track album, and saved some songs for GATS... would have been brilliant, the weaker tracks on GT are much better than the weaker ones off GATS.

[roi]

What the hell, i'll do this again.

1 The Holy Bible
2 Everything Must Go
3 Journal For Plague Lovers
4 This is My Truth Tell Me Yours
5 Rewind The Film
6 Futurology
7 Gold Against The Soul
8 Lifeblood
9 Generation Terrorists
10 Postcards From A Young Man
11 Know Your Enemy
12 Send Away The Tigers

[MoMoney MoJunk]

So, I had some spare time on my hands and decided to devote it to stats and Manics nerdiness. I'm sure others have done the same thing before, but what I did was, I gave each track a rating out of 10 and then got the average for each album. The results were surprisingly interesting. Firstly however, I ranked the albums off the top of my head.

1. The Holy Bible
2. Know Your Enemy
3. Everything Must Go
4. Rewind the Film
5. Journal For Plague Lovers
6. Futurology
7. Generation Terrorists
8. Lifeblood
9. Send Away the Tigers
10. Gold Against the Soul
11. Postcards From a Young Man
12. This is My Truth Tell Me Yours

Now, feast your eyes on the rankings by average:

1. The Holy Bible (8.76)
2. Rewind the Film (8.16)
3. Everything Must Go (8.08)
4. Journal For Plague Lovers (8.07)
5. Know Your Enemy (7.93)
6. Futurology (7.84)
7. Send Away the Tigers (7.60)
8. Generation Terrorists (7.50)
9. Lifeblood (7.33)
10. Postcards From a Young Man (7.16)
11. Gold Against the Soul (7.10)
12. This is My Truth Tell Me Yours (6.92)

Few surprises! I guess sentimentality took over when ranking KYE with my heart - my head thinks differently it seems! GT has some real duds on it too when you look at the whole album. Especially 'Natwest' and the Stars and Stripes version of Repeat. And look at RTF all the way up at number 2, didn't expect that!

Other findings included:
- SATT and Futurology were the only albums that didn't have a 10 rated track. Though Futurology did have the most 9s.
- The last three all had the lowest rated first track. So I guess if they don't start well...
- SATT never dipped below a 7 which was remarkable. Yes... even Autumnsong. I guess it's just a good, solid, rock record. (THB and RTF never did either)
- I dished out fifteen 10s.
- Lowest rating I gave were some 4s.
- Aside from Futurology, the second last track is always worse than the last track.
- Statistically, the best album for singles is... GATS! Who knew?


Anyway yeah. Maybe I should get a hobby or something.

[Glass Angel]

What were to 10s and 4s?

I might need to analyse the overall rankings now! (Not literally now, it's past bed time...)

[Phil C]

Done quickly without thinking about it too hard;

1) The Holy Bible.

2) Know Your Enemy.

3) Journal For Plague Lovers.

4) This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours.

5) Futurology.

6) Rewind The Film.

7) Everything Must Go.

8) Postcards From A Young Man.

9) Generation Terrorists.

10) Lifeblood.

11) Send Away The Tigers.

12) Gold Against The Soul.

I struggle to fully appraise any Manics album while it's the latest one, so 'Futurology' is the most uncertain placing. 'The Holy Bible' remains my favourite album of all time. 'KYE' is an absolute feast. 'Journal' is as delightfully tight as 'KYE' is delightfully messy.

After three ugly (in the best best sense of the world) albums, we have their most beautiful - 'TIMTTMY', full of musical variety and great songwriting. 'Futurology' is a successful reinvention, but perhaps falls a little short of its promise, while 'Rewind The Film' succeeds brilliantly on its own terms but lacks a touch of variety. Both are great collections of songs though.

'EMG' contains some of their best moments of commercial songwriting, but it is a little less interesting than some of their others. 'Postcards' might deserve to be higher up the list, as it has a variety of sounds missing from 'EMG' - it has the string-drenched rock songs and trumpet part, but adds choirs, sharper rock songs and unusual song structures. 'Generation Terrorists' is dumb punk fun with a handful of glorious moments.

'Lifeblood''s low placing should not suggest a dislike of the album. It has some wonderful moments and the production is great. But like 'GATS' it has a few dulls tracks interspersed among the good ones. 'SATT' succeeds totally on its own terms, but those terms are so shallow it means less that it succeeds. Some genuine gold here ('Imperial Bodybags' in particular) and still a lot better than 'GATS' which contains the weakest tracks ever to make it to a Manics album, amongst some very good singles.

[Glass Angel]

Originally Posted by Glass Angel

I might need to analyse the overall rankings now! (Not literally now, it's past bed time...)

Yeah, okay, started then got board! Suffice to say, Postcards From A Young Man is pretty much universally unpopular, but there's an amazing amount of variation for all the others.

[Automatik]

Originally Posted by NasalScarecrow

I want to see someone compile all of this thread data into an actual graph. Throw in the solo albums to the rankings too.

Second this. Statistics are great.

[Phil C]

Originally Posted by Glass Angel

Yeah, okay, started then got board! Suffice to say, Postcards From A Young Man is pretty much universally unpopular, but there's an amazing amount of variation for all the others.

Then count me in with the 'pretty much' rather than the 'universally' as I think it's a top album and would have been a career-best for many bands.

[darkanddivine]

1. The Holy Bible
2. Everything Must Go
3. Journal
4. Truth
5. Lifeblood
   ------
6. Generation Terrorists
7. Futurology
8. Know your Enemy
9. Gold Against the Soul
10. Send away the Tigers
    ------
11. Rewind the Film
12. Postcards

Nice to do this with a bit of distance once again. We're not in an album cycle, so it does make it easier to judge things. Regarding the splits, the top 5 are albums I can throw on almost anytime and enjoy start to finish. Critically, or just in my head, they are all classics for a variety of reaons. The middle 5 all have amazing moments, but don't quite have the strength in depth of the top 5. They could all do with either an edit, or a re-do with a tweaked track selection, or the inclusion of some overlooked B-sides. And the bottom 2 have never really floated my boat, sadly.