15 years since Know Your Enemy

[Suicide Aldi]

Originally Posted by Bambi

With IA, it's just a shame about that ridiculous bit where Sean's then-pudgy hands batter the drums to no effect while James squeals around aimlessly on top. It's the musical equivalent of running on the spot and it still sounds a bit sad; the band literally flailing around, looking for their edge.

Oh, and the lyrics, obvs.

WHAT THE HELL?????
THATS THE BEST BIT!!!!!

[darkanddivine]

Originally Posted by Porco

• Why they didn't include The Masses Against The Classes on the standard UK album still baffles me. It would have fitted tonally, KYE was hardly the most coherent conceptual piece anyway, and the song was a promotion-friendly no.1 hit single... And maybe I've answered my own question and they were so intent in doing a complete 180-turn on the commercial success of TIMTTMY they didn't want to include a already-established hit. Still, amongst the more crazy things they have done IMHO.

• Without outright disliking them I don't really get on that well with The Year of Purification or Royal Correspondent. I feel like the former is to R.E.M. what Autumnsong later became to Guns 'N Roses - an (IMHO) unsuccessful pastiche that for me lacked much of the emotional impact, or 'Manics rush' of most of their songs - it just sounded like them acting as another band to me. RC I just find a bit dull and whingey and I have grown to hate the line about food being chewed to a degree I can find no rational reasoning to express.

Some great thoughts there. I don't think Masses would have fit in the way it was recorded myself (rocky, but still quite glossy) in comparison to the KYE stuff. What I mean by that is they didn't deliberately rush it. It would need to have been more scratchy like Found that Soul I think. With a hasty re-record, however it could have gone on there with ease. Although that would mark another interesting diversion, re-recording something to make it sound less good!

I agree about TYOP. At the time I bloody loved it because it had a freshness about it, but like a sugar high it doesn't stand up on later listens. I still find RC bearable, but I think the overall mood suits it well, almost to the point of making up for the lyrical issues.

[jenvidg]

Buying KYE is a day I remember so well. I had turned 16 in November '00 and we had just moved to a town that had a record shop (several actually ) and I was so excited over it all. What a feeling it was to be able to walk and buy a cd, instead of trying to ask family friends to pick one up when they sometimes drove down to the bigger towns!

Anyway, I was a mad fan and it was the 3rd MSP album that I bought as it was released. I remember how happy I was that they'd gone back to being more rock, but I also remember KYE not striking me the way EMG did back in 1996. I was a happy fangirl anyway, also bought the lyrics poster someone mentioned as well as the Braindead Motherfucker pin, which I still wear today. I thought the album was a bit odd (...) and I didn't really get a grip on it, but there were most definitely songs that I loved immediately, such as Found That Soul, Intravenous Agnostic, Wattsville Blues, Miss Europa, The Convalescent, Baby Elian and Freedom Of Speech. I was and still am a big fan of KYE's lyrics, especially now when I understand certain things better. Oh and I remember my mum loved the video for So Why So Sad!

Over the years KYE has grown on me, it's not an album that I pick first but it's one that I need to listen to on regular basis. When I get the urge to hear it, it always sounds soooooo good. These days it's up there on the "better side" of my MSP albums top 12.

[Son of Stopped]

In a 2002 diary (That I mainly used for poetry, guitar tabs and other nonsense in 2005) I forgot all about this! I think I typed it up before either on this site, or the official website. If it was the official website then it might be why I've got memories of this being rejected.
But, I can spell "Ocean Spray" sort of in the lettering on the cover

mANic St
rEet Prea
CheRs kn
Ow Your e
nemy

I put in capitals the letters to pay attention to. It starts with the "O" on the second to last line and goes up to spell "OCEAN" and then "SPRY" on the way down.
It could have been better quality weed being available in my area back then.
Or it could be JDB with a big George Lucas beard sitting in a leather chair going "Ocean Spray has to work. Ocean Spray is the key to all this."

[LA ex]

Originally Posted by Son of Stopped

In a 2002 diary (That I mainly used for poetry, guitar tabs and other nonsense in 2005) I forgot all about this! I think I typed it up before either on this site, or the official website. If it was the official website then it might be why I've got memories of this being rejected.
But, I can spell "Ocean Spray" sort of in the lettering on the cover

mANic St
rEet Prea
CheRs kn
Ow Your e
nemy

I put in capitals the letters to pay attention to. It starts with the "O" on the second to last line and goes up to spell "OCEAN" and then "SPRY" on the way down.
It could have been better quality weed being available in my area back then.
Or it could be JDB with a big George Lucas beard sitting in a leather chair going "Ocean Spray has to work. Ocean Spray is the key to all this."

It's good, but not as good as the person who wrote his name between the brackets on the cover of his copy of Everything Must Go. That still makes me laugh out loud thinking about it.

[Son of Stopped]

Originally Posted by LA ex

It's good, but not as good as the person who wrote his name between the brackets on the cover of his copy of Everything Must Go. That still makes me laugh out loud thinking about it.

That's amazing!
If anything, Manics album covers haven't had much scope for this sort of stuff in recent years.

[Europa Gluten Free]

Originally Posted by Porco

I've said similar before, but I think Know Your Enemy is a funny(~strange) album, in that I think there's a really good normal length album in it with a few tracks it could have lost, it's just that almost everyone disagrees which tracks those should have been...!

Some random KYE opinions/memories/thoughts:

• Personally I love the lyrics of Intravenous Agnostic almost as much as the music, which is a lot (and that others find them so poor baffles me slightly, but horses for courses and all that). For me that track is like the beating heart of the whole album. And "What a mess" is possibly still my favourite Wire interjection in any of their songs, summing up both the song and album for both good and bad perfectly IMHO.

• Still can't get on with Watsville Blues, which remains one of my least favourite Manics songs.

• Why they didn't include The Masses Against The Classes on the standard UK album still baffles me. It would have fitted tonally, KYE was hardly the most coherent conceptual piece anyway, and the song was a promotion-friendly no.1 hit single... And maybe I've answered my own question and they were so intent in doing a complete 180-turn on the commercial success of TIMTTMY they didn't want to include a already-established hit. Still, amongst the more crazy things they have done IMHO.

• I still have the IA/doom-laden thunderclouds .swf off the KYE-era website saved somewhere, and while it's still quite cool the last time I looked at it it had dated quite a bit, so my advice is don't seek it out, just remember it in your mind as the cool thing it was back then and don't spoil it for yourself in the context of the present.

• Without outright disliking them I don't really get on that well with The Year of Purification or Royal Correspondent. I feel like the former is to R.E.M. what Autumnsong later became to Guns 'N Roses - an (IMHO) unsuccessful pastiche that for me lacked much of the emotional impact, or 'Manics rush' of most of their songs - it just sounded like them acting as another band to me. RC I just find a bit dull and whingey and I have grown to hate the line about food being chewed to a degree I can find no rational reasoning to express.

• I like So Why So Sad, but I love Found That Soul, and I think they would have been better off only releasing the latter as the first single.

• I know us lot often say this, but for me this is THE album/era where some of the B-sides were better than some of the album tracks and I would have happily swapped them. Locust Valley and Fear of Motion especially, but I also have soft spots for Groundhog Days and Masking Tape, and as we heard much later, Midnight Sun. Not so much Pedestal though, that was a slightly p-p-p-preposterous song (though ok as a B-side).

• I love Ocean Spray, Let Robeson Sing, Dead Martyrs, His Last Painting, Baby Elian, Freedom of Speech Won't Feed My Children.

• I like My Guernica, The Convelscent and Epicentre. I quite enjoy Miss Europa Disco Dancer but don't really like the repeated braindead muddyfunsters bit at the end, it's like they couldn't leave it as a daft fun straight tune, they had to self-sabotage it, which is so them, and part of why I love them in general, just not here specifically.

• For all its mess, the production on KYE is always more pleasant to listen to, when I do, than I remember it being later. I type this as I am listening to it!

• I was still living at the top a tall building with a big bedroom when KYE came out and so I could play along on my guitar extremely loudly without anyone complaining, which was nice. Happy days.

• More than anything, the original release of KYE and its singles reminds me of getting the bus to uni, listening to them on my Minidisc player. Looking back, Minidisc seems like the most appropriate format for the album in some ways, loved by those who loved it but never really made it totally mainstream like what came before or after...

• I also remember around this time period I had a mini-altercation with someone trying to hand out flyers for a club/event or similar that was (mis-)using the infamous Richey '4 real' photo. People trying to force junk mail into your hands is annoying at the best of times, but the use of the Richey image for so something so vaccuous particularly riled me, and I let the person know, loudly and in no uncertain terms as I swerved the attempt to push the unwanted flyer into my hands regardless. There's your braindead muddyfunsters Wire, maybe you were right all along after all!

Wrote more than I thought I would there.

Best post I've read on this forum for a long long time.

[Automatik]

Great post by Porco that gives a lot to think about.

Originally Posted by Porco

• Why they didn't include The Masses Against The Classes on the standard UK album still baffles me. It would have fitted tonally, KYE was hardly the most coherent conceptual piece anyway, and the song was a promotion-friendly no.1 hit single...

Often wondered this. An absurd omission both at the time and with hindsight.

Originally Posted by Porco

• I know us lot often say this, but for me this is THE album/era where some of the B-sides were better than some of the album tracks and I would have happily swapped them. Locust Valley and Fear of Motion especially, but I also have soft spots for Groundhog Days and Masking Tape, and as we heard much later, Midnight Sun. Not so much Pedestal though, that was a slightly p-p-p-preposterous song (though ok as a B-side).

Agreed. Fear Of Motion, Groundhog Days and Masking Tape could have been singles for me. Locust Valley gives me the most vivid feeling of my skin crawling in long grass in a bullying summer heat - it's eerie, really.

I like Pedestal though. It's a little simplistic in its emotional intent but then that's nothing new.

Originally Posted by Porco

• I love Ocean Spray, Let Robeson Sing, Dead Martyrs, His Last Painting, Baby Elian, Freedom of Speech Won't Feed My Children.

I listen to the Kinobe Remix of Ocean Spray as part of my walk to work playlist. I still adore Ocean Spray (including the Ian Brown remix!). Dead Martyrs and His Last Painting are strong tracks. Baby Elian and Freedom of Speech... are decent musically, but perhaps a little simplistic in its political intent. Freedom is the better of the two in that regard, of course, and it's easy to forget that there were relatively few people (at all) adopting such a critical take on the 'end of history' era in the way the Manics did here.

Despite its flaws KYE is a great and varied album that I often return to and binge on. Can't say the same of PFAYM, RTF, for example.

[junkymotown]

Originally Posted by Automatik

Great post by Porco that gives a lot to think about.

Often wondered this. An absurd omission both at the time and with hindsight.

RE: Masses - I always assumed it was left off the album because of the gap between the releases. Masses being turn of 1999/2000, and KYE being March 2001. Seems a bit long between to get it on there. Altho I agree it would have totally fit.

[darkanddivine]

Yeah it was always more tied to the TIMT campaign, and seemed to be a natural reaction to some of the negativity they'd received for going all commercial. KYE was the next step in that process. TIMT's campaign ended with the Millenium gig, and the single before Masses came out 6 months before it (Tsunami.)

[Takk]

I like the remix of SWSS better. :O

[Librarian On Fire]

This line by Wire in his February 2018 interview in The Quietus http://thequietus.com/articles/24062...is-futile-2018 really struck me. " The only time we’ve ever reacted against ourselves in terms of popularity was Know Your Enemy, that was a wilfully destructive album.” Is Wire referring to the fuss made over the bands visit to Cuba and the band taking yet another change in direction and sound after the success of TTMT? Or is was there more happening in the studio than we perhaps know about? For all of the band's opinion on KYE, it's still a great album. So fresh and raw. I still think it captured the band at their very very best. In sound and song writing. I'm always wondering just what has Wire horded away over the years.

[darkanddivine]

Originally Posted by Librarian On Fire

This line by Wire in his February 2018 interview in The Quietus http://thequietus.com/articles/24062...is-futile-2018 really struck me. " The only time we’ve ever reacted against ourselves in terms of popularity was Know Your Enemy, that was a wilfully destructive album.” Is Wire referring to the fuss made over the bands visit to Cuba and the band taking yet another change in direction and sound after the success of TTMT? Or is was there more happening in the studio than we perhaps know about? For all of the band's opinion on KYE, it's still a great album. So fresh and raw. I still think it captured the band at their very very best. In sound and song writing. I'm always wondering just what has Wire horded away over the years.

Quite a few bands went down the "self-destruction" road. Pulp notably made This Is Hardcore deliberately as a reaction to their popularity and fame, and other bands played a similar hand including the Manics. I think that's often just down to growing pains in some ways.

The desire to avoid making another album with widescreen guitars and big string sections must have been a massive part of how KYE turned out. I certainly remember reading in interviews at the time that they wanted to channel their inner punk spirit a bit more (The Clash were mentioned a lot.) That led to some of the songs being a tad under-worked, which in turn led to the album perhaps being less focused than it otherwise might have been.

[UEF]

Originally Posted by Takk

I like the remix of SWSS better. :O

Pure sunshine in audio form, love it

[ForeverDelayed.com]

What great memories I have from around the time this was released. I was in high school... I don’t know how the CD has not melted from all the times I listened to it. I also love the majority of the bsides as well.

Where do I start? I love the cover art and the booklet.
I love that they continuing housing the CDs in those slip cases.
I remember I got them from the dying days of HMV and Virgin here in the states.
Releasing a double single was also awesome. I loved so why so sad when it came out (cam barely listen to it now) and the avalanches remix is pure joy. I loved that video as well. I didn’t like found that soul too much but now I much prefer it to SWSS. Loved the bsides on both. Put along the Cuba gig and DVD, I was just buzzing.

Although not their best album, it is definitely my favorite. It paved the way for the Manics to become my favorite band, along with oasis, my soundtrack to my late teens and early twenties. And they both remain there all these years later.

So thanks, know your enemy.

Ps - anyone has any high quality images of the artwork (not the cover) from around this time?