Today we study an article from Media magazine about The Manic Street Preachers.
Music 4 real –
studying the Manic Street Preachers
Biographer and journalist Paula Shutkever argues that the Manics’ music, personal history, influences and image make them an ideal band to study.
Six years ago, as a music journalist, I wrote the first biography of the Manic Street Preachers. Of all the artists I’ve written about professionally, the Manics are the ones who never cease to intrigue, fascinate, challenge and inspire me. They are as much a Media Studies student’s delight as a music lover’s companion and guide.
We spend around 25% of our time consuming music (consciously or sub-consciously), making it the biggest of all cultural or media forms. And yet it’s only been in the last fifteen years – almost as long as the Manic Street Preachers have been around – that the discipline of Media Studies at school, college and university has taken the study of music seriously. So, as the band put out their ‘Best of’ album, it seems an appropriate point to consider what they can offer us as an object of study.
One of the first people to write theoretically about popular music – in the 1930s – was a man called Theodor Adorno, who claimed that popular music produced industrially could never effectively challenge dominant meanings and values (ideologies). He may never have lived to watch Pop Stars or Fame Academy but he hated the ‘standardization’ of popular music which went ‘through the mill’ of an industry production process. Ironically, even Robbie Williams, who himself came to fame with the help of a manufactured boy-band (Take That), complains that pop music is too manufactured nowadays …
Fifty years after Adorno first wrote about popular music, four working-class boys from Blackwood, Wales, were growing up against a backdrop of political unease during the early 1980s. They began to discuss why the world was seemingly going crazy – from the IRA Hunger Strikers to the Miner’s Strike. As their ‘Best of’ album was released, the firefighters began their strikes and the world seemed to have come full circle. The Manics try to ‘break free’ through education, music and politics.
What’s in a name?
The Manic Street Preachers’ name itself suggests that the group wants to tell us something. The Manics were very influenced by a group of French intellectuals called the Situationists. The Situationists were members of an international movement founded in 1957; they wanted to break down the barriers between art and everyday life, between actors and spectators, between producers and consumers. They wanted people to live not as objects but as subjects (and makers) of history.
The Situationists aimed to reinvent everyday life by constructing disruptive situations, which would literally jolt people out of their boredom. They wanted to be the catalyst for a revolution and then disappear. Following much the same spirit, early in their career the Manics announced that they were going to make one album, become world-famous – and then split up. Later, when signing to the major label Sony, the band tackled upfront any potential accusations of selling-out. They had something to say, and they wanted to say it to as many people as possible and no independent label could support them to do that:
Biographer and journalist Paula Shutkever argues that the Manics’ music, personal history, influences and image make them an ideal band to study.
Six years ago, as a music journalist, I wrote the first biography of the Manic Street Preachers. Of all the artists I’ve written about professionally, the Manics are the ones who never cease to intrigue, fascinate, challenge and inspire me. They are as much a Media Studies student’s delight as a music lover’s companion and guide.
We spend around 25% of our time consuming music (consciously or sub-consciously), making it the biggest of all cultural or media forms. And yet it’s only been in the last fifteen years – almost as long as the Manic Street Preachers have been around – that the discipline of Media Studies at school, college and university has taken the study of music seriously. So, as the band put out their ‘Best of’ album, it seems an appropriate point to consider what they can offer us as an object of study.
One of the first people to write theoretically about popular music – in the 1930s – was a man called Theodor Adorno, who claimed that popular music produced industrially could never effectively challenge dominant meanings and values (ideologies). He may never have lived to watch Pop Stars or Fame Academy but he hated the ‘standardization’ of popular music which went ‘through the mill’ of an industry production process. Ironically, even Robbie Williams, who himself came to fame with the help of a manufactured boy-band (Take That), complains that pop music is too manufactured nowadays …
Fifty years after Adorno first wrote about popular music, four working-class boys from Blackwood, Wales, were growing up against a backdrop of political unease during the early 1980s. They began to discuss why the world was seemingly going crazy – from the IRA Hunger Strikers to the Miner’s Strike. As their ‘Best of’ album was released, the firefighters began their strikes and the world seemed to have come full circle. The Manics try to ‘break free’ through education, music and politics.
What’s in a name?
The Manic Street Preachers’ name itself suggests that the group wants to tell us something. The Manics were very influenced by a group of French intellectuals called the Situationists. The Situationists were members of an international movement founded in 1957; they wanted to break down the barriers between art and everyday life, between actors and spectators, between producers and consumers. They wanted people to live not as objects but as subjects (and makers) of history.
The Situationists aimed to reinvent everyday life by constructing disruptive situations, which would literally jolt people out of their boredom. They wanted to be the catalyst for a revolution and then disappear. Following much the same spirit, early in their career the Manics announced that they were going to make one album, become world-famous – and then split up. Later, when signing to the major label Sony, the band tackled upfront any potential accusations of selling-out. They had something to say, and they wanted to say it to as many people as possible and no independent label could support them to do that:
- 'We’ve never been the Trade Unionists of Rock, we know that we could
never reach as many people as we wanted, unless it was on a major [label].
We were willing prostitutes'.
The Manic Street Preachers have covered the following controversial topics in their songs:
• the validity of American culture (‘Blackpool Pier’)
• the madness of caged animals (‘Small Black Flowers That Grow In The Sky’)
• the frightening mental illness of Tourette’s Syndrome (‘Symphony of Tourette’)
• great writers such as Sylvia Plath (‘The Girl Who Wanted To Be God’)
• forgotten heroes of war photography like Kevin Carter
• controversial pornography workers in ‘Little Baby Nothing’
• anorexia (‘4st 7lbs’).
In spite of their obvious successes, they continue to tackle difficult issues in their songs and in their public demonstrations. The Manics were the first Western group to play in Havana, Cuba, and have recently contributed to the NME’s ‘1 Love’ album to raise money for the War Child charity. From within the music industry confines, they have made music that makes a difference.
The Situationists were a strong influence on punk music, and are cited by the Manics. Like Punk, the Manic Street Preachers merged a massive mixture of styles and influences – the band are big readers and culture-vultures, and this shows in their songs and videos.
The Manic Street Preachers have placed Wales firmly on the musical map. By proudly displaying their identity with huge Welsh flag backdrops, and culminating most of their tours at home, the band have forced a London-focused music industry actually to seek out bands like The Stereophonics, Catatonia and Super Furry Animals whose music is full of their Welsh roots. Could an album sung in Welsh have hit the charts before the Manics appeared?
Analysing the Manics’ music
The Manic Street Preachers can be analysed on a number of levels. Their lyrics are textually rich (Richey Edwards’ early lyrics are a painfully personal self-examination of human fragility). Their songs are musically diverse (from accessibly pop – ‘Everything Must Go’ – to the uncomfortable ‘Holy Bible’) and they are politically hard to pin down – whose side are they on?
The Manics are often associated with the emotional pain of youth. In February 1995, Richey Edwards, guitarist and songwriter, walked out of a hotel the band were staying in, never to be heard of again. Despite numerous ‘sightings’, earlier this year Richey was legally declared dead. Richey was plagued with eating disorders, cut himself with knives, and drank too much. But he left the band – and us – with a platform on which to discuss the previously hidden issues he suffered from. With songs like ‘4st 7lbs’ (about anorexia) and the self-explanatory ‘Die in the Summertime’, which uncomfortably questions our role as consumers, we have no choice but to take their music seriously.
When Richey Edwards cut ‘4 Real’ into his arm live on air as a reaction to DJ Steve Lamacq’s questioning of their authenticity and truthfulness, he did more than simply harm himself. He made all of us, as music journalists at the time, question our own validity over the artists we were interviewing. For my own small part, I gave all the money I earned from writing their biography to a self-harm charity.
A well known cultural critic, Walter Pater, once said that ‘all art aspires towards the condition of music’ – he was so right. As I listen to over a decade of the Manic Street Preachers’ music on Forever Delayed, their greatest hits album, I can see more slogans illustrating the sleeve and more about the band’s roots. There are quotations from the architect Gaudi, Dennis Hopper the filmmaker and actor, George Orwell the writer, and even from Van Gogh’s suicide note – all reminding us of human suffering – and breaking down barriers between star and audience.
At first I thought the most poignant of all the quotations was from Pablo Picasso, the artist: ‘Art is the life that helps us understand the truth’. Then I turned it over to find the group telling us, ‘We invite everyone to question the entire culture we take for granted.’
When I hear such passionate beliefs wrapped up in equally ardent sounds and delivered through a mass medium like the music industry, I’m reminded of all of the reasons why music is such an important form to study. We can use music to make meaningful sense of the world, and bands like the Manic Street Preachers, help us to do so un-blinkered. MM
This article first appeared in MediaMagazine 3, February 2003
Popular
culture was identified as the reason for people's passive satisfaction and lack
of interest in overthrowing the capitalist system. 
