I love Richard Nixon (edit: the song!). The band have always had a soft spot for New Order**, even back in their purist days - and I thought this was a pretty cool approximation of that. I guess it doesn’t really fit with a lot of the other sounds on the album but I like the bit of contrast it lends. Also thought the video was pretty hilarious and it was nice to see them having a bit of a laugh after the overwrought Know Your Enemy.
None of that is to disagree with your take on the general attitudes towards it, but I’m a fan.
** the original demo of Motorcycle Emptiness was apparently very New Order-esque
I like Nixon (the song and Lambchop album) too, it’s definitely a strange single for an absolutely massive arena band to come back with. But then you could say the same about So Why So Sad (I loooove the Avalanches mix!) and Tolerate too, I suppose. At the time I think I found it challenging but now I enjoy the perversity. I remember liking Lifeblood but thinking a lot of it was very blandly written, definitely ripe for a relisten. I stuck with them through all this, I think it was specifically Your Love Alone when I really cooled, and that’s probably the song that saved them. Still don’t like it.
I’ve had a look through an old 2001 issue of Mojo today, they review Know your Enemy and the Cuba gig. Nicky is wearing a bucket hat in the picture. The powerful feeling of time passing it evoked made me feel queasy and I’ve had to throw it out.
Door To The River is so lovely. Think I’d be into a Manics MOR Jimmy Webb album if the songwriting was as good as this. I’ve not heard Rewind The Film yet, from what I’ve read maybe that will scratch the itch?
I went on a little video binge today, watched the Stay Beautiful video for the first time, good grief. They are playing in a building that turns into…a crab? Lol. The Motorcycle Emptiness promo is quite beautiful.
A very scattershot post that, just sort of keyboard vomit.
I love Rewind, Futurology and Journal and would consider them all essential later manics records.
You’re right though, if Nixon is odd then so is Tolerate and SWSS. At the time Tolerate was a big change in their sound, but it now feels like a true classic.
Totally agree with this - didn’t at all get on with Tolerate (and the entire album save for a handful of tracks) at the time, but my word it really is a classic track and a very good album looked at 20+ years later
It’s easily top 5 manics for me now. And I find it really hard to make a manics top 10. They have a handful of tracks I can easily pick, then a massive list just behind I can’t narrow down.
Holy Bible is always my fave album but I can’t pick a favourite song. Maybe Yes. I dunno. It’s all good tbh.
Apart from THB there is no one Manics album I’d call truly incredible, but half a dozen of them are great and
I could easily fill 3 CDs with all-time Manics bangers
The cultural ubiquity of EMG on it’s release meant I always underrated it a bit but with the distance of 25 years and the exception of The Girl Who Wanted to be God (just ok I reckon) I think it’s a stellar album. Bursting with energy, huge songs and really strong lyrics. Amazing to come back with it after what they went through. Dead Tree’s and Traffic Islands and Sepia from this era are my favourite Manic’s b-sides too. I’m a big Holy Bible head but I am just never in a place where I want to listen to it these days, when I was a teenager would play it all the time, regardless of what I was doing, the weather, my mood. A tremendous pair of records.
I agree. The Girl Who…is definitely the weakest track but the rest is remarkably strong. I too rarely feel in the right mind for THB. It used to be the album I listened to when I was really pissed off and needed a release. But since I had children that happens all the time! So it can’t just be that.
They did those sort of cathartic release songs so well. Faster, Judge Y’rself, Marlon JD, they’re so taut and intense, they make me want to have an ice bath and then a good scream. Think it might be in Everything where Simon Price says something like Faster is music to do sit ups to.
Relatively sure that No Surface All Feeling, especially at that point in the set after everything that had gone before it, would just destroy me completely. I can’t imagine how that would have felt in this context, I’ve got goosebumps even thinking about it
Honestly reckon a lot of casuals see it as one of their best songs. I mentioned the gig to a guy I work with a few weeks ago - proper two CDs a year for the car from Tesco type - and he starts singing Tsunami back at me.
For last night’s audience, playing You Stole The Sun makes absolute sense. I’ll admit it’s frustrating when you’ve seen them around 20 times, often in small venues packed out with fans, and they put it in the set every single time.
But I get more annoyed about It’s Not War (Just The End Of Love), which they’ve seemed really attached to over the past decade or so. Maybe with International Blue and the wealth of great new stuff from TUVL we are free of that now…
