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  #31  
Old 11-05-2015, 20:33
slop101 slop101 is offline
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He's definitely tying his own/the band's own personal experience of making each album directly into his ranking, more so than the actual quality of the songs.
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  #32  
Old 12-05-2015, 00:22
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Originally Posted by slop101 View Post
He's definitely tying his own/the band's own personal experience of making each album directly into his ranking, more so than the actual quality of the songs.
The creator of an artistic piece is hardly ever able to judge his/her own work by means of "actual quality". But then, that is not up to the maker to determine anyway, it's up to the critics and audiences.
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  #33  
Old 12-05-2015, 06:59
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Yeah he must be basing his opinion on experiences making the albums or what the lyrics mean to him because musically the first four albums are far better than the rest in my opinion. Thats not me refusing to accept and embrace how their sound has changed, more like my preference to how Id like them to sound, sure there are gigs I can go to and hear all their classic songs but I crave for another GT sounding album.....probably wont happen but to put Rewind the Film and Futurology so high up is a load of arse. Lifeblood isnt my favourite album but it is better than those two at very least........the top two I agree with being their best two albums. GATS and GT should have been much higher up on the list too. But its his opinion and this is mine
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  #34  
Old 12-05-2015, 11:25
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I've only just discovered the depth of Lifeblood hatred. I truly had no idea.


Yeah, Lifeblood really is a great album, but I'm glad you're like Futurology.
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  #35  
Old 12-05-2015, 12:39
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Agree with the top two but think it's a bit topsy-turvy after that.

If James at least rates albums like Postcards and Tigers so highly, why don't they play any album tracks off them?
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  #36  
Old 15-05-2015, 17:48
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I would have Lipstick Traces pretty high up my list. I wonder where James would rank it .. I presume it didn't count as a proper album
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  #37  
Old 15-05-2015, 18:08
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Very interesting article - I share most of the consensus above so I won't repeat it apart from to emphasise that the low ranking JFPL is unfathomable for me.

I note especially that James confirms sales figures for TIMTTMY at 4.5m worldwide which - going by other sources - suggests that only a quarter of that album's sales were in Britain, which seems very low indeed.
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  #38  
Old 19-05-2015, 16:04
IrelandCalling4 IrelandCalling4 is offline
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Lifeblood, as many other posters on many threads have also said, is THE conundrum. How an album of this beauty is so forgotten, almost condemned.

Lifeblood was an album I didn't hear until late last year; even though I've been a massive fan of this band since 2007. For the simple reason of it's reputation, I kept putting it off. On finally listening I was astonished; it is a superb work. Compare it to their one-time peers Oasis in 2004, Lifeblood is a huge achievement.

How does an album of such wonderful and atmospheric songwriting get such a bad name?

I listened to it again last night (haven't yet listened properly to all 12 bonus tracks/B Sides; a second albums' worth of stuff) - Lifeblood would be one of my Top-5 Manics albums, and possibly Top-10 all time favourite albums.
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  #39  
Old 19-05-2015, 22:01
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Agree about Lifeblood, having read that article I decided to listen to the albums chronologically.

It is a fantastic piece of work and it's a real shame the band are so negative about it! It is 10 times the album the throw away Send away the Tigers that they love so much is, of course had Lifeblood been more of a success commercially, I'm sure the vibes from the band would not be the same!
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  #40  
Old 20-05-2015, 14:15
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Man, SATT and Postcards...

SATT and Postcards...
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  #41  
Old 21-05-2015, 00:50
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KYE ====== LIFEBLOOD ====== SATT

PFAYM ====== REWIND THE FILM ====== Futurology


beauty becomes the piggy in the middle and rejected/forgotten about caught betwixt its predecessors and successors!!
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  #42  
Old 21-05-2015, 12:22
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Firstly, I think it's really interesting to read something like this. There are definitely a handful of talking points.

I guess it should be said that the lens of a fan is far removed from that of the maker of the record. Having gone through "the slog" an artist is often completely empty after finishing an album. Something that started as a meaningful expression becomes a technical outcome, one they will judge on the memories of what went right, and what went wrong. Does the recording sounded as they wanted? Was the engineer being a dick? Did the record company promote it properly? All those things are off the table for critics and fans, who judge the work (almost entirely) in terms of entertainment or lyrical content.

I'm not surprised by the lowly position of Lifeblood. It's been clear for a long while that while a lot of fans (including myself) truly love it, the band really don't. I'm happy to say fair enough on that, a band has to feel what they are doing is 100% right; playing stuff with no heart is no good to anyone. I remember the "dejected Manics" at the end of the Postcards tour, and even as a casual observer who doesn't follow them that much any more, that was hard to watch.

There certainly a disconnect between James' own opinion and the setlists the Manics play. There is a lot of "new" stuff really high up on this list. Disregarding my own opinion of the music, I'd say it's long overdue that "the classics" of their first 5 albums didn't completely dominate gigs. Perhaps James feels the same in an underlying way, since those albums are positions 1, 2, 7, 8 and 10 on this list.

The one that stands out most of all to me, is how low Truth is. I thought they would stand by and embrace that version of the band. James talks about not liking the "polished" Manics, but that seems odd because a lot of their output is quite polished generally speaking. And on that note; I wonder why the (comparatively) unpolished Know Your Enemy and Journal aren't higher in the list.
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  #43  
Old 21-05-2015, 14:12
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framedadolescence framedadolescence is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by darkanddivine View Post
The one that stands out most of all to me, is how low Truth is. I thought they would stand by and embrace that version of the band. James talks about not liking the "polished" Manics, but that seems odd because a lot of their output is quite polished generally speaking. And on that note; I wonder why the (comparatively) unpolished Know Your Enemy and Journal aren't higher in the list.
YES! This is exactly the thought that struck me. I've always thought the band have sounded more polished on record they they needed to be. The first two albums, EMG, Truth, LB, Postcards. a lot of RTF and Furorolgy are all very produced.

For James to say he doesn't quite love that version of the Manics is at odds with their output. But then he keeps saying there are only two versions of the band which is totally untrue :-)
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  #44  
Old 21-05-2015, 15:38
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Originally Posted by framedadolescence View Post
YES! This is exactly the thought that struck me. I've always thought the band have sounded more polished on record they they needed to be. The first two albums, EMG, Truth, LB, Postcards. a lot of RTF and Furorolgy are all very produced.

For James to say he doesn't quite love that version of the Manics is at odds with their output. But then he keeps saying there are only two versions of the band which is totally untrue :-)
Personally I have no issue with the idea of polished albums. In the wider argument of polish vs raw, I actually think it's a clever thing to do. A record should be as high quality as it can be. You only get one chance to lay the songs down for good; so that "version" should (often) bring some extra that the 3/4/5 piece band can't do live.

Having a polished recording also improves the perceptions of a simple, raw live band to accompany it. Listen to Girl From Mars by Ash and then listen to the live version from the same year; it's like 2 different experiences. The Manics live show has itself become more polished and assured over time, in comparison to the raw nature of the first 4 albums. Even on the Truth gigs (where the "production" started) there were remains of that harder edge.

So in the wider scheme of things yes, it seems a bit odd to reject something which is a key part of their recorded output. To take a final example; the band added production to the recordings from Steve Albini for JFPL. So that possibly indicates that his version of the recording felt unfinished to them somehow, so extra production and sheen was added.
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