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  #181  
Old 30-03-2015, 22:04
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I'd always suspected that 1985 only got so many live outings after the band found out how popular it was from checking this site out, I do remember Nicky moaning in a tweet a few years ago about James refusing to play SSI on whatever tour it was at the time so that's obviously a Nicky fave at least.
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  #182  
Old 30-03-2015, 22:12
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Originally Posted by cherrybomb View Post
I do remember Nicky moaning in a tweet a few years ago about James refusing to play SSI on whatever tour it was at the time so that's obviously a Nicky fave at least.
His nagging must have worked, as SSI is the fourth most played live song from Lifeblood.

The band must hate Emily, Glasnost and Always/Never as according to this list they've never played them live. And they've played Everything Will Be as often as Fragments (they've played both tracks live once), which is a surprise.
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  #183  
Old 30-03-2015, 22:52
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I really like the guitar solo on Glasnost.
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  #184  
Old 30-03-2015, 23:02
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Originally Posted by slop101 View Post
I really like the guitar solo on Glasnost.
Glasnost and Antarctic are two of the most cheerful-sounding (music-wise at least) tracks the Manics have ever produced. Glasnost is actually one of my favourite songs on Lifeblood.

If the band hate it everything is wrong.
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  #185  
Old 31-03-2015, 10:15
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I love the riff on Glasnost, sounds like a flower blossoming at high speed.
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  #186  
Old 31-03-2015, 10:23
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Originally Posted by Automatik View Post
I hadn't thought of it like that. Interesting. I'll give it another listen now with that interpretation in mind.

On the issue of Lifeblood as an album, why was it so commercially unsuccessful? In my mind it's not appreciably 'worse' than, for example, TIMTTMY (which was by contrast most commercially successful), and contains much of the same pensive, patient musical feel and introspective themes, broken up by a couple of relatively rocky tracks on both (1985, To Repel Ghosts, maybe even Glasnost on Lifeblood).

I've always thought 1985 should have been the lead single; and given that it's the song from Lifeblood that they've played live most often, perhaps Nicky, James and Sean would agree.
I have a theory that media-driven sales are actually based on previous albums. So Lifeblood's failure was actually achieved by Know Your Enemy which had shed the Manics of all their Britpop fans and confused others with trips to Cuba.

In this respect, Truth was only such a big success because it benefitted from coming after EMG, when there was such a good media feel about the band that even The Love of Richard Nixon would have got to number 1 off it (not far fetched at all seeing as it got to number 2 while getting panned.)
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  #187  
Old 31-03-2015, 12:54
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Originally Posted by River Boy View Post
I have a theory that media-driven sales are actually based on previous albums. So Lifeblood's failure was actually achieved by Know Your Enemy which had shed the Manics of all their Britpop fans and confused others with trips to Cuba.

In this respect, Truth was only such a big success because it benefitted from coming after EMG, when there was such a good media feel about the band...
This is plausible.

The trend is for a typical Manics studio album to go gold in Britain (i.e., shift about 100k shipments). As of 2009, GT, GATS, THB, KYE, SATT had all managed this, and PFAYM managed it too. (Presumably THB, GT and GATS managed to go gold after the success of EMG and TIMTTMY.)

Lifeblood and JFPL went silver and so shifted 60k shipments in Britain (the relatively low sales of JFPL can probably be put down to its glorious lack of mainstream appeal).

FD went 2 x platinum and shipped 600k.

TIMTTMY went 3 x platinum in Britain, as did EMG, so 1.8m shipments each.

KYE and JFPL were difficult to match to the media and mainstream view of the band (which is why SATT, which fitted this expectation, did better), and I think you're right that by the time Lifeblood came around, people were expecting EMG mark 3 (especially after FD), not something more low-key and introspective.

I think your point about TIMTTMY only being so successful because of EMG is correct - at least to me, TIMTTMY and Lifeblood have much of the same sound, and therefore if TIMTTMY had been so spectacularly successful on its own merits you would expect Lifeblood to have done very well too.

tl;dr: the public want EMG, forever.

Last edited by Automatik; 31-03-2015 at 13:41.
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  #188  
Old 31-03-2015, 13:08
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Let's not forget that Truth had several hits, that counts for something... I mean it starts with three of their most-loved songs.
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  #189  
Old 31-03-2015, 13:13
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Originally Posted by Lord Revan View Post
Let's not forget that Truth had several hits, that counts for something... I mean it starts with three of their most-loved songs.
Absolutely. I'm sure the majority of non-Manics fans bought the album because of those.

One of the strongest criticisms that can be levelled at KYE, for the same reason, is that it doesn't include TMATC, a number one single that fits thematically perfectly with the 'Solidarity' part of the album.

Similar applies to Lifeblood too: as mentioned elsewhere, 1985 would, I think, have been a hit had they released it as a single. It's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy that, with Lifeblood selling below expectations, they reduced the number of singles from it from three (or more) to two.

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  #190  
Old 31-03-2015, 15:28
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Yeah, Truth had the benefit of a great lead-single in Tolerate. For whatever reason, they picked the worst song from Lifeblood (Nixon) as it's lead single. I'm willing to bet that's what wrecked the album's performance. Empty Souls or 1985, or pretty much any other song should've been the initial single instead, and not only should Nixon not have been a single at all, it should've been a B-side and not even on an album. I don't know what they were thinking with that song.

Speaking of 1985 - does that song remind anyone else of a standard New Order, non-single album-track from around 1985?
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  #191  
Old 31-03-2015, 19:46
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Originally Posted by Lord Revan View Post
Let's not forget that Truth had several hits, that counts for something... I mean it starts with three of their most-loved songs.
True (though I'm unsure about being 'most-loved'), but I think Ocean Spray, Let Robeson Sing and Found That Soul would have done better - and are better - if they had been released at that time.
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  #192  
Old 21-04-2017, 18:42
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Originally Posted by slop101 View Post
Yeah, Truth had the benefit of a great lead-single in Tolerate. For whatever reason, they picked the worst song from Lifeblood (Nixon) as it's lead single. I'm willing to bet that's what wrecked the album's performance. Empty Souls or 1985, or pretty much any other song should've been the initial single instead, and not only should Nixon not have been a single at all, it should've been a B-side and not even on an album. I don't know what they were thinking with that song.

Speaking of 1985 - does that song remind anyone else of a standard New Order, non-single album-track from around 1985?
Have the band ever explained why they chose Nixon as a single at all (let alone the lead single)?

And yes, 1985 is reminiscent of a New Order track from, er, circa 1985, you're right.
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  #193  
Old 21-04-2017, 19:44
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Originally Posted by Automatik View Post
Have the band ever explained why they chose Nixon as a single at all (let alone the lead single)?
This is my memory speaking, so feel free to discredit this. But I'm sure it was mentioned somewhere by a band member that the record company made the decision.
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  #194  
Old 21-04-2017, 19:59
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This is my memory speaking, so feel free to discredit this. But I'm sure it was mentioned somewhere by a band member that the record company made the decision.
Interesting.

Actually not heard many reasons why this single or that single was selected, regardless of era - beyond the band regretting the choice of every single that doesn't chart well enough.
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  #195  
Old 24-04-2017, 12:56
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Nixon worked well for me, it had me extremely excited about the album because it sounded so different to anything they'd done before.
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