Know Your Enemy: destined to fail?

[Red]

I also read the Q interview. There's a decent chance I still have it somewhere. I can remember two quotes from it, firstly James' line about how "obsolete" it would've been to call the album its rumoured title of "Enough Old Rope" (as I recall, they gave him his very own boxout, in which he ranted about the accusations of the band being Clash copyists and seemed quite upset at the notion that he was maybe the thick member of the band) , and secondly, Nicky's line; "The 'enemy' was what we had become".

KYE is a retread of ideas. Miss Europa, the interview also says, is a second attempt at a disco song, which the band had first attempted with Girl Who Wanted To Be God. Freedom Of Speech has a huge amount of PCP in it. I can't think of any other direct song-for-song retreads off-hand.

This was the era where the band vowed never to play The Everlasting ever again. There's a video clip somewhere of James whincing as he's forced to sit through it during a radio interview. I think the era was sparked by the Glastonbury '99 show, where James confessed to "acting-singing" and where the Crappergate scandal occured, the subsequent "Wtf, the Manics have gone soft" response from the NME, and that the KYE era began with Nicky's audience abuse at the T In The Park gig from a couple of weeks later. It seemed pointless and contrived, because it was.

Richey's right, KYE, and the whole era surrounding it, was just a lame attempt to relive former glories, and former rage. In fairness on Nicky, maybe he was just missing Richey, and wanted to recreate the vibe. Unfortunately, as anyone who's ever played three-player Super Mario on the Wii with their mates and then played it again once they'd gone home knows, it just doesn't work. Nicky wanted to create a confrontational, people-unfriendly CD like the band wanted to do in the early days. It failed, and absolutely, was destined to fail from the get-go.

[nocultureicons]

Originally Posted by Red

Unfortunately, as anyone who's ever played three-player Super Mario on the Wii with their mates and then played it again once they'd gone home knows, it just doesn't work.

Best comparison ever.

[centralscrutiniser]

Originally Posted by Red

Richey's right, KYE, and the whole era surrounding it, was just a lame attempt to relive former glories, and former rage. In fairness on Nicky, maybe he was just missing Richey, and wanted to recreate the vibe. Unfortunately, as anyone who's ever played three-player Super Mario on the Wii with their mates and then played it again once they'd gone home knows, it just doesn't work. Nicky wanted to create a confrontational, people-unfriendly CD like the band wanted to do in the early days. It failed, and absolutely, was destined to fail from the get-go.

That's nailed it really. I wonder what Richey would have made of the whole Cuba thing.

[Alt.Duck]

Originally Posted by Kieslowski

I don't think they were trying to imitate themselves as such, certainly not in the way they've consciously tried with SATT and PFAYM. They just felt they had lost their way a little (which I would agree with - when you start putting sitars and backwards drum samples in songs just for the sake of it, it's time to take a step back and remind yourself why you're making music in the first place), so they decided to try and reinvigorate themselves by bringing things back to basics. As Vogon Poet says, there are songs on there where they just could not possibly have been trying to imitate themselves - where are the earlier songs of which So Why So Sad, Miss Europa Disco Dancer, Epicentre, His Last Painting, Let Robeson Sing, Baby Elian, Wattsville Blues, The Convalescent and Year Of Purification are poor imitations? They weren't trying to write an album of Motown Junks; they were trying to write an album that didn't sound like it had been made in a luxurious recording studio, which is exactly what they did when they swapped the lavish £2,000-per-day residential studio of GATS for the (supposedly) red light district rehearsal studio of THB. And it worked, because at times KYE sounds like the songs were chucked on the album without so much as a twiddle of a knob on the mixing desk.

Absolutely agree with this.

[Napoleon Bonaparte]

So where does the idea that they wanted it to be a double album, one with a rockier sound & one with west coast sound fit into them reliving past glories?

[centralscrutiniser]

Originally Posted by Napoleon Bonaparte

So where does the idea that they wanted it to be a double album, one with a rockier sound & one with west coast sound fit into them reliving past glories?

In the same shoebox as the Springsteenesque sets, the 70 track album, splitting up after the first album, the sandpaper record sleeve and all the rest of Nicky's utter bollocks I imagine...

[Napoleon Bonaparte]

But that came out after the release not before.

[centralscrutiniser]

Yea but we're still talking about Nicky Wire here. Maybe it's a case of 'I' wanted, rather than 'we' intended....

[MannyG]

So a few things I've picked up on on this thread and other similar ones:

They try to recapture former glories - this is wrong
They mess about with samples and experiment a little to move forward - this is wrong

PFAYM is an imitation of EMG - this is bad
JFPL is The Holy Bible Mk2 - this is good

TIMT - the public were "betrayed" by the band after the success of EMG, which in it's time was derided by the fans who wanted another Holy Bible.

The problem with a band with as broad a musical palate as MSP is that they're damned whatever they do with either the fans or the general public.

Also, anyone that whinges about the commercial sound of the new album or some of the experimental bits of KYE, genuinely I don't think they actually "get" the band - their complete eclecticism is what makes them stand out from many other bands and they clearly enjoy making the music they make.Take the solo albums as an indicator to what the band is about - one massively commercial, pop-rock, Motown inflected record, another awkward, introspective, lo-fi recording.

The Manics are all these things and more - isn't this what makes them great? How many bands can do what they do and keep the quality as good as it is?

[Napoleon Bonaparte]

Originally Posted by centralscrutiniser

Yea but we're still talking about Nicky Wire here. Maybe it's a case of 'I' wanted, rather than 'we' intended....

Ooooh look it's one of them internet lies about Wire

[centralscrutiniser]

Eh?

[Napoleon Bonaparte]

Originally Posted by centralscrutiniser

Eh?

Oh god it would take so long to explain that if you haven't seen the interviews. Suffice to say it was a joke relating to Wire's attitude to the net & how assumptions can become truth therein.

[centralscrutiniser]

Originally Posted by Napoleon Bonaparte

Oh god it would take so long to explain that if you haven't seen the interviews. Suffice to say it was a joke relating to Wire's attitude to the net & how assumptions can become truth therein.

Oh I see! Sorry, it's a particularly dull day at work and my brain appears to have melted. I'll just sit quietly, on my nice sun-facing balcony...

[circle-the-wagons]

is PFAYM a form of KYE but with strings then?
When you listen to the demos of PFAYM that is surely what the essence of KYE was all about (with the exception of So Why So Sad.....a shimmery 'safe' pop single to hook the R2 listeners but i love that side of them anyway!)??
In fact i'd venture to say So Why So Sad would sit quite cosily on PFAYM.

[centralscrutiniser]

Originally Posted by circle-the-wagons

In fact i'd venture to say So Why So Sad would sit quite cosily on PFAYM.

that's a fair point actually. Replace the horrible spangly guitars with strings, get rid of the 'bum ber ber' backing vocal and clean the whole thing up and it could be a PFAYM track. Still awful mind...