Know Your Enemy: destined to fail?

[Napoleon Bonaparte]

Ocean Spray & Let Robeson Sing seem to have had some influence on PFAYM, to me.

[circle-the-wagons]

and you could easily sit Auto Intoxication and Billion Balconies on KYE and it would be so much better for it.

[Kieslowski]

Originally Posted by 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?

JFPL isn't THB Mk2 though, which is exactly why it's good. As ace as I think Bag Lady is, if the whole album had sounded like it, JFPL would have just turned out as a second-rate THB clone. What they did do was try to recapture the mood of THB and use that to write a different album 15 years later. It worked. This is also what they did with KYE, where they tried to recapture the immediacy and rawness of their early career, and then used that to write a different album from what they would have written before GT. I would argue this also worked.

With PFAYM, they've not tried to recapture their mindset during EMG - they've tried to recapture the popularity by using the same styles and sounds. I still think it's a good enough album, but there are at least a handful of tracks there that sound more than a little like previous efforts.

You're right that they seem to be damned whatever they do, but that's because they're an unusual band, in that they seem to appeal (or at least they think they do) to at least two very distinct sets of fans. Most bands would say "this is what we are, and if you don't like it, fuck off", but the Manics are always trying to straddle two camps. When you try to please everybody, you often end up pleasing no one, and sometimes it feels like they should just make a choice: make music for the people who stick by them through everything and allow them to make mistakes, or keep trying to capture the imagination of a fickle public who just think they write some nice tunes but don't really give a damn about them as a band.

[Mr Richey]

Originally Posted by Kieslowski

JFPL isn't THB Mk2 though, which is exactly why it's good. As ace as I think Bag Lady is, if the whole album had sounded like it, JFPL would have just turned out as a second-rate THB clone. What they did do was try to recapture the mood of THB and use that to write a different album 15 years later. It worked.

Which is pretty much what I originally said so I'm not sure where the "JFPL is THB mk2" idea came from, or the idea that fans felt betrayed by TIMTTMY.

[Bobafettish]

Intravenous Agnostic's solo is a bit like Revol's... I don't know where that fits in, but yeah, old/new

[Zee]

I love Know Your Enemy and I don't understand all the hate it gets. Some really great tracks on that record.

[Bobafettish]

Originally Posted by Zee

I love Know Your Enemy and I don't understand all the hate it gets. Some really great tracks on that record.

I think you've answered your own question
I agree with you though

[Mark]

I thought KYE was trying to recapture the rawness of THB, which I suppose they were referring to as an artistic highpoint, but with music more suited to Nicky's lyrics. And it didn't work. I know some fans want the Manics to try to make an edgier record than SATT or PFAYM but without Richey's edgier lyrics, but I would just expect it to be more shite like KYE. That's why I'm happy with SATT and PFAYM.

[Nicolas De Staël]

I think the only problem with KYE is that it shoud've been two records. There are plenty of fantastic tracks on it (by far more than on JFPL, for example...), but the sequencing is utterly frenzy and inappropriate, that it is inpossible for me to like the record in it's totality.

The first Manics-record I'd bought was "TIMTTMY" and I had been overhelmed by it's beauty - right away!

When KYE was released, I was very happy with the result, not deceived at all. I truly fell in love with it, especially because of songs like "Found That Soul", "The Convalescent", "So Why So Sad?", "My Guernica", "Year Of Purification", "Freedom Of Speech Won't Feed My Children", "Intravenous Agnostic", "Ocean Spray" and "Royal Correspondent".

I still love those songs, but my overall feeling for the album went a bit lost during the years.

[MannyG]

Originally Posted by Kieslowski

JFPL isn't THB Mk2 though, which is exactly why it's good. As ace as I think Bag Lady is, if the whole album had sounded like it, JFPL would have just turned out as a second-rate THB clone. What they did do was try to recapture the mood of THB and use that to write a different album 15 years later. It worked. This is also what they did with KYE, where they tried to recapture the immediacy and rawness of their early career, and then used that to write a different album from what they would have written before GT. I would argue this also worked.

With PFAYM, they've not tried to recapture their mindset during EMG - they've tried to recapture the popularity by using the same styles and sounds. I still think it's a good enough album, but there are at least a handful of tracks there that sound more than a little like previous efforts.

You're right that they seem to be damned whatever they do, but that's because they're an unusual band, in that they seem to appeal (or at least they think they do) to at least two very distinct sets of fans. Most bands would say "this is what we are, and if you don't like it, fuck off", but the Manics are always trying to straddle two camps. When you try to please everybody, you often end up pleasing no one, and sometimes it feels like they should just make a choice: make music for the people who stick by them through everything and allow them to make mistakes, or keep trying to capture the imagination of a fickle public who just think they write some nice tunes but don't really give a damn about them as a band.

I don't think that JFPL and PFAYM are 'Mk2s' myself only that the comparisons to the two albums are easy. My point really is that whatever they put out, they can't win and that some fans seem to retreat every time they commercialise their sound and round on the band with hollow criticisms of, and I'll put this crudely, "selling out".

Why not take a shot at mass communication if you can do it so well and so joyously. Postcards isn't that much more commercial than The Great Western so are they really "selling out" or just making bloody good records they love.

Who cares anyway if the "public" like some MSP songs and don't care about the band? Not everyone can be a fan and if my Mother suddenly takes a liking for A Design For Life and that song alone then great. I would hope that a lot of Manics fans too appreciate both the commercial and uncommercial aspects of the band whether they're influenced by ELO, PiL or Simple Minds. I'm a fan and I'm perfectly happy with PFAYM. Even if I hated it, I wouldn't begrudge them for it. Clearly they have made a decision to go big and bold to reach more people but it's still very much an MSP record - it's not as if they've turned into N-Dubz.

[Mr Richey]

Originally Posted by Nicolas De Staël

The first Manics-record I'd bought was "TIMTTMY" and I had been overhelmed by it's beauty - right away!

Damn right! It's easily the most beautiful Manics album.

[JimmiB]

I love KYE, it still sounds fresh and exciting to my ears even today. But I've always thought that with a bit of cleaner, sharper production it would have been immense. Imagine Dead Martyrs with the production of Don't Be Evil - it would send much more powerful than the indie-punk that it ended up being. A bit like the Canadian version of THB, which I prefer to the original to be honest.

And the KYE gigs were AMAZING

[Scout Finch]

I love KYE and I think JFPL sounds far more like it than THB.

[Mr Richey]

Originally Posted by MannyG

I don't think that JFPL and PFAYM are 'Mk2s' myself only that the comparisons to the two albums are easy. My point really is that whatever they put out, they can't win and that some fans seem to retreat every time they commercialise their sound and round on the band with hollow criticisms of, and I'll put this crudely, "selling out".

I can see what you're saying mate. KYE is the only Manics album I can't stand; whatever problems I have with all the others, I still enjoy them. So for me they've never "sold out" or betrayed me or some other such crazy notion. I guess my original post was basically just an attempt to look at the problems with KYE from a different angle.

It's certainly encouraged some nice debatin'

[JimmiB]

Yeah, I still love it but it's flaws are quite obvious. Drop a few songs, clean it up a bit production wise, don't let Nicky sing (tho Wattsville I like just cos it's so bizarre), bob's your uncle.

Imagine if Postcards had been released in 2001....I can't help feeling that they would have gone stratospheric.