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  #46  
Old 08-09-2010, 17:53
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Originally Posted by YouLoveMe View Post
Care to explain why? No doubt you will have said so elsewhere but I can't be arsed trawling through weeks of posts to find it. Thanking you.
Haven't been in to it for a while, and get more joy out of other things now.
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  #47  
Old 08-09-2010, 17:59
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There's no more inventiveness or craftmanship to JFPL than PFAYM. None whatsoever. Style over substance.
You seem to have a very utilitarian approach to song critique!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JinFyo_HbAs - How can you say that is no more inventive than It's Not War?
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  #48  
Old 08-09-2010, 18:02
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Haven't been in to it for a while, and get more joy out of other things now.
The band or the album?
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  #49  
Old 08-09-2010, 18:05
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Both. I don't get the distinction.
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  #50  
Old 08-09-2010, 18:09
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'Contrived' sums it up perfectly. I find their whole approach rather patronising. They seem to think if they chase after a certain 'sound' then the great british public will be powerless to resist the radio-friendly tones, when in actual fact that sound they're coming out with is so out of place, so dated that it sounds quite embarrassing. I would not play Postcards in front of any of my friends! JFPL doesn't sound like any contemporary bands, in a good way. Postcards and SATT just sound weird. The whole thing they've got going on with those awful synthy sounding strings at the moment is terrible. Everything I hear lacks imagination. It's like Manics by numbers. It reeks of desperation.
I totally agree with the first bit anyway. I don't get all the talk of 'last year we brought out a great alternative album and now we must try to make an album that will be played on the radio and sell'. Going back to Journals, i think if they had approched the promotion of that album differently e.g released singles etc it may have done better.
And they may have realised that they could head off and make an album that feels right for them, not one they feel they 'need' to make.
My point is, there is no reason why Journals could not have done better, sales wise. Infact, done right, they could have picked up alot of new fans with it. The Holy Bible and Journals sound fantastic because they both sound very natural.

I actually quite like the new album. Unlike Truth and Send Away The Tigers it does have substance and is a proper album. Barely any fillers. Don't be too quick to judge, it is a grower.

What has been bugging me more than anything after listening to Postcards, is that they gave production duties back to Dave Eringa. After Steve Albini last time round, i thought they may have branched out again with this album. Even though i like the new album, i can see where people are coming from when they refer to it as sounding 'dated'. That comes down to the production more than anything.
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  #51  
Old 08-09-2010, 18:09
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Both. I don't get the distinction.
Just wondering if you didn't like the album or had gone off the band in general, nothing more sinister than that.
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  #52  
Old 08-09-2010, 18:15
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I'd change nothing. I'm happy with the state of Manic Street Preachers at this particular period.
I'm pretty safe in the knowledge that they won't be beating The Holy Bible or Everything Must Go as they were much younger and had a lot more to prove going into making them two albums.
Brian sums up my current view on the Manics perfectly. To be honest, after this I am considering doing less dates, or at least less UK dates as I still enjoy travelling to new places to see bands. There are so many other bands who I consider just as exciting and whose music I feel just as passionate about. If Noel Gallagher did a solo tour I'd climb over James' head to get to those tickets... (sorry James, I do love you )

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Originally Posted by Tom View Post
'Contrived' sums it up perfectly. I find their whole approach rather patronising. They seem to think if they chase after a certain 'sound' then the great british public will be powerless to resist the radio-friendly tones

And I agree with Ben about them having nothing to say. I think everybody's grown up a bit since the early 90s, and Nicky Wire's rhetoric is a wee bit embarrassing now. They're only a band after all. Show you're still relevant by doing something interesting, a la JFPL.
I agree that JFPL is definitely a better album musically. I think the band are guilty of a massive misjudgement in that they would have achieved far more mass communication if they had applied the same marketing machine of this album to JFPL. I think it comes down to them having quite a patronising view on the tastes of 'the public' though (which may or may not be fair, I mean, look at some shit in the charts...). I especially agree with what you have said about Nicky. I don't know about anyone else, but I consider myself intelligent and aware enough to form my own views on current affairs, and I find it quite patronising that Nicky still apparently regards himself as the expert on what we are meant to be pissed-off by. Their 'It's just us and Paul Weller having to say it again' line did annoy me. I doubt Weller thought, 'It's just me and the Manics doing the social commentary now...'

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Originally Posted by Lauren Cinnamon View Post
I think the only real comment I can offer on the album is that it's a bit Be Here Now. Which has songs I like, but is basically more of the same and a little bit boring. Still gonna go see them, though, this isn't an album which justifies extreme reactions and I don't understand them.
Be Here Now is a better album than Postcards. It's experimental, weird, and All Around The World is what SKON wishes it could be, and I say that as someone who adores SKON and really likes the new album.
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  #53  
Old 08-09-2010, 18:17
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Originally Posted by Tom View Post
You seem to have a very utilitarian approach to song critique!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JinFyo_HbAs - How can you say that is no more inventive than It's Not War?
All Is Vanity is actually one of my 'problem tracks'. It's basically Just a Kid with a new chorus. It also repeats a verse when Richey left enough lyrics for James not to need to write an identical second verse for the sake of not diverging from his safe V-C-V-C-S-C blueprint. But he was feeling lazy that day, clearly.

I can think of few poorer positive examples of JDB's creativity and inventiveness without going back to that album from 2007.

And yes, It's Not War is just as feeble BUT I can fully appreciate that someone else can come along and say, you know what, fuck all of that, I just enjoy either or both of those tunes for what they are.
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  #54  
Old 08-09-2010, 18:52
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Finally posted in the correct place, confusing bastards!

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Originally Posted by Dancing Kirby View Post
There's no more inventiveness or craftmanship to JFPL than PFAYM. None whatsoever. Style over substance.
When has that ever been the case with this band? From stealing backing vocal ideas from The Clash on Tennessee, to thieving Badlands from Bruce Springsteen. I really don't understand what you expect? They have never been nor pretended to be inventive.

They are a rock band, this is what they do best, & post Lifeblood they have come to understand this. PFAYM might not be what I would do or particularly what I wanted to hear but that's not structural at all, whatsoever, I still appreciate it for what it is & for some of its sentiments for its slick style. Which is exactly as they told us to expect. What have the Manics ever been but button pushers, with calculated/contrived ideas to sound a certain way? I still find them an alternative to some alleged inventive wank & despite some lyrical pretension, I find them musically unpretentious in a way that no-one else is.
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  #55  
Old 08-09-2010, 18:56
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I am not disappointed with the band. I am even prepared to give Future a proper listen when I do eventually get the album as I feel it would be unfair to write that song off after only hearing the first part of it!
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  #56  
Old 08-09-2010, 19:11
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Originally Posted by Napoleon Bonaparte View Post
I really don't understand what you expect?
It's easy, I expected exactly what we got with PFAYM and I'm enjoying it, starting as I do from track two each and every time. On the other hand, I foolishly expected more from their self-styled 'art project with no singles' than the same old three minute songs, which is why I'm harsher on it. I can still enjoy JFPL as well when I allow myself. Let's not speak of the album that came before it.
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  #57  
Old 08-09-2010, 19:15
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Allow yourself to enjoy SATT Kirb. There's a good chap!
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  #58  
Old 08-09-2010, 19:19
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Originally Posted by Dancing Kirby View Post
It's easy, I expected exactly what we got with PFAYM and I'm enjoying it, starting as I do from track two each and every time. On the other hand, I foolishly expected more from their self-styled 'art project with no singles' than the same old three minute songs, which is why I'm harsher on it. I can still enjoy JFPL as well when I allow myself. Let's not speak of the album that came before it.
I really did enjoy (for the most part) having my buttons pushed by JFPL, the art certainly is in the words however. The album before, & the album before that, & the album before that, all seem as if they were tired of recording to me, again for the most part. I don't think PFAYM has that, which I am really enjoying.
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  #59  
Old 08-09-2010, 19:24
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Still don't understand the 'tired' and 'bored' comments that have been made about Lifeblood in particular. Why does a slower pace suddenly make a song tired and boring?
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  #60  
Old 08-09-2010, 19:30
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Still don't understand the 'tired' and 'bored' comments that have been made about Lifeblood in particular. Why does a slower pace suddenly make a song tired and boring?
Not the slower pace, for me (this is a personal preference) the odd time change in Emily (although I believe Visconti was responsible for that) & the Taxi Driver/Bernard Herrmann reference on Cardiff Afterlife, do not sit well & needed more work. The same with Found That Soul, proved by how amazing it can be live, same goes for Underdogs, 'cept the live bit. An atmosphere of "that'll do" but just sometimes not all the time, 1985 for instance is a masterpiece.
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