I’m walking on my own - it’s 1993

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

17/09/21 : The Ultra Vivid Lament - Manic Street Preachers


I liked some of the Manics stuff back in the day, but I started to lose interest around the time of This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours - which was released in 1998, so they've had a fair few years in my interest wilderness.  I also saw this being heavily promoted on Radio 2 and did wonder what their younger selves would have had to say about that - I do appreciate we all have to change to survive, but from what I've heard (mostly seeing them on Jools in passing) they haven't really changed all that much over the past 20 years.  So I can't say I was rushing headlong towards this with great expectations.

And yeah, it's exactly what I was expecting - not horrible but just a bit "ooh look at us with our nice hanging chords and reverb" dull.  If you like this sort of thing then there's plenty here for you, but none of it stood out for me, I'm afraid.  And ninety minutes of it as well - sigh.  Ah, it was ninety minutes because of a load of demo tracks tagged on the end - and the first one was enough to stop me listening any further.  No - not for me, thank you.

We're back at #1 in the charts - all that publicity on Radio 2 obviously did the trick.  It's their first #1 album in 23 years - since This Is My Truth... in fact, so I feel I can't begrudge them the success.  Other new entries in the top 10 include Steps, The Stranglers, The Vaccines and Kacey Musgraves - now that's an eclectic mix, isn't it?

Wikipedia has a lot more on the album than I was expecting - most of it telling me I'm wrong and this is actually quite a decent album.  Maybe it needs more listens and maybe their previous albums have been so bad that this one came as blessed relief.  Or maybe I'm just wrong - nah, that can't be the case, can it?

"Customers also listened to" Suede, Mansun, Gene and Bernard Butler - all harking back to a certain time along with the Manics.  And I'll be sticking with those days, I'm afraid - The Holy Bible and Everything Must Go are peak Manics for me.

10/09/21 - Not my usual cup of tea
24/09/21 - I enjoyed this more than I was expecting to

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