It’s hard to know who needed who more in the spring of 1996; the Manic Street Preachers, still reeling from the disappearance of their talismanic muse Richey Edwards, or British rock music, itself entering a rapid tailspin as the Britpop movement began to calcify into a parody of itself.
For the band there was a new record, ‘Everything Must Go‘, one they had begun to make with Edwards and about which they had agreed as a quartet they would explore broader perspectives than on its coruscating predecessor ‘The Holy Bible‘.
Its success would parallel that of some of Britpop’s leading lights, but more recently Nicky Wire has insisted that this was to an extent down to timing and that in fact their mindset was of releasing a liberal counterpunch to the commodified nationalism they saw wrapped up in the movement’s cultural totalitarianism.
By definition this intent is evident only in patches, expressed most overtly on ‘Design For Life‘s couplet, “We don’t talk about love/We only want to get drunk”, the gift of emotional blankness one of the newly minted Geezertown’s least appealing ones. Epic, the song itself was full of grace and spectacle courtesy of an expansive string arrangement and Sean Moore‘s vibrant drums which boom to the fade. Throughout, James Dean Bradfield‘s voice teeters on the edge, striving for sanctuary like a bird in a storm.
Not Whigfield, but the band found themselves in the cross hairs of defending an existence without their emblematic disappearee. They could hardly help it. Indeed, Edwards wrote the words to five of the songs, including the dizzying, hitherto unconscionable ballad ‘Small Black Flowers In The Sky‘ and opener ‘Elvis Impersonator, Blackpool Pier‘ – the former about the thin line between society and instinct, the latter about the insidious scope creep of American culture.
In a sense, their prick kicking had never ended but now, thanks in no small part to producer Mike Hedges, the Manics’ horizons were further than ever, the wiry trumpet solo, whip thin guitar chops and harmonies of ‘Kevin Carter‘ a tense and pithy commentary by Edwards on the duality of fame and its creeping psychosis.
Whether it was this new sense of vulnerability which forged ‘Everything Must Go’s nervous but vibrant relationship with the mainstream is something of a moot point; the title track was its own horse of Troy tunnelling relentlessly into Dagenham Dave’s soul, whilst ‘Australia‘s fist pumping jangle proved they were no threat to anything at that point other than volume buttons and crush barriers.
It was this space, the trio’s ability to become a wave, that was far greater than the sum of their parts and which dominates the album’s run to close: ‘Interiors (Song For William Koenig)‘, ‘Further Away‘ and the gilded finale ‘No Surface, All Feeling‘ never overwhelm, but not only eschew each of their former incarnations so much as detonate them, an uncontrollable revision of the past which they make real through jagged metaphor and climbing mountains.
A by-product of this catharsis was selling lots of records and playing live to lots of people, something Bradfield and Wire remain convinced would’ve made Edwards both intrigued and full of impish, contrarian joy. Back in the now there are several versions of this re-issue, from a swanky 6-disc box set to the two disc remastered one we ended up getting our hands on at L4E. In this permutation, the additional material is culled from a Manchester Arena gig in 1997, one at which your correspondent was in attendance and can confirm that the spirit was one of mutual band/audience celebration rather than mourning.
With two decades of hindsight, ‘Everything Must Go’s 20th birthday is as poignant for signalling the end of conscience music in our front rooms as much it’s a reminder of Edwards apparent suicide. On it, the Manic Street Preachers succeeded in landing manifesto like psy-ops, agent provocateurs dressed in feather boas.
Still absolutely required listening in a time when almost anything can be de-bunked, rendered obsolete and broken down to elemental nothingness, its dignity and power show what’s possible if fears are embraced.
