There's a lot of talk about Generation Terrorists at the moment: the twentieth anniversary edition was released on Monday and today it's 6 Music's Classic Album of the Day (apparently). My copy of the deluxe boxset arrived on Saturday and so I've been listening to a lot of early-Manics this week (the boxset includes a 10", meaning I can write about it on here in due course).
Generation Terrorists was one of the first cds I owned (the fourth, in fact), which I bought about a year after getting This is My Truth Tell Me Yours for my birthday. I remember going into MVC and looking at the first four Manics albums countless times before eventually opting for Generation Terrorists; I think the idea of getting 18 songs for £9 appealed to me, along with some sort of desire to work through them chronologically. The girl at the counter told me she was more of a fan of Gold Against the Soul, a position I wouldn't find myself in for a few years.
The sleeve notes with the new boxset talk about how the album came to be the slick double album it is, and how people would discuss which songs they would have removed had they been in the band. When I was 15 the notions of slick production and an album potentially being anything other than the songs you bought were alien to me; I've always taken Generation Terrorists to be what it is - a crazy and ambitious collection of some of the bands best songs. Even after I heard the rough-around-the-edges New Art Riot EP I still never thought about how Generation Terrorists could have been if it was a straight-up punk record.
Thirteen years have passed since I bought the cd and there have probably been years at a time when I've not listened to it, but I know the songs so well it's almost as if I don't need to. Listening to it now, it's hard to tell if nostalgia is clouding my judgement on whether Generation Terrorists is truly a great album or not, but the facts are these: Slash n' Burn, Motorcycle Emptiness, You Love Us and Stay Beautiful are all still incredible songs. Little Baby Nothing was one of the most punk songs on there in a lot of ways, but at the same time one of the most pop too. Maybe the choice to include two versions of Repeat was a strange one, but I've always accepted it and enjoyed them both. I can almost remember the first time I heard You Love Us, reading the lyrics and absolutely loving the chorus - the way those three words fit to the beat still pleases me now.
Anyway, a few years after buying the cd, and my Manics collecting in full swing I found this on eBay for a reasonable (at the time) £28 and snapped it up. I wanted a copy on vinyl and the majority of copies of the regular version of Generation Terrorists suffered from fairly knackered sleeves, which isn't an issue with a sleeveless picture disc. The quality isn't as good (something they decided important enough to print on every side of the records) but it's good enough. I imagine I was also attracted to the Limited Edition run of only 5000 copies. As for the discs themselves, side 1 is hideous (what is James wearing? And the multi-coloured title!?) but sides 2 and 4 look great. Why they couldn't have found a decent different picture for side 3 is beyond me, but given the state of side 1 I'm not the person in charge could be trusted.
Format: double 12" picture disc
Tracks: 18
Cost: £28 second hand
Bought: eBay
When: 21/02/03
Colour: Picture disc
Etching: none
mp3s: no
