At some point it will become clear quite how deep my Manic Street Preachers obsession ran, but not yet. I bought this copy of Stay Beautiful on 7" almost exactly a year after I bought the Motorcycle Emptiness 7", the first record I ever bought (not including the copy of Everything I Do I bought as a child - that doesn't count since I was six years old and it was my parents' money) and the one that made me want to collect every record the Manics ever put out.
Every couple of months I would go to the monthly record fair in Southampton Guildhall and one Saturday morning I picked up this 7" along with the Little Baby Nothing 7", Love's Sweet Exile/Repeat 12" and some other, less respectable records (it was clearly a good morning for Generation Terrorist era records for me). I eventually got the Stay Beautiful 12" too, but more on that another time.
We can all agree that Stay Beautiful is a classic early-Manics song, so there's not much to discuss there. R.P. McMurphy was one of the small handful of early songs featuring an acoustic guitar, and it's shame there aren't more of them because, like Bored Out of My Mind, it's really quite nice. The "na na na na na's" are great and it's always interesting to see a different side of the band.
Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £3 second hand
Bought: Record Fair, Southampton Guildhall
When: 23/06/01
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no
