Slipknot - Left Behind

I wrote a very long post about this record, but my computer over-heated and crashed, deleting my ramblings. Truth be told, there's really very little of interest to say about Slipknot - everyone knows their story, and my story of how I started listening to them is the same as that of every other kid who turned 16 in 2000 - everyone was going mad for Slipknot and you pretty much had to like them; plus, it was hard not to be bought into their gimmick. I spent a while tracking down an original pressing of their self-titled album to get the tracks that had to be removed (in hindsight, I wonder if such a scandal was really just a publicity stunt). There's a live dvd filmed in London that I spent ages trying to spot myself in the crowd of. They were a big deal back then.

However, half my life has since passed, and my feelings towards them can be assumed from the fact I can't be bothered to rewrite this post. By the time I went to university, I remember making a conscious choice to leave my Slipknot cds at home. The strange thing is that for people a few years younger than me, they aren't an embarrassing band - at ArcTanGent festival last year, Slipknot came on at the silent disco and people went mad; I didn't even know the song - this record was the last Slipknot release I bought, a few months after Iowa came out. Iowa did less for me than the debut, and by the time the third album came out I was exploring other genres. I don't know how many albums they have released by now.

16-year-old me would be disappointed to hear of my ambivalence to Slipknot, but these things happen. Left Behind was a fine song, but listening to it now, I don't remember it particularly well. I had to check the tracklisting, but I think The Heretic Anthem was the big lead single from that album? The b-side is a live recording of Liberate from the first album, a song I remember fairly well, but not as well as I'd expect given how much play that debut album got back in the day. It could well be that over the last 16 years I've repressed all memories except for Wait and Bleed. The live recording sounds like shit, but that might be the picture disc doing it's wonders.

Format: 7", picture disc
Tracks: 2
Cost: £1.50 new
Bought: Bournemouth
When: 30/10/01
Colour: Picture disc
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Manic Street Preachers - Ocean Spray

Know Your Enemy represented, among other things, the era of the dance-remix-for-b-sides for the Manics. I can see why - they had a wide fan base at the time, and it made sense to take as many in-roads to other genres as possible, at least from the record label's perspective. I guess the band listened to and approved all these remixes, but I imagine most of them they could take or leave. (That said, the band had been dabbling in remixes from the start and had seen a fairly wide range from Everything Must Go onwards, although I dare say the quality there was somewhat better than here.)

This is a one-sided promo of the Medicine remix of Ocean Spray, which I found in a second hand record shop in Bournemouth for £5. It was a lot to spend for one song, especially a remix that I knew would probably be shit, but I was buying everything I could find by the band back then. The remix here is terrible. I mean, really bad. If it wasn't for the fact it says it on the sleeve, I'd barely be able to tell you it was a remix of a Manics song, let alone Ocean Spray. They appear to have sampled about 10 seconds of the original song and dicked around with it for what feels like an eternity. Really nothing to enjoy here at all; basically just another record sleeve on the shelf.

Format: 12", one-sided promo

Tracks: 1

Cost: £5 second hand

Bought: Bournemouth

When: 30/10/01

Colour: Black

Etching: none

mp3s: no

Rage Against the Machine - Renegades

Rage Against the Machine's last LP was never in the running for the position of "Best RATM album" - being a collection of covers it had no chance of even really comparable. In a lot of ways, that was lucky, the three albums they did write have all gone down in history as being great in their own ways. Renegades makes for a curious addition, albeit a very enjoyable one.

I found this copy of Renegades in a record shop in Bournemouth about 2 years after it was released (for a bargain £9) and a few months after picking up their debut on vinyl. I hadn't bought the cd of Renegades when it came out but remember borrowing a copy from my friend Johnny. It was a good album, but I wasn't into it anywhere near as much as I was their actual albums. A lot of the covers are of old-school hip-hop songs, which I didn't know the originals of (in fact, I don't think I knew any of the originals that well the first time around - a lot have fallen into place since). On top of that, Zach's rapping is great on RATM songs, but not always brilliant on more traditional hip hop.

Microphone Fiend is huge and the whole band shines on it - there isn't a song on the rest of the album that could open it as well as Microphone Fiend does. Renegades of Funk got a lot of play on MTV around the release, so is effectively the single. It starts strong, but all the band are too low in the mix - it could easily be a great RATM song, but the funk aspect is too strong; I miss the metal. Devo's Beautiful World is lovely and thoroughly unexpected. I'm glad Rage didn't write any songs as slow and touching as this, because it wouldn't have worked on any of the albums, so this is a great chance to hear how it might have turned out. Under any other circumstance, I'd love to hear these musicians write and play more songs like this, but not as Rage; it's brilliantly brooding. I'm Housin' has one of the best riffs on the album (closely followed by The Ghost of Tom Joad).

I hadn't heard much Minor Threat when I first heard Renegades - just a few covers - but by the time I got the LP I was a big fan of Minor Threat. I've heard a lot of Minor Threat covers in my time, and this sits somewhere in the middle - not great but not bad. Zach does a good job of Ian's "what the fuck have you done?", but it doesn't hurt anywhere near as much as when Ian sings it. The flow from that to Cypress Hill's How I Could Just Kill a Man doesn't work in my opinion - it's moments like that that remind you you're listening to a collection of songs, not an album.

One final note, I love the poem on the picture sleeve (and spread across a number of pages in the cd booklet) - it's just brilliantly simple and concise. I'm not much of a poetry fan, but I like that one a lot.

Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 12
Cost: £9 new
Bought: Bournemouth
When: 29/10/02
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Manic Street Preachers + The Fatima Mansions - Theme from M.A.S.H. (Suicide is Painless) / Everything I Do (I Do it For You)

Whilst it was the Motorcycle Emptiness single that I feel made me the record collector I am today, it was the search for this record that led me to find Motorcycle Emptiness, so it's a pretty significant record in that respect.

I read a few books on the Manics when I was becoming a huge fan and had read about this charity single featuring the Manics and another band, The Fatima Mansions, playing covers. Despite having never seen M.A.S.H., nor heard the theme song, I wanted to hear the Manics version. I think at that point the only song I'd heard the Manics cover was Damn Dog on Generation Terrorists, so I guess it was partly my desire to hear them take on other people's songs that made me want to hear it. On top of that, it was an early Manics song, and that time in their career was undeniably cool. 

Two years after buying the Motorcycle Emptiness 7" I found this 12" on an otherwise not-particularly-noteworthy record shopping trip to Bournemouth. I remember being ecstatic to see it on the wall, and in such good condition given its age. Unfortunately as I was getting off the bus home from the train station I dropped the bag it was in, slightly denting the top right corner; I was mad at myself for days because of that. I was pleased however that it was 12" rather than the 7" I'd originally been after because of the inclusion of Sleeping with the N.M.E., which is a fascinating piece of history - more on that shortly.

Suicide is Painless is an incredible song and the Manics take it on brilliantly. In fact it's probably one of my favourite examples of James Dean Bradfield's vocals. Naturally, it's noticeably different to the style of Generation Terrorists but they still make it their own; the final chorus after the brief solo pairs the thrashing guitars and piano fantastically. 

The Fatima Mansions (who are a band I know nothing about, nor have much desire to find out more) play a very strange 90's dub cover of Bryan Adams' Everything I Do (I Do it For You), which works if that's your kind of thing. It doesn't do an awful lot for me (the original version was the very first piece of music I ever bought at the age of 6 after having seen Robin Hood Prince of Thieves (which was also the first film I ever saw at the cinema). I was one of the many people who kept that song at number 1 in the UK charts for 16 weeks).

The second song on the b-side is called Sleeping with the N.M.E. and documents the conversations in the N.M.E. offices the morning after the famous "4 real" incident (in which Richey carved the words "4 real" into his arm after an interview with Steve Lamacq). After a quick summary, the debate turns to whether they can print the picture (of course, hearing this now twenty years after the event, we know that they did). The picture is pretty gruesome (particularly when you notice how wide the cut is at the top of the "4") and everyone (including a young Mary-Anne Hobbs) has varying opinions. It's not something I listen to often, but it's a fascinating glimpse into the havoc that one event caused.

So, as far as I'm concerned, the a-side of this single has always been (and still is) worth every penny of the £12 I spent on it alone, and the b-sides are what they are. I'm very glad to have this record in the collection.

Format: 12"

Tracks: 3

Cost: £12 second hand

Bought: Bournemouth

When: 30/05/02

Colour: Black

Etching: none

mp3s: no