Manic Street Preachers - Roses in the Hospital

Here we have five of Roses in the Hospital. There's no denying, that's a lot of remixes of any one song. The song itself is a great one. Over the years I came to love Gold Against the Soul. It didn't have so much to offer when I first heard it, but there are some great songs. One of the greatest things about it is that it contains some of James Dean Bradfield's best vocals - somehow everything was right for that record him to really belt the lyrics out.

Roses in the Hospital is certainly one of the highlights for both those reasons - it's a great song and James sounds excellent (and that drum-only section before the outro is excellent - it feels like a precursor to the incredible outro to A Design For Life). One of the things that really comes through when you hear five remixes of the same song is just how good his vocals are. These mixes strip away a lot of the rest of the song, so what you're left with is some fragments of the song, a very 90's sounding, semi-hip-hop beat and James' vocals over the top (although the first version does call out the whistling at the end, which is great). I shouldn't really complain that it sounds dated - this record is over 20 years old - but they all sound an awful lot like House of Pain. Of the five, the first and fifth remixes are the most enjoyable, but after all of them it is a welcome relief to hear the album version.

It was probably pretty forward-thinking back in the day for a rock band to put a bunch of remixes on a single, so you certainly can't knock them for trying.

Format: 12"
Tracks: 4
Cost: £6 second-hand
Bought: Lancaster market record stall
When: 19/02/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Manic Street Preachers - This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours

I say this on here quite often, but this is a pretty significant record for me. The very first cd in my collection was Urban Hymns by The Verve and the second was This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours by the Manic Street Preachers. On my fourteenth birthday I received a copy as a gift from my parents. The album hadn't long been out and they'd noticed me enjoying If You Tolerate This... when it came on TV or the radio. Also, my mum had seen a documentary about the band, which had captured her attention more than a documentary about a rock band normally would because of Richey Edward's disappearance. It was an unexpected gift, but one I very much came to appreciate.

Of course, at that age, a lot of the lyrics and ideas went over my head - I had no idea what a "facist" was, I'd never heard the word "tsunami" before and I was pretty shocked by the closer, S.Y.M.M.. The strangest thing about that song, whilst we're on the topic, is that despite having had this album for 15 and a half years I've only just discovered the mass-murder the song speaks of. And by "just", I mean in the time between those two sentences when I finally decided to Google it. In 1998 we didn't have the internet and I don't think it would have even crossed my mind to search for what the song was about (was Google even a thing?). I had absolutely no idea until this evening that S.Y.M.M. was about the Hillsborough disaster. It's incredible that one song can continue to shock and surprise me after so long. Listening to it now, those lyrics are taking on new meanings.

I've never considered This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours to be my favourite Manics album but there's no denying that it is an incredible album. Somehow the others had more to offer me over the years - Generation Terrorists had it's youthful punk, The Holy Bible was dark and intentionally difficult, Everything Must Go was just a great indie album with some incredible songs and I even eventually found myself loving Gold Against the Soul. TIMTTMY felt more polished and grand but the songs were still uniquely Manic Street Preachers. The singles were instantly familiar and played repeatedly on the radio, but there were other highlights too; Ready For Drowning, My Little Empire, Nobody Loved You. It's hard to believe that a song like Born a Girl wasn't penned by Richey.

Four and half years after I first heard this album I was in Lancaster for an open day at the university and found this copy of the LP in a second hand stall in the market. This would be my fourth copy of the album (long story, but I also have the embossed-case cd and a bootleg Spanish picture-disc as well as the regular cd that I got for my birthday) but I was still thinking I might be able to collect everything they'd ever put out, so it was vital to the collection.

I've written at length about how important the Manics were to me when I was a teenager and how my love of vinyl can basically be traced back to buying a copy of Motorcycle Emptiness on 7", so I shan't bore you with that story again. However, it's worth noting that all of that probably traces back to me receiving a copy of this album for my birthday. I might have ended up in a similar place had they bought me any other cd, but you never know.

I'm still amazed that I had no idea what S.Y.M.M. was about until tonight, but I love that this album can still surprise me.

Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 13
Cost: £8.50 second hand
Bought: Lancaster Market record stall
When: 19/02/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Jane's Addiction - Classic Girl

Jane's Addiction were one of those bands I got into when I first started listening to music. Their name and albums appeared in various lists in magazines and I'd seen the video for Jane Says on tv and thought it was great. I became a big fan and had a great time when they played Reading Festival in 2002 (only to be annoyed when they cancelled their Reading 2011 performance at the very last minute).

When I was looking at universities I always made sure I had some time to spare in the day to check out the local record shops. Lancaster was a long way from Winchester but I managed to find an hour at the end of the day to get into town and see what there was. I got off the bus by the market, strolled in and immediately stumbled across this stall with boxes of awesome records. I picked up a small handful of records, including this one, and solidified my decision that Lancaster would be my first choice of uni. Of course the market stall closed down just before I started university, but I still had a great time (possibly due to the extra cash I had from not blowing my loan on rare records).

Classic Girl is a great JA song, but the picture disc probably played a part in why I bought this that day. The cover of Ritual de lo Habitual is great and looks awesome on the record. Part of me thinks they should have adjusted where the center was slightly to have the hole in the record in a more comical place, but that's just me being juvenile. Never a band for b-sides, the two extra songs are live cuts from Ritual that appeared again in various places. The end of Ain't No Right features Perry's classic Birkenstock rant. For no reason other than Perry Farrell's dislike I've always been against Birkenstocks, even though I hear they're very comfortable.

Much like the Pumpkins picture disc from the other day, not a necessary record by a long shot, but a very nice one for the collection nonetheless.


Format: 12" picture disc, die cut sleeve
Tracks: 3
Cost: £6 second hand
Bought: Lancaster Market record stall
When: 19/02/03
Colour: Picture disc
Etching: none
mp3s: no