Music album review: Futurama by Manic Street Preachers- Hooky world-view reassessment

Released: July 2014

Amazon page (to purchase album):
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00JK4K07A?*Version*=1&*entries*=0

Youtube video of ‘The Next Jet to Leave Moscow’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU_kKnmKsuU



I’ve listened to this album so many times now that it’s starting to get a bit old to me, so it’s probably a good time to knock out a review and detail the best tunes, the most interesting lyrics, and the overall themes, and lasting impressions made by the album.

My own association with the Manics goes back to their prime years in the 1990’s when they were producing fiercely intellectual polemics against everything and everybody. This culminated in their nihilistic, screaming into the abyss nightmare/masterpiece ‘The Holy Bible.’

In 1994 Richly Edwards, their intellectual, philosophical, moral, political, lyrical leader disappeared, and everything changed.

The lads

From that point on it has been a slow slide into compromise and middle class/suburban sadness and nostalgia for the remaining Manics. ‘Everything Must Go’ gave them their big success, but to me it was a deeply depressing album, a resignation from the extremism, an acknowledgement that they could never go that far again. From there it has been hit and miss, a carefully crafted career rather than a suicide mission.

The band used up some remaining Richey Edwards lyrics in the Holy Bible retread album (and correctly titled) ‘Journal For Plague Lovers,’ which briefly brought me back to them, but since then I have paid less and less attention to the Manics.

Futurama shouldn’t have interested me at all, but the excellent reviews caught my eye, so I took a chance, and purchased the album, not expecting much, but hoping for the best. I’ve spent a couple of weeks with the album now, listening to it a lot more than I thought that I would, and I’m ready to share a few thoughts about it.

First off, the tunes are excellent. They are exploding with creativity, vibrancy and (most importantly) sing-along hooks. This album feels like it took some time to produce, and it really does have some memorably hooky moments that will stay in your head all day long. There’s probably too many of those moments to mention here, they really are that frequent, but one of my favourites was the self-lacerating chorus (Yes, I realise how appropriate that phrase is in the context of a Manics review) ‘The next Jet to Moscow,’ with lyricist Nick Wire mocking his own socialist failings, compromises, contradictions and hypocrisies.

That theme of recognising that your life long held political ideology has been tested and shown to be false is a central theme of the album as a whole.

This is the Manics album where Nicky Wire admits that all of that Marxist stuff of his youth was total and utter bullshit. It’s taken him some time to get there, but the old left wing feminist liberal drip is finally waking up to the reality of the collectivised new world order supporting liberalism that has defined his socio-political life, and the lyrical themes of his band.

Nicky Wire (left, obviously) has a few things to think about.

Futurama, at least to this reviewer, is the album where Nick Wire admits that he was wrong, and that he needs to batten down the hatches, read, read, read and reassess his worldview. Because of this it’s the next Manics album that’ll probably be worth listening to, at least from a lyrical viewpoint. This album unfortunately still has a lot of that champagne socialist whining quality that comes across like a rich man complaining about digging his own luxurious pit of self indulgent ennui, in the safe suburbs, and surrounded by high tech security systems (to keep out the bothersome proletariat) obviously.

So yes, its still full of Nicky Wire complaining (as he does on every other Manics album post Richey) about feeling isolated and depressed behind his wall of luxury, but with that hint of change, that hint about further study and world view reassesement ringing throughout the lyrical themes, I can put up with it this time, and it leaves me looking forward to the next album, something that I haven’t done in a long, long time now.

Get 'Futurology' for the fresh sounding tunes, and a promise of a world-view reassessment by ‘Jaded old Commie’ Nicky Wire. The Manics sound rested up and full of vigour in this one. It’s jacked to the gills with catchy, sing-along hooks, it has variety and creativity in the individual songs, and you’re guaranteed to get at least a month’s worth of listening pleasure out of it.

Nicky Wire is still moaning about being a rich socialist, but this is a very good collection of songs. If you’ve ever taken an interest in the Manics then you’ll get a lot out of this one, and just like me you’ll find yourselves humming the songs in your head all day long.

Rating: 9/10