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The Holy Bible (album)

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The Holy Bible was the third studio album by the Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers. It was released on August 30 1994 by Epic Records, a subsidiary of Sony Records. Their two previous albums had been released by Sony Records on the Columbia Records imprint. It was the band's final album before the disappearance of their lyricist and iconic talisman Richey James Edwards on February 1 1995. It is considered to be the band's magnum opus by many fans, although some critics prefer the Manics' next album, Everything Must Go.

The first single from the album, "Faster", was released on June 6 and peaked at #16 on the British singles chart. A performance on the BBC's Top of the Pops resulted in over 25,000 complaints, due to lead singer/guitarist James Dean Bradfield wearing an IRA-style balaclava as part of the band's new military image, a la The Clash's Combat Rock-era style.

The band have said since that the reason for this was because they felt they had lost a lot of focus during the Gold Against The Soul era and believed that having a unified, militant image would bring them together again. The band's military fatigues also represented a change of attitude and newfound intensity that left its mark on the recording, with Bradfield regularly working in the studio for thirteen hours a day. As well as the recording itself, the period of creativity that ultimately resulted in The Holy Bible was equally intense. According to interviews conducted with the band members years later, ultimately when the dust had settled on the album and so was easier to understand, Edwards was constantly writing during this period as well as reading five books a week, which partly accounts for the numerous obscure references found on the album.

The album is notable for its use of instruments, or rather, its limited use of instruments. The only instruments used on the album are the electric guitar, bass, drums and percussion. Other instruments such as the piano or strings, are not present anywhere on the album. However, upon listening, the reasons for this soon become apparent: each song is implicitly linked and related to all the other songs on the album; as such, the album sounds like a complete set of songs that support and complement one another.

Bradfield was also hard-working and very driven when writing the music for the album, with "Faster" requiring approximately thirty-six rewrites over a period of three weeks to end up with the final version which, in Bradfield' words, was "strickening, like parallel lines with the lyrics".

The videos for the album's three singles - "Faster", "Revol" and "She Is Suffering" (there was no video made for "P.C.P." which was a double A-side with "Faster") - also featured the band wearing army and navy uniforms.

The album was recorded at Soundspace Studios, a cheap (£50 a day!) facility in Cardiff, Wales usually used to record demos and mixed in Britannia Row Studios London, England. It was produced by the band with assistance from little known producer Mark Freegard, whose previous work included The Breeders 1993 album Last Splash. The overall sound of the album is dense but not overproduced. Many tracks begin or end with a spoken word sample and there is increased use of flanger effects on the guitar tracks.

Whereas lyric duties on the two previous albums were split fairly evenly between Edwards and the band's bass player Nicky Wire (Real name: Nicholas Jones), Wire has said in interviews that Edwards wrote about 70% of the lyrics on The Holy Bible.

Edwards' lyrics took on a poetic nature (Sylvia Plath was one of his heroes), and the melodies are highly unusual. Single words are stretched to fill a whole line and some entire sentences are sung very quickly, rendering them barely intelligible even when read from the complete lyric booklet that came with the album. Many of the songs contain obscure religious, political and literary references. The album also embraced various philosophical mindsets including nihilism ("I know I believe in nothing but it is my nothing") and misanthropy ("All I preach is extinction").

Amazingly, on this album Edwards wrote about big weighty themes, such as the Holocaust, in a very ambiguous style that is almost Stream of consciousness. All of the songs do have a meaning, but many lines appear to be unconnected slogans, proverbs and phrases as well as many highly poetic descriptions.

For example, in the song "Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart" (itself a famous quote by Lenny Bruce), the lines "Vital stats, how white was their skin, unimportant just another inner city drive-by thing" are followed by "Morning, Fine, serves your first coffee of the day, real privilege it will take your problems all away." On the surface these lines would appear to be unconnected, but in the wider context of the song it is an attack on the indifference of America's predominantly white middle classes to the poor living in urban slums. There are many more instances of this abstract and indirect approach to song-writing in many of the album's songs, making the lyrics a jigsaw puzzle for the reader/listener to decipher.

"Comfort Comes", a B-side from the previous album Gold Against the Soul, is generally regarded to be the first Manics track to feature the production style and sound of the tracks appearing on The Holy Bible. In interviews Nicky Wire has also said of the track "Judge Yr'Self", released in 2003 on the B-sides collection Lipstick Traces, to be "very Holy Bible. It's the way Richey wanted us to go, very aggressive and automated, not that Richey had a clue musically."

The Holy Bible is regarded by most critics and fans to be the band's most uncompromising album, and indeed as one of the most introspective, dark and impenetrable albums in rock history. It was compared to Nirvana's 1993 album In Utero in almost every review, which is no coincidence as Edwards had been listening to that album as well as Cranes at the time. The others had been listening to Cranes, Joy Division and David Bowie's Low and "Heroes", both considered to be among his most uncommercial work. Although it is thought by some to be the Manics best album, it sold extremely poorly in comparison to Everything Must Go.

The album cover is a painting called Strategy (South Face/Front Face/North Face) by artist Jenny Saville. Underneath the painting is the tracklisting and above it is the band name and album title, all in a style of writing plagiarised from Simple Minds' Empires And Dance album. The back cover features a photo of the band in military uniforms and a quote taken from Octave Mirbeau's book The Torture Garden. Of the album title, Edwards said "In every hotel in the world, the only constant is the Holy Bible."

In August 2005 it topped Newsnight Review's 'Quintessential Newsnight Viewer' top 5 favourite albums poll, pushing Radiohead's OK Computer into second place.

Contents

10th Anniversary Edition

On December 6 2004, an expanded version of The Holy Bible was released, containing 2 CDs and a DVD. Disc 1 comprised a digitally re-mastered version of the original album plus 4 live tracks.

The second CD was the version of The Holy Bible that had been released in Canada (and was planned to be released in the US, which ultimately didn't happen). It had been re-mixed by Tom Lord Alge, who would go on to mix recordings by Marilyn Manson amongst others and is significantly different from the UK version on Disc 1. Nicky said of the remix that "it does beef it up quite a bit actually, gives it a bit of American savvy". Sure enough, the US mix sounds more like a rock album than the more uncommercial post-punk sound of the British mix. James also commented on the enclosed bonus DVD interview that the overal sound of the US mix is reminiscant of how the tracks sound live.

The DVD features a 30 minute interview with the band, the Manics playing "Faster" on Top of the Pops as well as an acoustic performance for MTV's Most Wanted. It also includes live performances from the Glastonbury and Reading festivals, 3 tracks from TV show Butt Naked, the American video for "Faster", a new film for "Yes" and the "Judge Yr'Self" video previously only available as a video stream from the band's official website. The videos for the singles can be obtained by clicking "enter" when the "R" appears on the screen.

Track listing

  1. "Yes"
  2. "Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwouldfallapart"
  3. "Of Walking Abortion"
  4. "She Is Suffering", (October 3 1994)
  5. "Archives Of Pain"
  6. "Revol", (August 1 1994)
  7. "4st 7lb"
  8. "Mausoleum"
  9. "Faster", double A-Side single with "P.C.P." (June 6 1994)
  10. "This Is Yesterday"
  11. "Die In The Summertime"
  12. "The Intense Humming Of Evil"
  13. "P.C.P.", double A-Side single with "Faster" (June 6 1994)

10th Anniversary edition track listing

CD 1: Digitally Re-mastered Original Album + Live Tracks
  1. "Yes"
  2. "Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwouldfallapart"
  3. "Of Walking Abortion"
  4. "She Is Suffering"
  5. "Archives Of Pain"
  6. "Revol"
  7. "4st 7lb"
  8. "Mausoleum"
  9. "Faster"
  10. "This Is Yesterday"
  11. "Die In The Summertime"
  12. "The Intense Humming Of Evil"
  13. "PCP"
  14. "The Intense Humming Of Evil" - Live
  15. "4st 7lb" - Live
  16. "Yes" - Live
  17. "Of Walking Abortion" - Live
CD 2: US mix of album/Demos & Radio Sessions

  1. "Yes"
  2. "Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwouldfallapart"
  3. "Of Walking Abortion"
  4. "She Is Suffering"
  5. "Archives Of Pain"
  6. "Revol"
  7. "4st 7lb"
  8. "Mausoleum"
  9. "Faster"
  10. "This Is Yesterday"
  11. "Die In The Summertime"
  12. "The Intense Humming Of Evil"
  13. "PCP"
  14. "Die In The Summertime" - Demo
  15. "Mausoleum" - Demo
  16. "Of Walking Abortion" - Radio1 Evening Session
  17. "She Is Suffering" - Radio1 Evening Session
  18. Yes" - Radio1 Evening Session
DVD
  1. "Faster" - Top Of The Pops
  2. "Faster" - Butt Naked
  3. "P.C.P." - Butt Naked
  4. "She Is Suffering" - Butt Naked
  5. "4st 7lb" - MTV Most Wanted
  6. "She Is Suffering" - MTV Most Wanted
  7. "Faster" - Glastonbury '94
  8. "P.C.P." - Glastonbury '94
  9. "Yes" - Glastonbury '94
  10. "Revol" - Reading '94
  11. "Faster" - US Video
  12. "Judge Yr'self" - Video
  13. "Yes" - New film (made by Patrick Jones)
  14. "Band Interview" (30mins)

Personnel

Manic Street Preachers
Band members: James Dean Bradfield - Nicky Wire - Sean Moore - Richey James Edwards
Former members: Flicker (Miles Woodward) - Jenny Watkins-Isnardi
Discography
Albums: Generation Terrorists - Gold Against the Soul - The Holy Bible - Everything Must Go - This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours - Know Your Enemy - Lifeblood
EPs: New Art Riot - Life Becoming a Landslide - God Save the Manics
Compilations: Forever Delayed - Lipstick Traces

 

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