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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A quality compilation that could have been even better., January 19, 2003
The Manics are done with their first decade, and what a decade it has been. If you're unfamiliar with them, go read a biography somewhere - it'll seem like high drama, like some kind of play, what with all the colourful characters, high-flying ideals, eruptions of passion, disappearances, blood and so on. If you're already one of the faithful, you're doubtless incensed that they released this in the first place. After all, the Manics aren't supposed to release retrospectives - that's for the Rolling Stones to keep doing! But if you look closely at Forever Delayed in its handsome package, you'll see that it's not so bad, though it's not too great either. But why leave it at that? Let's examine it, shall we?1. Track selection There is a positive correlation between Manics singles and Manics amazing songs, but it's not an exhaustive one. Nonetheless, most of what's on here - "Kevin Carter," "Motorcycle Emptiness," "A Design for Life," "La Tristesse Durera," "If You Tolerate This...," "The Everlasting," "Everything Must Go," "Faster," "From Despair to Where," and the inimitably superb "Little Baby Nothing" - is stellar. I can't resist the temptation to gripe, though. First, the band's earlier days are deliberately underrepresented. This means that there are only three songs off Generation Terrorists, one of which - "You Love Us" - would have been better off replaced by "Slash'n'Burn" or "Stay Beautiful," and two off Gold Against the Soul. Thus, great stuff like "Life Becoming a Landslide," "Gold Against the Soul," "Born to End," and "Repeat" is nowhere to be seen. Worse, though, is the inclusion of only ONE song from The Holy Bible, one of the Manics' best albums. Yes, that is an album shrouded in its own dark atmosphere that doesn't fit in with many of the other songs here, but it's an incredibly important album. This isn't a case of me complaining because they sidestepped a personal favourite of mine, you must understand - that album is the key album of the band, the culmination of their earlier days, and the reason the Manics ever came to write such songs as "A Design for Life." Richey James may appear on the album cover, but he's reduced to merely a face here - one would never suspect that he was the ideological core of the band for the first half of their career. There's plenty of great songs from the later albums, but there's too many of them - thus, there are the weaker singles like "You Stole the Sun From My Heart" and "Australia." Know Your Enemy is well represented by "So Why So Sad," though. However, many of these songs are only present as single edits - so, instead of getting the gorgeous six-minute album version of "The Everlasting" (one of the Manics' best songs), we get one with a gutted chorus and without the little acoustic intro. It sounds botched, hasty, and - dare I say it? - it's really, really disappointing. With so many songs to put on a CD with only 80 minutes, this may have been necessary, but it's still unsatisfying, especially since some of the other songs could have been safely left off. 2. The new songs Usually, songs recorded exclusively for compilations are crass, exploitative affairs that serve only as bait for fans. "There By The Grace Of God" and "Door To The River," however, are both very, very good. They're really two of Bradfield's best vocal performances, and his blissful voice singing "baby, I lost my way following our star" in the latter is something indescribable. 3. The non-album tracks The Manics' cover of "Suicide is Painless" is one fine song. However, it never appeared on an album, meaning fans had to import the single for a ridiculous amount of money. Now, however, that problem has been rectified, and both that song and "The Masses Against the Classes," another fine non-album single, are available here. However, they also included their early nihilistic single "Motown Junk," which dates back to pre-Generation-Terrorists days. It's placed right at the end, unfortunately, and its muddy production and Bradfield's yelps make for a poor close to Forever Delayed. And since the compilation focuses on the later days and not the early ones, it deprives the listener of the context necessary to understand that song and why the Manics recorded it. It seems bewildering and out of place. It should have been left off in favour of "Yes," "Nobody Loved You," "She Is Suffering," "Removables" or any of the other great Manics songs ignored by the compilation. 4. The extras Oh yeah, there's a bonus disc here. It's got remixes of the band by such folks as the Chemical Brothers. Does that sound interesting? Well, it really doesn't, and it's really not that great an idea. What they could have done was fill the second disc with rare songs and B-sides - thus, the non-album tracks could have been moved there. They would thus have had more space on the first disc for more great album tracks (particularly from The Holy Bible and from the earlier days), and could also have pleased fans with the second. They could have charged more for it, but who would argue? 5. The packaging The disc comes, in classic Manics style, with a quote for every song, in lieu of lyrics - this is actually good, as it often says more about the songs and the band than the lyrics could, if you'd believe that. The best quote is the one by John Cassavetes, which summarizes what makes the Manics so wonderful perfectly. But there is a lack of photographs, of information. The faces on the cover are just faces - there's nothing to learn about the men behind the music. I already know the Manics' backstory, but I'd never have gleaned any of it from this disc, especially since it all but completely ignores the band's most compelling and confrontational material. Would it have killed them to splurge on a few more pages of liner notes? But overall, it's a good release, and there's enough great music on here to interest a complete newcomer. The Manics are, admittedly, an incredibly difficult band to properly anthologize, since there's just such a huge scope of things to cover. It still could have been better, though.
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