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Releases
Manic Street Preachers to stop releasing singles
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 13 October 2011
Always a contrary bunch, while many ponder whether the album has a future in the digital age, the Manic Street Preachers have decided that they’re not going to release singles any more. Well, they’re thinking about it. And that’s as good as a decision really.
Nicky Wire told Xfm: “I think for a certain incarnation of the band it is a sort of end. I dunno if we’ll be releasing singles again. The way everything in the music industry has changed, for an old guitar band like us to be bothering the charts seems somehow quaint. It’s definitely not the end of the band, we’re still in love with each other and the notion of one final re-invention. We’re trying to think of a final third way”.
Speaking about the band’s new compilation of their 38 singles to date, ‘National Treasures’, Wire added: “[It’s interesting] looking back at these 38 songs and the memories they evoke and the idea that you could, with a bit of sedition, get number one singles about the Spanish civil war and working class culture and things like that”.
Also in nostalgic mood, James Dean Bradfield has revealed to the NME that the band nearly split after Richey Edwards disappeared in 1995, and, in fact, that they technically weren’t together for six months that year. Explaining how they came back together, he said: “I was living in London and [Nicky] sent me some lyrics in the post. Two [sets] arrived; one was called ‘Pure Motive’ and one was called ‘A Design For Life’. They both had a hint of violence and reaffirmation about them, what working class attitudes should have. And then I atomized the two sets of lyrics and wrote some music to it, which came really easily. I rang him up and said, ‘I found the song that will give us reason to exist as a band!'”
‘National Treasures is out on 31 Oct, and the band will perform all of those 38 singles in chronological order at the O2 Arena on 17 Dec. Which will be, um, long.
