| The Holy Bible | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by Manic Street Preachers | ||||
| Released | 29 August 1994 [1] | |||
| Recorded | Sound Space Studios, Cardiff | |||
| Genre | Alternative rock, post-punk, hard rock | |||
| Length | 56:17 | |||
| Label | Epic 4774212 (CD) | |||
| Producer | Manic Street Preachers, Steve Brown | |||
| Manic Street Preachers chronology | ||||
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The Holy Bible is the third studio album by Welsh alternative rock band Manic Street Preachers. It was released on 29 August 1994 by Epic Records and was the last of the band's albums released before the disappearance of lyricist and guitarist Richey Edwards (credited as "Richey James" on the album sleeve), on 1 February 1995.
Edwards was severely struggling with depression, alcohol abuse, self-harm and anorexia nervosa at the time the album was written and recorded, and its contents are considered by many sources to reflect his mental state. The songs focus on themes relating to politics and human suffering.
The album won widespead critical acclaim, and is frequently cited as one of the greatest albums ever made. It has been described by the NME as "a work of genuine genius". Although it reached number six on the UK albums charts, global sales were disappointing compared to previous albums, and the record did not chart in mainland Europe or North America. The album was promoted with tours and festival appearances in the UK, Ireland and mainland Europe, in part without Edwards.
An expanded 10th Anniversary Edition of the album was released in 2004.
Contents |
According to drummer Sean Moore, the band felt they had been "going a bit astray" with their previous album, 1993's Gold Against the Soul, and so the approach to the follow-up was for the band to go back to their "grass roots" and rediscover "a little bit of Britishness that we lacked".[2] Singer and guitarist James Dean Bradfield recalls the band feeling they had become "a bit too rockist ... we had lost our direction".[2] The band stopped listening to American rock music and returned to influences that had inspired them when they first formed, including Magazine, Wire, The Skids, PiL, Gang of Four and Joy Division.[2]
Epic Records had proposed that the album be recorded in Barbados,[3]:120 but the band had wanted to avoid what Bradfield called "all that decadent rockstar rubbish".[4] It was bassist Nicky Wire's idea, says Bradfield, that the band "should not use everything at its disposal" in recording the album.[5] Instead, recording began with sound engineer Alex Silva at the low-rent, "absolutely tiny"[2] Sound Space Studios in Cardiff.[6] The album was mixed by Mark Freegard,[7] who had previously worked with The Breeders. "She Is Suffering" was produced by Steve Brown.[7] The recording took four weeks.[8]:106
Bradfield has described the recording of the album as preventing him from having a social life and Alex Silva attributes the break-up of his relationship with his girlfriend at the time to the long hours involved in the recording.[2] Guitarist Richey Edwards attended recording sessions, but would, according to Wire, "collapse on the settee and have a snooze" while the other band members did all the recording.[9] He was drinking heavily and frequently crying.[8]:106-7 "Inevitably," says Bradfield, "the day would start with a 'schhht!', the sound of a can opening."[5]
The album was constructed with "academic discipline", according to Bradfield, with the band working to headings and structures "so each song is like an essay".[3]:143
Whereas lyric-writing on the two previous albums was split fairly evenly between Richey Edwards and Nicky Wire, the lyrics on The Holy Bible were 70-75% written by Edwards, according to James Dean Bradfield.[2] Wire describes himself as largely responsible for "This Is Yesterday" and "Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwouldfallapart" [sic], contributing only titles to some of the songs.[2]
The album's lyrics deal with subjects including prostitution, American consumerism, British imperialism, freedom of speech, the Holocaust, self-starvation, serial-killers, political revolution, childhood, fascism and suicide.[10] According to Q: "the tone of the album is by turns bleak, angry and resigned".[11] The same magazine commented in 1994 that "even a cursory glance at the titles will confirm that this is not the new Gloria Estefan album".[12]
Sean Moore has described the content of the lyrics as being "as far as Richey's character could go".[13] According to Bradfield: "Some of the lyrics confused me. Some ... were voyeuristic and some were coming from personal experience ... I remember getting the lyrics to 'Yes' and thinking 'You crazy fucker, how do I write music for this?'".[2] Critic Simon Price notes that the potential radio-friendliness of the song is undermined by its focus on the subject of prostitution and the recurrence of sexual swearing in the lyric.[3]:144
Interviewed at the time of the album's release, Nicky Wire said that the track "Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwouldfallapart" was "not a completely anti-American song" but was about "how the most empty culture in the world can dominate in such a total sense".[10] "Of Walking Abortion" is about right-wing totalitarianism,[8]:116 of which Wire commented: "there's a worm in human nature that makes us want to be dominated". "Archives of Pain", dealing with the glorification of serial killers and seemingly advocating capital punishment, he said, "was the song that me and Richey worried about most ... the song isn't a right wing statement, it's just against this fascination with people who kill".[10] Later in 1994, Bradfield described the song as "one of the most important things we've done" but said it was also "very right-wing" and "miscalculated".[12]
Wire described "Revol" as being about Edwards' idea that "relationships in politics, and relationships in general, are failures". "P.C.P.", he said, was about how "PC followers take up the idea of being liberal, but end up being quite the opposite". He said that he was "completely confused" by "Faster" (most of which he had written[8]:96), although Edwards had told him that it was about self-abuse.[10]
"Mausoleum" and "The Intense Humming of Evil", Wire said, were both inspired by visits by the band to former concentration camps at Dachau and Belsen.[10] A first draft of the latter song had been considered insufficiently judgemental by Bradfield, who had asked for a re-write ("you can't be ambivalent about the Holocaust").[3]:147
Wire said that "Die in the Summertime" and "4st 7lb" were "pretty obviously about Richey's state of mind".[10] According to Edwards, the former song is about a pensioner wanting to die with memories of childhood in his mind.[8]:117 4 stone 7 pounds (29 kg) is the weight below which death is reputed to become medically unavoidable for anorexics.[8]:116
"This Is Yesterday", according to Wire, is "about how people always look back to their youth and look on it as a glorious period".[10]
Wire and Bradfield have both expressed a disliking for the lyrics to the song "She Is Suffering", Wire saying it suffers from "man coming to the rescue syndrome".[14] According to Edwards, the "she" in the song title is desire: "In other Bibles and Holy Books no truth is possible until you empty yourself of desire".[8]:116
Several tracks on the album are also complemented by samples of dialogue, in keeping with the themes of the songs themselves, as follows:
James Dean Bradfield has described the album as representing "the most definitive period for us visually as well as the songs we were writing and the record ... we've never been scared to admit that".[2]
While touring in early 1994, the band visited army surplus stores and bought clothing to wear on stage, in a homage to The Clash.[2] This military image was used consistently by the band during the promotion of The Holy Bible, including in their videos and television appearances.[16] A performance of "Faster" on the BBC's Top of the Pops in June 1994 resulted in a record number of complaints—over 25,000—due to Bradfield wearing a paramilitary-style balaclava.[17]
The album cover, designed by Richey Edwards while hospitalised,[8]:110 features a triptych by Jenny Saville depicting three perspectives on the body of an obese woman in her underwear, and titled Strategy (South Face/Front Face/North Face). Saville gave her permission for use of her work for free after a discussion with Edwards in which he described each song on the album.[18] The back cover features a photo of the band in military uniforms and a quote taken from Octave Mirbeau's book The Torture Garden.
The lyrics booklet features various images including Christian iconography, photographs of the gate at Dachau concentration camp and a plan of the gas chambers at Belsen concentration camp, a photograph of Lenin's corpse, an engraving depicting an execution by guillotine in Revolutionary France, a picture of an apple, a photograph of a woman with a parasitic twin, photographs of each of the Manic Street Preachers as children, a photograph of a group of British policemen in gas-masks. The booklet also contains a Buddhist saying from the Tripitaka alongside a dedication to the band's publicist, Philip Hall.[7] He had died in 1993.[19]
The title The Holy Bible was chosen by Edwards to reflect an idea, according to Bradfield, that "everything on there has to be perfection".[8]:117 Interviewed at the end of 1994, Edwards said: "The way religions choose to speak their truth to the public has always been to beat them down ... I think that if a Holy Bible is true, it should be about the way the world is and that's what I think my lyrics are about. [The album] doesn't pretend things don't exist".[20]
Richey Edwards had had long-term problems with alcohol abuse, depression and self-harm. During 1994, these problems had, according to Wire, "escalated to to a point where everybody got a bit frightened" and Edwards had also begun to suffer from anorexia nervosa.[21] During April and May, when the band played concerts in Thailand and Portugal, Edwards was habitually cutting himself and appeared onstage in Bangkok with self-inflicted wounds across his chest.[8]:102, 106
He talked openly in the music press about his problems, telling the NME: "When I cut myself I feel so much better. All the little things that might have been annoying me seem so trivial because I'm concentrating on the pain" and "I'm the sort of person who wakes up in the morning and needs to pour a bottle down my throat".[8]:108
His problems continued and, during the recording of the album, his mental state deteriorated when he learned of the suicide of a close friend from university.[8]:107 In July, he was taken to hospital after severely lacerating himself at home, then transferred to Whitchurch Hospital, an NHS psychiatric facility in Cardiff. His weight had fallen to 6 stone (38 kg).[8]:108-110
By the time of the album's release in late August 1994, Edwards was hospitalised at the private Priory Hospital in Roehampton.[22] He rejoined the band to tour during the autumn of 1994.[23] Other band members felt that his drinking was under control at this point, but his eating continued to be a problem and he continued to self-harm.[8]:126 On 1 February 1995, he disappeared and is presumed to have committed suicide.[24]
The Holy Bible has been described by Q as a "graphic, violent torrent of self-lacerating punk fury which infamously details the horrors in Richey Edwards' head".[25]
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | [26] |
| Pitchfork | 8.4/10[27] |
| NME (1994) | 9/10[28] |
| NME (2004) | 10/10[29] |
| Q | [30] |
| Mojo | [31] |
| Uncut | [32] |
| Rolling Stone | [33] |
| PopMatters | 8/10[34] |
| Blender | [35] |
| Sputnikmusic | [36] |
| Pixelsurgeon | 10/10[37] |
When it was released in 1994, the NME saw The Holy Bible as primarily the work of James Dean Bradfield, saying "The Holy Bible isn't elegant, but it is bloody effective".[28] Melody Maker, seeing it as primarily the work of Richey Edwards, described it as "the sound of a group in extremis ... hurtling towards a private armageddon".[38] Upon its re-release ten years later, the NME described it as "a work of genuine genius".[29]
According to Stylus Magazine: "The Holy Bible is easily one of the best albums of the 90s—ignored by many, but loved intensely by the few who’ve lived with it over the years ... It puts everything the Manics have done since to shame, not to mention nearly everything else".[39] Rolling Stone also reviewed the album positively: "even the pall of [Edwards'] absence can't cancel out the life-affirming force that hits you with the very first song".[33]
In 2005, the record topped a BBC Newsnight viewers' poll as favourite album of all time.[40] In 2000, it was voted by writers of Melody Maker as the 15th best album of all time.[41] In 2001, it was voted by readers of Q as the 10th best album released during the magazine's lifetime[42] and in 2003 as the 18th greatest album ever.[25] In 2005, Kerrang! placed it 10th in a list of the greatest rock albums ever.[43]
The album peaked at number six on the British albums chart in 1994.[44] This was seen by some as commercially disappointing, however.[39] The record did not chart in mainland Europe or North America,[45][46] although it reached number 50 in the Japanese chart.[47]
In April and May 1994, the band first performed songs from The Holy Bible at concerts in Thailand and Portugal and at a benefit concert for the Anti-Nazi League at Brockwell Park, London.[48] In June, they played the Glastonbury Festival.[49]
In July and August, without Richey Edwards, they played T in the Park in Scotland, the Alte Wartesaal in Cologne, the Parkpop Festvial in The Hague and the Reading Festival.[2] During September, October and December, there was a headline tour of the UK and Ireland and two tours in mainland Europe with Suede and Therapy?.[19] In December, three nights at the London Astoria ended with the band smashing up their equipment and the venue’s lighting rig, causing £26,000 worth of damage.[50]
James Dean Bradfield and Richey Edwards were due to fly to the United States for media interviews on 1 February 1995, the day of Edwards' disappearance, and Bradfield ended up doing this alone.[3]:177 Concerts in US cities, as well as in Prague and Vienna, had been scheduled for March and April 1995, but were cancelled.[3]:179
On 6 December 2004, an expanded version of The Holy Bible was released, containing two CDs and a DVD. Disc 1 comprised a digitally re-mastered version of the original album plus four live tracks. The DVD features an interview with the band, footage of TV and festival appearances and promo videos. The second CD includes a remix of the album by Tom Lord-Alge. The remixed version had been intended for release in the US, but this never happened "for well-documented reasons", according to James Dean Bradfield.[2] The band felt the second mix was superior to the version originally released. As Bradfield puts it: "For once we got something back from the American record company—who we despised—and it was brilliant".[2]
All tracks written by Bradfield/Moore (music) and Edwards/Wire (lyrics).[7]
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Yes" | 4:59 |
| 2. | "Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwouldfallapart" | 3:39 |
| 3. | "Of Walking Abortion" | 4:01 |
| 4. | "She Is Suffering" | 4:43 |
| 5. | "Archives of Pain" | 5:29 |
| 6. | "Revol" | 3:05 |
| 7. | "4st 7lb" | 5:05 |
| 8. | "Mausoleum" | 4:12 |
| 9. | "Faster" | 3:55 |
| 10. | "This Is Yesterday" | 3:58 |
| 11. | "Die in the Summertime" | 3:05 |
| 12. | "The Intense Humming of Evil" | 6:12 |
| 13. | "P.C.P." | 3:55 |
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Yes" | 5:00 |
| 2. | "Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwouldfallapart" | 3:39 |
| 3. | "Of Walking Abortion" | 4:01 |
| 4. | "She Is Suffering" | 4:43 |
| 5. | "Archives of Pain" | 5:29 |
| 6. | "Revol" | 3:05 |
| 7. | "4st 7lb" | 5:05 |
| 8. | "Mausoleum" | 4:12 |
| 9. | "Faster" | 3:55 |
| 10. | "This Is Yesterday" | 3:58 |
| 11. | "Die in the Summertime" | 3:05 |
| 12. | "The Intense Humming of Evil" | 6:12 |
| 13. | "P.C.P" | 3:58 |
| 14. | "The Intense Humming of Evil" (live) | 4:58 |
| 15. | "4st 7lb" (live) | 4:44 |
| 16. | "Yes" (live) | 4:30 |
| 17. | "Of Walking Abortion" (live) | 3:47 |
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Yes" | 5:19 |
| 2. | "Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwouldfallapart" | 3:43 |
| 3. | "Of Walking Abortion" | 4:07 |
| 4. | "She Is Suffering" | 4:57 |
| 5. | "Archives of Pain" | 5:30 |
| 6. | "Revol" | 3:05 |
| 7. | "4st 7lb" | 5:10 |
| 8. | "Mausoleum" | 4:13 |
| 9. | "Faster" | 3:53 |
| 10. | "This Is Yesterday" | 3:58 |
| 11. | "Die in the Summertime" | 3:07 |
| 12. | "The Intense Humming of Evil" | 6:14 |
| 13. | "P.C.P" | 3:57 |
| 14. | "Die in the Summertime" (demo) | 2:26 |
| 15. | "Mausoleum" (demo) | 3:29 |
| 16. | "Of Walking Abortion" (Radio 1 Evening Session) | 3:39 |
| 17. | "She Is Suffering" (Radio 1 Evening Session) | 4:25 |
| 18. | "Yes" (Radio 1 Evening Session) | 4:40 |
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 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" |
| UK release date | Song | Peak position | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UK [44] |
|||||||
| 6 June 1994 | "Faster/P.C.P." | 16 | |||||
| 1 August 1994 | "Revol" | 22 | |||||
| 3 October 1994 | "She Is Suffering" | 25 | |||||