Consider that the single is about [$$$] and that the album is around the same price and then go buy it. If you only like "Motorcycle Emptiness" you will NOT have wasted your money.


Review: 2003-04-14

Beautiful, empty, dying.
Spring is finally upon us, it would seem - after winter's last gasp, it's finally warm, dazzlingly sunny, the sweaters and coats and various other garments have been shed, and the intoxicating springtime scent is in the air. It is the time of youth - narcissistic, confused, invulnerable youth, of the sort that Yukio Mishima was hopelessly obsessed with. Doubtless, there is no album that reflects this better than the Manic Street Preachers' loud, angry, ridiculous and brilliant 1992 debut. These were the days when the boys strutted around dressed in boas, eyeliner and shirts bearing incomprehensible slogans, roared as if possessed from miniscule stages, threatened to record one multiplatinum album and split up, announced their plans to light themselves on fire live on television, and in the case of Richey James Edwards, engraved "4 REAL" into their arms. Truly, this is the way youth was meant to be lived, this is what the concept of youth is all about - fighting like furies, sloganeering with glorious eloquence, laughing in the face of one's own ridiculousness, caring nothing for money but dead-set on victory, preening, crashing and burning with a most manly energy yet possessed of a certain feminine elegance in the meantime. Is there anything more beautiful and haunting in the middle of a smouldering summer night or a clear spring day than James Dean Bradfield's mournful yet aggressive wail, evocative of gorgeous flowers growing on a desolate highway underneath a dirty billboard, of such timeless lines as "H-bomb the only thing that will bring a freedom to life," "You are pure, you are snow, we are the useless sluts that they mould," "Rock and roll is our epiphany, culture, alienation, boredom and despair," "Daylight bores the sunshine out of me, I need to be alone amongst the weeds," "Love's sweet exile," "Repeat after me - imitation demigods" and "All we want from you are the kicks you've given us"? The answer: no. It is an unfortunate fact that too many people waste their youth on meaningless pursuits, too much in a hurry to become old, not realizing that they'll never have another chance. Others take the course of fashionable decadence without getting to the essence of it. But thankfully, they have all now been redeemed, since the Manic Street Preachers have lived their youth for them the way they themselves should have lived it. Generation Terrorists isn't the best album ever made, but as a record of this redemption, it is absolutely timeless, even if the boys themselves eventually grew up and things turned much darker just a little bit down the road. And hey, "Motorcycle Emptiness" and "Little Baby Nothing" must surely rank among the ten best rock anthems of all time. This is most certainly required listening.

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