#Manics6Music - help pick the Ultimate Manic Street Preachers Playlist

I think it would be nice if some of their less well known stuff was played personally. B-sides like Black garden, Dead passive, I Know the numbers, Love torn us under or Too cold here would be great. Even some of the less well known A-sides like Methadone pretty, PCP, This is yesterday, Elvis Impersonator, Enola alone, Small black flowers, Interiors, Ready for drowning, Born a girl, Black dog on my shoulder, Facing page top left or This joke sport severed would be great to hear on sunday!

Sleepflower would be fantastic, it sets up Gold Against The Soul perfectly, and it's a very special song for fans who went to a lot of Manics gigs in the 2000s.

Early b-sides for me, too. Hibernation, Under My Wheels (BBC Friday Rock Show session), Comfort Comes, Sorrow 16, Soul Contamination, RP McMurphy, their live versions of The Clash's What's My Name and Train In Vain, Bored Out Of My Mind, Dead Yankee Drawl - but also later b-sides like Automatik Teknicolour, I Know The Numbers, Dead Trees And Traffic Islands, Love Letter To The Future, Slow Reflections/Strange Delays, and the Manics' beautiful covers of McCarthy's Red Sleeping Beauty and Charles Windsor need played to death too - and a Manics-inspired song, From Nowhere To Nowhere by The Exiles... there's a free download of an early mix here: https://soundcloud.com/strummerville/the-exiles-from-nowhere-to ;) And any track from The Holy Bible, any track off Lifeblood, Found That Soul off of Know Your Enemy - Some Public Enemy, like She Watch Channel Zero, Fight The Power, Louder Than A Bomb, some stuff by The Who, like I'm A Boy, Go To The Mirror or I Can See For Miles or Tattoo some Guns N' Roses, like Estranged, It's So Easy, Paradise City. French Film Blurred, Men 2nd or Outdoor Miner by Wire. Anything from the debut albums by the Pistols or The Clash or early b-sides like 1977 or City Of The Dead, I Wanna Be Me or Satellite. Some early Dexys Midnight Runners like Dance Stance, One Way Love, Show Me or Geno. But for flip's sake play PATRICK BATEMAN! x

Ocean Spray, just because it evokes a certain sadness that we can all relate when we lose somebody close to us but also because it proves that James on his first songwriting credit was just as much a brilliant lyricist as Nicky and Richey. Tom Holt from Wakefield.

Obvious start - greatest song in the world ever - Faster.

Prologue to History

Motown Junk

Me & Stephen Hawking

Enola / Alone

The Convalescent (Am I the only one who loves this song?)

Close My Eyes

Spectators of Suicide

PCP

This Is Yesterday

Rendition (see Convalescent)

Let Robeson Sing

Comfort Comes

Of Walking Abortion



And I think I will stop there, if I thought about it tomorrow, I'd come up with a different list (apart from Faster - did I mention it is the greatest song in the world ever?)

The first manics song I ever heard was Motorcycle Emptiness and I've been hooked ever since, It has to be on. I love the classics, so I'd also add Little Baby Nothing, La Tristessa Durera, Australia, If You Tolerate This and Faster. There are so many great songs to choose from, I wouldn't disagree with anyone choices.

This is very difficult and what I would pick this week would be different next week!! Have gone with a Concert Style 28 songs!





1.The Girl That Wanted To Be God

2.Faster

3.We are all bourgeois now

4.Roses In The Hospital

5.Motorcycle Emptiness

6.You Love Us

7.Solitude Sometimes Is...

8.Yes

9.Die in the Summertime

10.Black Dog on My Shoulder

11.Working Class Hero

12.She Bathed Herself In a bath of bleach

13. Golden Platitudes

14. La Tristesse

15.1985

16. Nobody Loved you.

17. Stay Beautiful

18. Let Roebson Sing

19.Mauseleom

20. Tsunami

21. You Stole The Sun..

22 Close My Eyes

23 Motown Junk

24 Baby Elian

25 Motown Junk

26 Design For Life

27 If You Tolerate This...

28 Your Love Alone...

I'd love to hear Yes played on the radio for once - an amazingly powerful and emotive song - but I guess that's a tough ask. So how about Never Want Again, one of the early B sides, in all its joyful nihilism - a glorious contradiction in terms of course but hey, we are talking about the Manics here ...

The Manics released some cracking B-sides around this time - the best of which is probably Democracy Coma, which the record company in the US deemed good enough to include on Generation Terrorists. Some corkers were left out of the Lipstick Traces B-sides compilation too - most notably Starlover (Heavenly You Love Us B-side) - their last grungy shout before the polished sheen of GT swept in.



Also when I think back to gigs around the time of GT, I think of Shampoo - the two members of which used to show up at gigs in leopard print coats selling their Manics fanzine. So Bouffant Headbutt by them would be amazing to hear. Supporting the Manics on that tour was Kinky Machine (later Rialto)... anyone remember them? Swivelhead was a brilliantly riffy tune.

Roses in the Hospital has everything - a great dance beat, Slashtastic guitar break, AND a **** in the chorus. Hazelton Avenue - Manics soul train #2, who could not swing their hips to this. Autumnsong and I'm Just a Patsy - G'n'R still an influence. Take the Skinheads Bowling - James gets the tone so right, bet they had fun recording this. The Future Has Been Here 4ever - great song and it would be lovely to hear a song sung by Nicky on the radio.

Sculpture of man, comfort comes, everlasting, faster, revol, lover's sweet exile, motorcycle emptiness. The whole of the holy bible would be too depressing in these difficult times! Maybe Cardiff Afterlife which I love but not all Manics fans I know like it.

Ooh, I can't believe no one has mentioned their cover of Rihanna's 'Umbrella' - epic.

Found that soul

Me and Stephen Hawking

PCP

Yes

Faster

Elvis Impersonator

Ready for Drowning

Glasnost

Solitude sometimes is

Small black flowers...

This Joke Sport Severed

Sculpture of man

No Surface all feeling

Sleepflower

Suicide Alley

Strip it down

This is Yesterday

Interiors

No one Knows what it's like to be me

Motown Junk

Ultimate top 10 tracks

Crucifix kiss

Facing page:top left

I live to fall asleep

Valley boy

Auto-intoxication

Interiors

Underdogs

Faster

Ocean spray

This joke sport severed

Some personal favourites from official albums:



So Dead

Nostalgic Pushead

Yes

A Design for Life

You're Tender and You're Tired

Ocean Spray

I Live to Fall Asleep

All Is Vanity

A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun



And, since Katie mentioned it, Rihanna's "Umbrella", 'cause that cover totally rocks.

It has to be 'A design for life' we always play it in the car as we cross the Severn Bridge into Wales