Thursday 28 October 2010

Album Review: Postcards From A Young Man - Manic Street Preachers


*****
Were 'stars' awarded for sheer ambition, scope and ideas alone, there would certainly be a full set appearing next to every industry review, so engaging is the context of Nicky Wire's desire for a cross-over smash.

However, perhaps that very characteristic is also the one thing that prevents Postcards From A Young Man achieving masterpiece status.

Whereas 1996's Everything Must Go (perhaps the most comparable of their past albums) inevitably rode the wave of enthusiasm for music that would encapsulate the 'Britpop' era, Postcards From A Young Man arrives at a time when the music industry finds itself in considerable decline.

However, it's unfair to label 'Postcards' as merely Everything Must Go 'Part 2' (much as Journal For Plague Lovers was never The Holy Bible Part 2), the album having its own unique identity based on a disillusionment with the modern world and a poetic sense of loss.

Our acquiescence to the digital age in particular comes in for criticism, a virtual existence in which Internet lies "camouflage our screams" and 'Google', the search engine giant, is unmasked as a corporate villain rather than the omnipotent and benevolent 'deity' of our time.

The title track itself revels in the nostalgia of times past, when communication required thought, effort and consideration. When receipt of a postcard would warm the cockles and the Polaroid picture was the height of instant technological gratification.

This clarion call to cherish the physical whilst we still can pervades throughout the album and takes on a further significance in 'All We Make Is Entertainment', a treatise on the sad decline of the UK's manufacturing industry.

It's in such album tracks that the true thematic heart of Postcards For A Young Man is found but that's not to say that when the Manics truly go for broke, as on clear potential single 'Some Kind of Nothingness', there isn't considerable merit to be found too.

That defiance manifests itself here with Ian McCulloch's climactic repetition of, "Never stop" echoing James Dean Bradfield's, "This world will not impose its will/I will not give up and I will not give in!" from the title track again.

'Golden Platitudes' is one of the most musically aspirational songs they've ever put to record, almost Lennonesque in its arrangement and matched by a lyric grappling with New Labour's betrayal of the British public - "the liberal left destroyed every piece of my youth."

Yet, just when you think you're drowning in the lush strings and melody, you're hit by the one-two punch of 'Auto-Intoxication', rumbling in on Bradfield's raging urgency.

Further succour is found on the Nicky Wire sung 'The Future Has Been Here 4 Ever' which on first listen sounds like a misstep but is in fact one of the most surprisingly refreshing moments on the entire record.

It may be naive to hope 'Postcards' crashes onto ipods with the same vigour as CD's once winged their way into the homes of so many, but it's again evidence of the Manics considerable career second wind. A gloriously ambitious rage against the evils of our time and a testament to hope for the future.

Wednesday 27 October 2010

Going Back to 'Back to the Future'

I couldn't let the recent re-release of 'Back to the Future' pass without a blog (and I know there's been a considerable amount of my comment on twitter over the past couple of weeks too).

Having toiled in order to find a screening in my locale, I finally ended up at the 21.20 Friday showing in Crawley, alone and in a screen empty but for a handful of couples and a family of four.

As the lights dimmed and I settled down with my packet of sweets and carbonated drink, pre-purchased from the BP garage en-route, I couldn't prevent a huge smile from creeping across my face. Here was my attempt to regress manifesting itself around me.

For an hour and forty minutes, I melted away from going concerns and sunk into wonderful childhood memories of skateboards, playground larks and Dad's Chuck Berry cassette tapes, the latter of which would also comprise my formal introduction to rock 'n' roll.

As Michael J Fox 'duck-walked' across stage at the 'Enchanment Under the Sea' dance I actually found myself getting quite emotional - in truth I'd already shed a tear at the moment Marty's parents kiss for the first time despite having seen it before a hundred times - yet I realised I wasn't welling up just by way of association with a lost youth but as a reaction to the film's underlying themes.

Here too was a rites of passage, a young man with his own oedipal issues, struggling with that nagging sense that he's retreading his parents past mistakes.

I realise I'm over egging this obsession now so shall draw a line under it here, but the last thing I will say is that the film itself still stands up as a true classic.

On re-visting Back to the Future from an adult perspective, it's incredible just how tight the film making is. There's no excess baggage or padding, every single plot point having a significance that is wound into the overarching story. There's also an abudance of quick-witted charm that flows from every scene. Needless to say, I left the cinema with a very warm glow indeed.

Here endeth my retreat.

Thursday 14 October 2010

Awooga!

Whilst scanning The Guardian website's home page I came across a link to this piece on great sporting moments. Top of the list was a moment I have a real personal fondness for - The 4x400 Mens Relay Final at the 1991 World Athletics Championships.

It's not for any great love of athletics I can assure you (I've been completely indifferent to the recent Commonwealth Games, despite the odd snigger at the organisers misfortunes) only that I remember watching it with my Dad, live on television, and being drawn into the excitement of that final leg, run by none other than former 'Record Breakers' presenter and 'Question of Sport' regular, Kris 'Awooga' Akabusi.

The likes of Roger Black and John Regis had been hot on the heels of the US team for the entire race, but it was only at the exit from the final bend into the home straight that Akabusi was able to pull out onto the shoulder of the US athlete and fight him to the line for the gold medal.

It was genuinely thrilling to see him taking it to the favoured Americans and, inexplicably, both my Dad and I found ourselves rising to our feet and cheering him on for all we were worth - "Go on, Go on, GO ON!!" - in a crescendo of encouragement that somehow channelled from our living room in Carshalton, through the television, to that sweaty stadium in Tokyo.

As Akabusi crossed the line, just a shade in front of his rival, we were jubilant beyond even our own expectation. It was the joy of having unexpectedly, on a sleepy Sunday morning, been party to a wonderful sporting contest, the thrill of an underdog victory and a rare instance of Britain 'getting one over' on our friends from across the pond!

I expect Mum wondered what all the noise was about as she pottered around upstairs. Then again, she may have just resigned herself to the fact that "boys will be boys".

Wednesday 13 October 2010

"What did *I* do?"

I realise I live in a quasi-youthful state these days, torn between the childhood to which I wish to regress and the ongoing, irrepressible surge onwards into adulthood, its trappings of responsibility - financial, emotional, familial - looming ever larger in the rear-view mirror of my conscience.

I would hazard to guess that men suffer from this plight more acutely than their female counterparts. As boys, we are often raised in a manner that fosters irresponsibility and neglects the need to address life's real issues. I have to say that sport, the still predominantly male obsession, is somewhat to blame.

We are rightly encouraged to take an interest and participate in sport, yet we're not necessarily encouraged to take responsibility for doing so. When on-field competition spills over into conflict or injury, we often hear that well weathered adage - "Oh well. Boys will be boys" - the impression that our actions are beyond our control re-enforced in the process.

As an avid child spectator I've often heard, from mothers and grandmothers no less, the sympathetic tones of "Let him watch the football", offered in response to my desperate need to see a particular match on TV, as if it was an accepted right of my gender to be afforded access to this other world.

Now I'm not denying that as an adult I wouldn't still be disgruntled at having my Soccer Saturday viewing interrupted by, say, having to attend a Christening - after all, I still believe in the worth of sport to lift me into a magical realm - it's just that it doesn't set me up for the delicate and subtle responsibilities of adult/fatherhood.

As a case in point, I find it difficult to deal with the oedipal Bermuda triangle that is my son/wife/mother relationship. For example, all too often I struggle to put my own mother to rights on the smallest of seemingly trivial babysitting issues. Rather than putting my wife and son's needs unequivocally first, like Ronnie Corbett, I'm always looking for the next opportunity to say "sorry".

It's a weakness of character I know. If I employ avoidance tactics even for mundane tasks such as fixing a loose floorboard, it's no surprise I do so in the face of real confrontation and all the consequences that its adult incarnation brings.

Of course I know it's not my fault I'm this way, obviously. If fault lies anywhere, it's with how boys are raised in compliance with societies expectations; it's with the prevalence of culture's glamorous anti-heroes ('The Wire's' Jimmy McNulty or 'Mad Men's' Donald Draper for instance)....Oh and with Rupert Murdoch.