I love the Manic Street Preachers. I probably can't even articulate all of the reasons why I love them. It's some weird mix of emotion and intellect that fuels my reaction to their music.
And, similarly, their music is, and has been, some weird mix of emotion and intellect.
Frequently contrived, pretentious, lippy, witty, morose, and invigorating, the band has made music of beauty and pain and inspiration for more than 20 years now.
With the career-spanning National Treasures singles set due out this month, I was looking for a way to see the new "This Is The Day" video. Thanks to the copyright laws that still follow the lines on the map even as we rocket through a borderless virtual (online) universe, it was getting hard to do.
Finally, I found this awesome blog today and he's got the video for you to enjoy.
The cover is rather unremarkable and deservedly self-congratulatory. However, there's a moment near the end when James Dean Bradfield's guitar seems to take over the vocal line that just gives me chills.
The Manics can make the ordinary transcendent and I am grateful for them.
National Treasures will be out on Halloween in the UK and I might order it just to get the "This Is The Day" single, as well as all the videos I don't already have on the DVD edition of this release.
UPDATE: Look who's on the cover of this week's NME!
