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Manics cover Working Class Hero...


Jammer

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The White Album is one of the Wire's favourite albums.

What is it they used to say? "We are the only band that reserves the right to contradict ourselves."

It's fucking pointless though. The lowpoint on what is otherwise easily their best album since The Holy Bible. In fact, I'd even go as far as to say only The Holy Bible and Generation Terrorists beat it, and I fucking love Gold Against The Soul.

Why do bands insist on putting "secret" tracks on albums? It even says in the fucking sleevenotes "Secret track: Working Class Hero by John Lennon". So now, when I listen to Winterlovers, I have to either listen to a minute of silence, or fast forward, which is a minor but annoying inconvenience. Not only that, but if i want Winterlovers on my iPod, I have to put fucking Working Class Hero on it too.

AND IT'S NOT EVEN THAT GOOD A SONG!

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The new album is incredible, Rendition is up there with the best songs they've ever done and I'm Just A Patsy has all the aggression of Holy Bible-era stuff mixed with the epic EMG strings.

On the topic of the Lennon cover, the line "I laughed when Lennon got shot" was never a literal thing, it was more having a go at the concept of sacred musicians that people put on pedestals, Nicky especially has talked often about being a Beatles fan, as far back as the early 90's. They were saying in an interview recently that the cover is more of a reclaiming of the concept of the working class hero from all the public school bands who have covered it, and that they feel like it's their duty as a proper working class band to kind of get back the original meaning.

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AND IT'S NOT EVEN THAT GOOD A SONG!

You are kidding me right??? It's a lyrical masterpiece about being brought up in a time when you were just ousted for trying to do (or be) anything different than the regular mould.... i do believe that if it wasnt for him then we would be in a completely different time and place musically this day.

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You are kidding me right??? It's a lyrical masterpiece about being brought up in a time when you were just ousted for trying to do (or be) anything different than the regular mould.... i do believe that if it wasnt for him then we would be in a completely different time and place musically this day.

Let's not turn this into a "why the Beatles are actually shit" debate, eh?

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The new album is incredible, Rendition is up there with the best songs they've ever done and I'm Just A Patsy has all the aggression of Holy Bible-era stuff mixed with the epic EMG strings.

On the topic of the Lennon cover, the line "I laughed when Lennon got shot" was never a literal thing, it was more having a go at the concept of sacred musicians that people put on pedestals, Nicky especially has talked often about being a Beatles fan, as far back as the early 90's. They were saying in an interview recently that the cover is more of a reclaiming of the concept of the working class hero from all the public school bands who have covered it, and that they feel like it's their duty as a proper working class band to kind of get back the original meaning.

See, that's a nice concept, but it's a shame they couldn't have made it track 11 so that I could just not rip it onto my hard disk or iPod.

I reckon at the moment, Rendition, Imperial Bodybags and Indian Summer are my favourite tracks. But they're all fucking phenomenal. I've even grown to completely adore Underdogs (what a fucking chorus) and YLAINE.

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Guest bluesxman
Just wondering what the turnaround has been since their odious lyrical potshot of "I laughed when Lennon got shot".

They also claimed they would split up after their first album, i.e. they have always been full of shit.

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So now, when I listen to Winterlovers, I have to either listen to a minute of silence, or fast forward, which is a minor but annoying inconvenience. Not only that, but if i want Winterlovers on my iPod, I have to put fucking Working Class Hero on it too.

Just stick it into Audacity or whatever and trim it however you want. Not a problem, shirley?

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Just stick it into Audacity or whatever and trim it however you want. Not a problem, shirley?

I tried that with Jarvis Cocker to trim off Cunts Are Running the World as a seperate track, but when i imported the file into Audacity it came out as an annoying bleep.

Anyway, I think the album is pretty darned average. Much prefer Lifeblood, which suited being overproduced because it was supposed to have a clean sound. But Send Away the Tigers is horribley overproduced rawk, lacks memorable melodies and has some very naff lyrics and songtitles ("This one's for the freaks", Imperial Bodybags!!!). Despite this it is enjoyable to a certain degree, Rendition in particular. And the single sounds better in the context of the album.

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No of course not, but to say they were "shit" is ignorant of what they achieved e.g. I don't particularly like Elvis but he wasn't "shit".

Unlike Wire's backing vocals, which are still reassuringly shit on YLAINE.

The title track just "has it" and makes me very happy. Rendition is back to form, no doubt about it. Second Great Depressions chorus is back to their best - it's just brilliant. And Autumnsong is amazing. One of the best vocal performances from JDB I've heard in ages. What a guy.

I'm going to love this album.

Lifeblood has some of the worst stuff they've ever done, for me. "Song For Departure" is beyond turgid drivel. The appaling clanging piano is so annoying. Richard Nixon is like a parody. It's pathetic. "I Live to fall Asleep" - How appropriate, Nick - I am fucking sleeping listening to this song.

My only two on that album are 1985 - what a song - brilliant lyrics and it has a real clean New Order feel about it. And it's great live. "Solitude Sometimes Is" works for me too, but it's nae exactly the greatest.

Working Class Hero - Trying too hard? We all know they're working class. they don't need to do covers of Lennon songs to prove it. I think it should have been kept as a b - side.

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I like his tuneless backing vocals, it was making me hope there would be some evidence of their love for C86 on the album, but all we got was high-sheen rock.

There's was plenty of C86 goodness on his solo album!

As a little aside, apparently Nicky said at the Cambridge gig the other night that he'd been asked to do a reality show in which he conducted an orchestra at something like The Last Night of the Proms, which he agreed to do providing he could conduct them playing 'Repeat'.

Possibly the best bit of television of all time?

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There's was plenty of C86 goodness on his solo album!

As a little aside, apparently Nicky said at the Cambridge gig the other night that he'd been asked to do a reality show in which he conducted an orchestra at something like The Last Night of the Proms, which he agreed to do providing he could conduct them playing 'Repeat'.

Possibly the best bit of television of all time?

Sounds like a swell idea.

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