Know Your Enemy
| Know Your Enemy | ||||
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| Studio album by Manic Street Preachers | ||||
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Publication |
2001 |
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| Label (s) | Epic Records | |||
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Format (s) |
CD, LP |
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Title (number) |
16 |
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running time |
75 min 34 s |
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| occupation |
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Dave Eringa |
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Studio (s) |
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Know Your Enemy is a music album by the Welsh band Manic Street Preachers . It was released on March 19, 2001 and was seen by the band's followers and critics as a return to alternative rock after its more soulful predecessor. The band was both praised and reprimanded for its almost militant political statements.
Emergence
After the band celebrated their greatest commercial success to date with the mass-produced album This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours , many previous fans of the band turned away. They accused the group of selling out. At Nicky Wire's request, the band planned an album that would represent the anger of their early works and return to alternative rock.
Work on the album began in November 1999 in the Welsh Monnow Valley. The main part arose in 2000 during a six-week stay in Spain. In order to achieve the roughness desired in terms of sound, the band went straight to the recording studio via the rehearsal room and set a limit of a maximum of five recording attempts per piece. Still, most of it was recorded in one or two takes.
description
'Know Your Enemy' was one of the most politicized albums ever. Unfortunately it was four years before every fucker else got interested in politics. It took everyone else a was.
“'Know Your Enemy' was one of the most politicized albums ever. Unfortunately, it was four years before anyone else became interested in politics. Everyone else needed a war for that. "
Know Your Enemy was the group's most politically motivated LP since Generation Terrorists (1992) and was strongly influenced by the band's socialist background. So in Let Robeson Sing Paul Robeson is honored or in Baby Elián Elián González . In the same piece, the United States is referred to as " the devil's playground " (German: "the playground of the devil"). The song Freedom Of Speech Won't Feed My Children deals with the imposition of the western understanding of freedom on societies. The band even gave a concert in Havana , at which Fidel Castro was personally present. It was the first concert by a western rock band in Cuba .
Musically, Know Your Enemy was the group's most eclectic album to date ; but moved away from the “total rock bombast” ( Vicky Butscher ) of the predecessor. The opener Found that Soul was a classic post-punk piece, Let Robeson Sing Indie-Pop and Miss Europa Disco Dancer even disco music . With Ocean Spray was also the first Manics song ever included, for which James Dean Bradfield also wrote the lyrics; the song was an ode to his late mother. Pitchfork Media described the stylistic range as follows: “ Rather than aiming stylistically at a certain audience, Know Your Enemy finds the Manics attempting to write a protest song in just about every genre. ”( Brendan Reid , German:“ Instead of aiming at a certain audience stylistically, Know Your Enemy finds the Manics trying to write a protest song in pretty much every genre. ”) Laut.de describes the album as a“ mixture of Rock and pop that is guaranteed to be varied and never boring. "( Vicky Butscher )
Reviews
While the album was warmly received by fans - especially those from the first few days - it was not well received by critics, especially in the US. The album achieved a Metascore of 57, with a review of Rolling Stone in particular , where the album was described as “ hideously dull ” ( Aidin Vaziri , German: “terribly boring”). Pitchfork Media gave the album 7.5 / 10 points and said: “ the world's fucked up, and these guys can write pretty good songs about it ” ( Brendan Reid , German: “The world is broken, and these guys can do really good ones Writing songs about it ”). The New Musical Express described the album as " Far from divine, but on the side of the angels " ( Victoria Segal , German: "Far from being divine, but on the side of the angels"). In retrospect, the album was received more favorably. In a review in the online music database from 2009, it says: "Considered eight years apart, 'Know Your Enemy' [...] is not the mistake that it was often dismissed back then." There the album received 8 out of 10 Points.
The band themselves counted Know Your Enemy to their best albums first; Wire later called the album in connection with its rather moderate commercial success, relativizing it “ a deeply flawed, highly enjoyable folly ” ( Nicky Wire , German: “a deeply flawed, highly entertaining madness”).
Track list
All lyrics written by Nicky Wire, music written by James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore unless otherwise noted.
- Found That Soul - 3:05
- Ocean Spray - 4:11 (T: Bradfield; M: Bradfield, Wire, Moore)
- Intravenous Agnostic - 4:02
- So Why So Sad - 4:02
- Let Robeson Sing - 3:46
- The Year of Purification - 3:39
- Wattsville Blues - 4:29
- Miss Europe Disco Dancer - 3:52
- Dead Martyrs - 3:23
- His Last Painting - 3:16
- My Guernica - 4:56
- The Convalescent - 5:54
- Royal Correspondent - 3:31
- Epicenter - 6:26
- Baby Elián - 3:37
- Freedom of Speech Won't Feed My Children - 2:59
- We Are All Bourgeois Now (Hidden Track) - 5:32 (Eden, Gane, Williamson)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Rob Bolton: Review ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on exclaim.ca (English)
- ↑ Reviews of all Manics albums ( Memento of the original from April 24, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English)
- ↑ Manic Street Preachers: Everything is fine ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on motor.de
- ↑ a b Michael Sailer : Havana Affair - in Cuba with the Manic Street Preachers on michaelsailer.de, appeared in the Musikexpress in February 2001
- ↑ a b c Dorian Lynskey: A Redesign For Life ( Memento of the original from July 12, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. from Q , found on blackgarden.net
- ↑ a b c Interview on ianwatsonuk.com (English)
- ↑ a b c Vicky Butscher: Review on Laut.de
- ↑ a b c Review on Pitchfork Media
- ↑ Manic Street Preachers - Ocean Spray (Studio 2001) on omdb.info
- ↑ Reviews on metacritic.com (English)
- ↑ Aidin Vaziri: Review in Rolling Stone , May 2001 (English)
- ↑ Victoria Segal: Review. In: New Musical Express , March 19, 2009
- ↑ Review on OMDB, May 2, 2009
- ↑ Gerald Schmickl: Review. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Wiener Zeitung , April 8, 2001
