Postcards from a Young Man

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Postcards from a Young Man
Studio album by Manic Street Preachers

Publication
(s)

2010

Label (s) Columbia Records

Format (s)

CD, LP

Genre (s)

Alternative rock

Title (number)

12

running time

44 min 24 s

occupation

production

Dave Eringa, Loz Williams, Manic Street Preachers

chronology
Journal for Plague Lovers
(2009) 		Postcards from a Young Man National Treasures - The Complete Singles
(2011)

Postcards from a Young Man is the tenth studio album by the Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers . It was published in the German-speaking area on September 17, 2010, in Great Britain on September 20. After the gloomy and experimental predecessor Journal for Plague Lovers , whose lyrics were based exclusively on notes left behind by the missing band member Richey James Edwards , Postcards from a Young Man is again a catchy rock album, which fans and critics often like with the band classic Everything Must Go from 1996 was compared.

background

Early on in the recording process, the Manic Street Preachers made it clear that their new album would not continue the dark line of its predecessor. In an interview with the NME , singer James Dean Bradfield said: “This time we are concentrating on the big radio hits. It is not a successor to Journal for Plague Lovers . It is a last attempt at mass communication. "

Postcards from a Young Man was re-recorded with Manic Street Preachers' regular producer Dave Eringa. In addition, Loz Williams and the band themselves were responsible as producers. Recordings began in October 2009 and took place at Faster Studios in Cardiff . The songs were mixed by Chris Lord-Alge in Los Angeles , with Howie Weinberg in New York responsible for the mastering .

Ian McCulloch ( Echo & The Bunnymen ) is Bradfield's duo partner in the song Some Kind of Nothingness . Other guest contributions on the album come from John Cale (keyboards and background noises in auto-intoxication ) and Duff McKagan from Guns n 'Roses ( bass on A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun ). Actor Tim Roth can be seen on the cover of the album .

publication

Reviews

The album received mostly benevolent reviews, albeit less enthusiastic overall than its predecessor. At Metacritic , it achieved a rating of 76 out of 100 points. The All Music Guide awarded 4.5 out of 5 possible points and described the album as "serious fun with a lot of aspiration". The NME also gave a positive rating with 7 out of 10 points. The same rating was given in Germany by Plattentests.de , where reviewer Mark Read described the album as "not perfect, but damn good". Laut.de rated it somewhat less positively , where Katja Scherle gave 3 out of 5 points and wrote: “The Manic Street Preachers demonstrate in 2010 what they can do and where they come from. Sometimes they unfortunately lose themselves in their backward agility and sometimes seem like bitter old men. "

Chart placements

album

Like its predecessor, Postcards from a Young Man reached number 3 in the British charts . In Germany, the album only reached number 65, which was the weakest performance in 14 years when Everything Must Go did not make it into the top 100 at all. The album was not very successful in Switzerland either, where it only came in at number 87.

Singles

A total of three singles were released from the album, all of which could only be charted in the United Kingdom. The pre-released (It's Not War) Just the End of Love was the most successful with number 28 in the British single charts. However, this meant the worst result for a regularly released Manic Street Preachers single in 18 years, when Little Baby Nothing came no higher than number 29.

The following two singles were even less successful: Some Kind of Nothingness (44th place) and the theme song Postcards from a Young Man (54th place).

Track list

  1. "(It's Not War) Just the End of Love" (3:27)
  2. "Postcards from a Young Man" (3:35)
  3. "Some Kind of Nothingness" (3:50) (feat. Ian McCulloch)
  4. "The Descent (Pages 1 & 2)" (3:27)
  5. "Hazelton Avenue" (3:23)
  6. "Auto-Intoxication" (3:47) (feat. John Cale )
  7. "Golden Platitudes" (4:23)
  8. "I Think I Found it" (3:06)
  9. "A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun" (3:39) (feat. Duff McKagan)
  10. "All We Make Is Entertainment" (4:15)
  11. "The Future Has Been Here 4 Ever" (3:38)
  12. "Don't Be Evil" (3:18)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ English-language article in the NME of June 1, 2010 , accessed April 9, 2013
  2. ↑ [Information on the cover of the CD version of the album]
  3. ^ Overview at metacritic.com , accessed on April 9, 2013
  4. ^ Review at Allmusic.com , accessed April 9, 2013
  5. ^ Album review on nme.com , accessed April 9, 2013
  6. ^ Album review at plattentests.de , accessed on April 9, 2013
  7. ↑ Album review at laut.de , accessed on April 9, 2013
  8. ↑ British album charts (English)
  9. ↑ Chart tracking at Musicline ( Memento of the original from March 12, 2016 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. , accessed April 9, 2013 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.musicline.de
  10. ↑ Chart result in Switzerland , accessed on April 9, 2013
  11. ↑ Chart result in the British singles charts