Manic Street Preachers
Generation Terrorists

THE REVIEW

The first time I listened to the Manic Street Preachers was in 1997.
I mean, I had already bought "Everything Must Go" in '95, but by listening I mean something else... surely a beautiful album, but it wasn't their "SENTIMENTAL MASTERPIECE" that struck me, no.
My father had been, during the Christmas period, in London, and I had asked him to buy the first album of the M.S.P., that is: "Generation Terrorists".

That afternoon was dedicated to a corrosive wait for a phone call from a girl - a fundamental story not for the heart but for the personal and character implications it had in my life - I was distracted from the morbidity by the doorbell: my father had returned! Nothing more annoying at times like this.
Arriving, my father handed me the Tower Records bag containing the 2 CDs.
At that moment, I began a strange relationship with something, starting from aesthetics, alien to me; the cover showed the bare arm and half chest of a man (Richey James Edwards, the guitarist) tattooed with a rose in "I love you, Jane" style. Only the rose read: "Generation Terrorists". Despite this, the word "TACKY" did not even cross my mind for a moment.
I went to my room, unwrapped the package, and opened to the first page of the booklet (I must admit I vaguely knew their story and musically only their 4th album).
The photo of the four members: Richey James Edwards, Nicky Wire, James Dean Bradfield, and Sean Moore.
And a single word, upon seeing those photos, stamped itself in my mind: Rock'n'Roll.
Then I proceeded to scroll through the list of titles, and here something united; under each title, there was a quote: Rimbaud, Sylvia Plath, Cummings (!), Camus, Valerie Solanas (!!!).

I had never seen a group like this before and, especially, I, used to the "Indie" image of rock, understood that PERSONALLY I preferred that exaggeration.
Listening to the riffs of "Slash and Burn" or "Born to End" while reading: "Progress is a comfortable Disease" (E.E. Cummings) or "the male is an incomplete female, a walking abortion" (Valerie Solanas), or again "O witches, O misery, O hate, my treasure was left in your care!" (Rimbaud)... the photo of a boy intent on applying eyeliner, or another showing a tattoo that says "Useless Generation"... the singer’s voice that sounded more like George Michael than, say, Kurt Cobain... The Clash-like clothes full of Slogans... all this captured my imagination crystallized in a phrase: "I Laughed when Lennon got shot".

That album, "Generation Terrorists," rekindled my love for Punk (English '77) and all that subculture, for Rock'n'Roll without formalities a là N.Y. Dolls... probably a "Kitsch" that inspired beauty was better than a "Pseudo-Loser" in jeans and a T-shirt.

That's about it.
Long live eyeliner, Camus, and Rock'n'Roll.