Being asked what's your favourite album is like being asked to pick you favourite child...both impossible and it changes every day. Influential album is another thing altogether. What does that actually entail or mean? In some respects the very first music you hear has got to be the most influential as it drives you forward in your search for more. For me that would be Number of the Beast by Iron Maiden, weighing it all up that probably is up there for me. See, the difficulty in nailing down the essence of what makes it influential has led me to change my mind at least three times already since writing this.
Prior to choosing the record I settled on, I pondered over Dog Man Star by Suede for giving me a chance to be like a Bowie fan always seemed to be like back in the Ziggy Stardust days. So Tough by Saint Etienne for a whole host of reasons springs to mind and then you've got “classics” such as Transformer and London Calling.
In all honesty it nearly was London Calling. This was an album which to this day I would gladly recommend anyone. Its perfection (flawed but then true perfection has to be) and inspirational not just for me but for countless others too. How could I not choose this album? Because there is one album that stands out from all the others in my life, the one album I would save from a burning house, the album I would take to a desert island. It is the third album by those Welsh upstarts and my little baby nothings as I like to call them. It is an album which is dark, impenetrable, depressing, but also art, shock, rock and roll. It is of course The Holy Bible by the Manic Street Preachers.
As you may have guessed from some of the previous albums mentioned, 1994 was a big year for me. I'd reached the grand old age of 20 and I had survived the acid house years and Baggy (mmm....Pills n Thrills...another influential album?) and was looking for something new. I say I was looking, I sort of stumbled into it a couple of years earlier when I heard ‘Slash and Burn’ on the radio one night. I was besotted, at last here was a band who finally sounded like the classic bands I had grown up with. Here was a band not afraid to wear their influences on their sleeve and by god, they looked cool.
Aside from slashing 4Real into my arm, the Manics became my obsession (and continue to be so to this day) and so it was with excitement that I remember first hearing The Holy Bible. I still remember to this day hearing the opening chords of ‘Yes’ and the final death rattle of ‘PCP’. It ingrained itself in my memory so much that I completely forgot that the other two albums existed. This was nothing like anything I had heard before. This was an album which I felt I could own and be proud to listen to. This was an album that opened my eyes to a LOT of things.
So why is this album influential for me? I suppose the main point has to be the lyrics. Now, music to me has never been about the lyrics which may seem odd considering I'm a fan of folk and Americana etc. It’s always been another colour to the musical palette and not one I've dwelled on too much. The irony in this is that this album, in some ways, inspired me to go to University and study Literature. Once there the connections were made in some strange embryonic way and the heavens of European literature opened. Take any song from The Holy Bible and it is dripping with references from the so called Canon. Richie Manic could be accused of sloganeering but he was well read. There was an intelligence here which belies the music.
Oh, and the glorious music. Casting aside the sub-Guns n Roses and Clash wannabe riffs, in comes a darker aesthetic. Influenced in parts by Joy Division, this was music which accompanied the dark despair of the lyrics. The anger seeped through in songs such as the aforementioned ‘Faster’ and a visceral ‘Yes’. The emotion bled literally in ‘This is Yesterday’. It was a tour de force of pummelling riffs, delicate acoustics and backed up by brilliant metronomic drumming.
It was the music which gave me an introduction into a different punkier aspect of music which I was not aware of. It demonstrated (or reinforced?) the belief that music does not have to follow a certain structure, it does not have to have melody, and most of all it does not have to follow certain rules. This is odd as I was listening to Anthrax and Suicidal Tendencies in my teens...maybe there is a link there and we lose something as we get older?
If I had to nail it down to one thing, I think it would have to be the attitude. Here was a band who was prepared to say FUCK YOU and do the album they wanted to do. I've always respected The Manics and always will, they come from good stock. This album was the ultimate in “I'll do what I want to do, like it or lump it” and who stands there vindicated at the end of it? Yep, James, Nicky, Sean...and hopefully somewhere Richie,
There is nothing like having the freedom within yourself to believe enough to say Fuck you. It is what has stood me in good stead since 1994 and I haven't regretted a thing since. The Holy Bible showed me how to do that. It gave me a voice to use and through that an understanding of the power it could behold. To this day I put this album on and I yell along at the top of my voice in some almost replica of a primal scream. It’s cathartic and inspirational in equal doses. Yes, there were repercussions but that's life, you have to pay some sort of price. Whether it was the price Richie wanted to pay, we may never know. Look at the follow up Journals for Plague Lovers for answers. Me....I'm sticking this album on again and revelling in a band that has the guts and instinct to stand up to what they believe in.
