Manic Street Preachers

Manic Street Preachers (occasionally referred to as the Manics) are a Welsh rock band formed in Blackwood, Caerphilly, in 1986. Since 1995, the band has been a three-piece of Nicky Wire (bass/lyrics) and cousins James Dean Bradfield (vocals/guitar/occasional lyrics) and Sean Moore (drums). They form a key part of the 1990s Welsh Cool Cymru cultural movement. The band's early releases were in a punk vein, eventually broadening to a wider alternative rock sound. Their early combination of androgynous glam imagery and lyrics about "culture, alienation, boredom and despair" gained them a loyal following.

As a four-piece with Richey Edwards (guitar/lyrics), the band's first charting single was "Motown Junk" in 1991, followed by their first two albums, Generation Terrorists in 1992 and Gold Against the Soul in 1993. 1994's The Holy Bible was the last album with Edwards, who disappeared in February 1995 and was legally presumed dead in 2008. After a short hiatus, the remaining members chose to continue on, achieving commercial success with the first post-Edwards album, 1996's Everything Must Go, which reached No. 2 in the UK Albums Chart, while the follow-up album, 1998's This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours, reached No. 1.

The Manics have headlined festivals including Glastonbury, T in the Park, V Festival and Reading, winning eleven NME Awards, eight Q Awards and four BRIT Awards. They were nominated for the Mercury Prize in 1996 and 1999, and have had one nomination for the MTV Europe Music Awards. The band have sold more than ten million albums worldwide. The Manics have had two UK No. 1 singles, "If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next" (1998) and "The Masses Against the Classes" (2000), as well as two UK No. 1 albums, This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours and The Ultra Vivid Lament (2021). From 1991 to 2010, they had 33 consecutive top 40 singles in the UK.

Manic Street Preachers formed in 1986 at Oakdale Comprehensive School, Blackwood, South Wales, which all the band members attended. Their first line-up consisted of singer and guitarist James Dean Bradfield, rhythm guitarist Nicky Wire, bassist Miles "Flicker" Woodward, and drummer Sean Moore. Bradfield and the slightly older Moore are cousins and shared bunk beds in the Bradfield family home after Moore's parents divorced. During the band's early years, Bradfield, alongside the classically trained Moore, primarily wrote the music while Wire focused on the lyrics. Some of their earliest performances were held at the Blackwood Miners Welfare Institute in the town. The band's name came from Bradfield's busking when he was 16:

"I left [comprehensive school], and you've got that summer off to think about what you're gonna do in the future. And that's when I picked up a guitar and I started to go busking everyday. [...] And I had a spot in Cardiff, right next to a tramp, and I made friends with him. I'd come along everyday and I'd wake him up, and he'd say "Oh my God, it's the Manic Street Preacher again". And I just kept the name [...] I thought that's pretty cool, that's better than anything I can come up with."

— James Dean Bradfield, US Interview, February 1995,

Woodward left the band in early 1988, reportedly because he believed that the band were moving away from their punk roots. The band continued as a three-piece, with Wire switching from rhythm guitar to bass, and in 1988 they released their first single, "Suicide Alley". Despite its poor recording quality, this single provides an early insight into both Bradfield's guitar work and Moore's live drumming. NME gave "Suicide Alley" an enthusiastic review, citing a press release by the band's friend Richey James Edwards: "We are as far away from anything in the '80s as possible." In 1989, Edwards, who drove the band to and from gigs, joined the band as rhythm guitarist and co-lyricist alongside Wire. Edwards also designed the record sleeves, artwork and the spray stenciled jumpers the band began wearing, with slogans such as "suicide solution" and "kill yourself".

In 1990, Manic Street Preachers signed a deal with label Damaged Goods Records for one EP. The four-track New Art Riot E.P. attracted as much media interest for its attacks on fellow musicians as for the actual music.