Manic Street Preachers

Growing up against the backdrop of the miner's strike, listening to punk rock, reading William Burroughs and studying Lenin, four school friends from Blackwood, Wales were never average working class kids. Alienated and brimming with political rage, they formed the band in 1986 and they blazed a trail of androgynous glamour, heartfelt sloganeering and teenage angst on their debut album Generation Terrorists in 1992 with a darker side emerging on The Holy Bible in 1994 as chief lyricist Richey Edwards became increasingly depressed. Edwards vanished in 1995 and though his body was never found, he was officially presumed dead in 2008. The remaining members continued as a trio, bouncing back with the number 1 single “Design for Life” and the album Everything Must Go (1996). “If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next” came in 1998 and was a UK number 1 single with its album This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours also hitting the top spot. Maintaining their popularity, they used Edwards' final lyrics, written shortly before his disappearance, on their ninth studio album Journal for Plague Lovers (2009), with the intention that the album would form Edwards' legacy. They followed this up with Postcards from a Young Man in 2010 and National Treasures, a collection of the band's singles, in 2011. Rewind the Film came in 2013 and reached number 4 on the UK Albums Chart. Futurology followed the year after and got them to number 2 on the UK Albums Chart as did 2018’s Resistance Is Futile. 2021’s The Ultra Vivid Lament returned them to the top of the album chart for the first time in over twenty years.