Everything: A Book About Manic Street Preachers by Simon Price

Everything: A Book About Manic Street Preachers Reviews

• 
  Maria Lago

  Amazing and gut-wrenching, but also inspiring and full of hope. A music band like no other in the world; quite honestly, even if their music were bad, their story alone would still be fascinating, if only because there are no bands like this one any longer... or very few, and even fewer that get any attention.
  Manic Street Preachers. What to say. With an open heart I can admit the melodrama and Ritchie's puppy eyes got me to their albums, my love for their music came later. But twenty years on, and it's still here. Their first four albums (yep, even the much reviled Gold Against the Soul, I like what I like) were all I listened to for five years. I bought posters, magazines, badges and even a Welsh flag, I kid you not. When the book was published, I got a copy and read it in a couple of days. Nothing I could possibly read would make me change my mind about the Fantastic Four, but I was not ready for my obsession to be enhanced like it was.
  However, I believe this is a book everybody can enjoy: one doesn't need to be into the Manics to care about the tragic events that happend to these talented and missunderstood boys from Nowhere. The book works perfectly as a story of pain, success, friendship and music in general, as it is a biography of the band itself. If you like reading, if you like gripping stories, I recommend this book: Everything has something for everyone.
• 
  emilee

  I don't know why it took me so long to finish this book. It certainly wasn't due to lack of interest in the subject matter or lack of enjoyment in the reading. I guess, sometimes, reading about something as close and personal as your favourite band is just a bit overwhelming.
  
  Simon Price is a great writer and excels at spot-on descriptions and witty phrasing. I particularly enjoyed the essays between each chapter, which are lovely and articulate insights into different aspects of the band, its members, and their fans. However, a better editor would not have been unwelcome - there are lots of typographical errors, repetitions, and both major and minor factual inaccuracies that interrupt the reading experience.
  
  Despite the fact that this book is 20 years old, it doesn't read as something old that needs updating, but largely remains relevant and acts as a perfect snapshot of the band's early years. Part of my enjoyment in reading this book was due to the fact that it is two decades old - it includes a complete discography and a list of websites relating to the band at the back, completing the feeling of late-90s nostalgia.
  
  I don't think it's a book I'm likely to read again in full, but I'll definitely revisit certain passages. It's an essential book for any Manics fan to keep on their bookshelf, anyway :)
• 
  Amy

  Must read book for any fan of the group, comprehensive and articulate yet never overly serious and stale. Price's relationship to the band gives it a nice personal feel and he's got a great, readable writing style. Probably the best band biography out there and seriously recommended.
• 
  Laura Hopcroft

  Probably the best book on the manics. Well written and the included essays on subjects that arise from the manics life makes the book such a interesting read. If your new to the manics this book will give you a great look at their history. I constantly go back and read this book
• 
  Scott Cumming

  "Libraries gave us power"
  
  I mention the above as it's likely the most famous Manics lyric and because I got this near twenty year old biography from my local library. This review is about to devolve into an autobiographical nature, but bare with me even if you find it a mere self indulgence.
  
  Manic Street Preachers were the first band I discovered myself at the age of 12 upon seeing an advert for the "Everything Must Go" album and I thereafter picked a copy of the single of the same name very cheaply at my local supermarket when it had fallen out of the charts. I listened to music before this, but this was the first time a band had gotten to me purely because of their music with no other foreknowledge influencing things. I got the album that Christmas also.
  
  I had no knowledge of the history they were purging on EMG until my Dad mentioned to me about a reported sighting of the missing member of the Manics. This was a head exploding moment as I knew nothing about it and in those pre-internet days it took me a while to build up any knowledge. As the years went by I continued to be a fan until my late teens when I was in thrall to the "New Rock Revolution" and then moved on to other music from there leaving the Manics behind. It was only recently when I started an MSP listening binge out of almost nowhere that I realised I still didn't know the full story behind the band and Richey''s disappearance. I bought this book not long after its publication, but never got around to reading it only to happily discover there was a copy available in the city's library catalogue.
  
  The book isn't just your standard rock biography much in the same way that MSP aren't your standard rock band. As well as telling the story of the band there are 10 essays included looking at the members of the band and themes associated with them. The writing is engaging and is not afraid to criticise the band when it is thought to be in order especially regarding live performances. There's humour in the writing too, but it's hit and miss and at times just downright misplaced with Price almost missing the tone of what he's writing just to throw in a silly one liner.
  
  Published just 4 years after the disappearance of Richey, he is the main focus of the book and his features and foibles are lenghtily explained. Nicky comes in a close second and appears to be just an agent provocateur with many outlandish, mischievous quotes. James and Sean often have large events in their lives passed over in a line, but as the book wore on I realised this had more to do with them guarding their privacy as much as the author not writing about them. There's a transcript of the interview that led to the "4 REAL" incident and 3 quarters of the book really focuses in on Richey as the focal point and heartbeat of the band amidst his trouble and lack of musicianship. The book certainly dispelled myths surrounding the band and especially who Richey was as he wasn't just some drugged rock poseur.
  
  My severe lack of knowledge regarding his disappearance was really rammed home upon reading about it. It's here the writer's affection for him pays off in that you are left to feel the devestating blow that his disappearance was and how it wasn't as simple as it first appeared.
  
  It's a near 20 year old book that covers the most famous years of a one off band that manages to do the job you want it to. It informs and entertains in equal measure. As I came to the end I did wish it would keep going and I could read about those last 20 years of the Manics, but I guess I'll just have to catch up with their back catalogue.
• 
  Rosemary

  Very entertaining, at times affecting, this book only has two problems. Price does tend to gush over Richey Edwards a bit, and there are some fairly major inaccuracies (the year Sean Moore was born for example. I did really enjoy it though. I think it manages to capture why the Manics mean so much to their fans.
  
• 
  Rachel McNab

  The best book written about the best band to come out of Wales.
• 
  Mitch Reynolds

  Everything (A Book About Manic Street Preachers) (1999) by Simon Price is a stunning insight into the lives and careers of the Manic Street Preachers from their early days up to the time the book was published.
  
  The book gives a glimpse into their working-class beginnings from Blackwood in Wales during the time of the miner’s strike. Been from a working-class background myself I could understand the aspiration to want to get out of a small town and just do something with your life and music was their way out of the town which Richey described as “a shithole, where the only way to escape was to create your own reality.” The book describes their early days as a band when they would send their music for the attention of A & R departments in London and ask talent scouts to come to see them perform in the local pub and their earlier life as a band when they signed to Damaged Goods and Hevenly and their more long-term signing to independent PR and management company Philip Hall’s Hall Or Nothing which he had founded in 1985 through to their mainstream success and Brit Award wins.
  
  The part in the book about the disappearance of Richey Edwards was written with great compassion unlike a certain documentary called ‘The Vanishing of Richey Manic’ which the writer regrets been involved with stating that he had “entered into the project in good faith, swayed largely by the fact that Steve Lamacq, whom I trusted, was also involved.” Having seen the documentary I can say that I didn’t think he said anything wrong. The problem more lay in the vision of the entire piece and so many other commentators on the show. And the part in the book is also very fair by having various differing opinions on what people think happened to Richey about whether he is still alive or whether he passed on and has a lovely dedication at the beginning to Richey, “This book is dedicated to Richey Edwards, wherever he may be” with below it, “Our romance is having total power because we know we have nothing to lose. We’re secure in the knowledge that we already lost a long time ago”.
  
  I love Simon Price’s style of writing. I read a lot of books where the style is very objective and it’s so dull and so boring that the person, band or subject might be interesting but by the time they are through the overview or something I’m ready to fall asleep. This book was different. It was written amazing but it was also written with a human quality unlike some writer rattling off facts all the time and not injecting a bit of a style/personality to proceedings. It was very obvious that he was a fan as well as a journalist who had interviewed them over the years. I loved the bit when he spoke about a scene which didn’t make the band’s ‘You Love Us’ music video which Price was there for, “Nor did a shot involving Richey looking unspeakably gorgeous in a white wedding dress, a hand grenade stuffed in his mouth like an apple. I would have married him there and then.” It was just wonderfully down-to-earth and I think we’ve all looked at someone we fancy looking all manner of hot and thought that so it was very relateable and yes I could relate to it!
  
  Alongside the eleven chapters there is ten essays analysing various aspects to do with the band including their sexuality, fans and the fan culture, self-harm, Welsh nationalism, their feelings about been a rock ‘n’ roll band and America and their relation to the band. It is an intriguing, indepth book that you will just get lost in. It is really interesting and a thoroughly, thoroughly good read.
• 
  Nikki

  I really couldn't have asked for a better book on the Manics. I feel that the author had the perfect amount of personal insight yet professional detachment from the history of the Manics, which went well with the fact that they are a band that have always been intensely personal yet expansively broad in their lyrical references and politics. The author is also skilled in that he was able to pack so much history and information within the book, which would have taken many writers many more hundreds of pages to encompass.
• 
  Lu

  Not a perfect book by any means - could’ve used some extra edits & so on - but I’ll accept that this is THE AUTHORS manics history & I will say I appreciated this deeply for how much it gave me of the manics themselves (from someone who has just come into being a fan) and I will say something clearly was working well because I cried like a little baby basically every time I picked this book up. Overall I just love the manics and I rlly valued this dive into them from someone who clearly knows their stuff and has followed them through so much!
• 
  Holly

  An in-depth analysis and insight into the music of Manic Street Preachers up to 1998. Price’s knowledge of the band is intimate, and he’s certainly not afraid to critique the band in anyway, which is refreshing for a biography. A worthwhile read for any fan, be it of the band or of British music.
• 
  Daniel

  Fascinating
• 
  Paul

  An essential read for any Manics fan - Simon Jones tells the history of the band, combining his own following of them from one of their earliest gigs with hundreds of excerpts from interviews and reviews. It's really readable and packed with facts and strong opinions. Only occasionally do Jones' own opinions get in the way of the story - usually when it comes to his dismissive views of pretty much every other band except the Manics. But this is unquestionably a great 'I was there' account of a one-of-a-kind British band. Now we just need Nicky Wire's version.
• 
  Idun

  I award this book five stars not to signify how good I think it is, or how much I enjoyed reading it. On a more personal note, I have no idea how many times I suffered with this in my hands (which I kinda enjoyed.....) It was also Simon Price's writing that took part in how deeply the bad has got me affected. A proof that a 'subculture' can afford such intellectual stimulants.
  
  As a biography, this gives detailed insights about the band. Their lyrical references, literatures, politics, their obsession, and their refusal to—which is difficult to believe—'heroic' reputation no matter how their fans regard them as.
  
  It took a while until I could back down and be honest to myself. How very silly, how very 'sassy punk rock', how meek you are to the industrialized devotion, but when you privatize it you'll eventually regard them because they are part of you. They are all yours. Like this part of me that I love.
• 
  Ben Eldridge

  MSP.
  Highly literate, and political/socio-political welsh punk band who infamously suffered a severe setback when their chief lyricist, group icon and style arbiter disappeared, never to be seen again in early 1995.
  This book, written by a hard-core gay fan-boy of the group, plots their rise to fame, their devastation at Richey James' disappearance and their subsequent decision to carry on as a three piece which led to their scoring a #1 UK hit with the comeback single 'A Design For Life' and being lauded with all sorts of plaudits for the album 'Everything Must Go'.
  Well written, engaging stuff. Their story is so exceptional that it makes for highly riveting reading that easily eclipses many paint-by-numbers rock biogs.
  
• 
  N

  Amazing and instantly readable, lots to take in over larger than average pages and in a smaller, compelling font size. I read A Version Of Reason earlier which was Richey focused and between the two, Everything being as official via Simon Price as you can currently get, the two tell it all in detail. About 5 or 6 other albums later...so updates wanted! Sadly no Richey news :-(
• 
  Madeline Cane

  I read this book 12 years ago knowing very little about the MSP and even so, my God it was gripping from the start. The author has such insight and a rare intimacy that nonetheless remains respectful and dignified whilst telling band's funny, unlikely and at times tragic story. I've never forgotten this book, it had such an impact.
• 
  Aeron

  Yes, its written by a hardcore fan, but this book by far includes most everything you need to know about the Manics up to the This is My Truth years. No other band's story is quite like their's...a definite good read for any fan of music
• 
  Audrey

  The definitive biography on the Manic Street Preachers. Remember when they were awesome? Oh memories.
• 
  Līva

  the best there is about manic street preachers, so I give it five stars. at times it was a bit annoying/creepy, as the author is a hardcore manics fan, but ok, you cannot want everything.
• 
  Jake

  Brilliant book, hilarious and serious when needed to be. Price is perfect to write this book. Reccommended to all fans.
• 
  Samantha

  This is the ultimate Manic Street Preachers biography. I have read quite a few and this one is the best and feels the least speculative when it comes to the Richey story. A keeper.
• 
  Andrea Greene Myers

  Probably the best of the three Manics books I've read this year.
• 
  Christopher Price

  Quite simply, this book changed my life. I read this at a very prominent intersection of my youth and it helped define my younger years.
• 
  Sam

  This book fucked me up way more than I expected.
• 
  Killian

  Brilliant book which is a must read for any fan. Deeply personal and poignant. Loved this.