The Holy Bible (album)

According to drummer Sean Moore, the band felt they had been "going a bit astray" with their previous album, 1993's Gold Against the Soul, and so the approach to the follow-up was for the band to go back to their "grass roots" and rediscover "a little bit of Britishness that we lacked". Singer and guitarist James Dean Bradfield recalls the band feeling they had become "a bit too rockist [...] we had lost our direction". and early Simple Minds. It was bassist Nicky Wire's idea, says Bradfield, that the band "should not use everything at its disposal" in recording the album. Instead, recording began with sound engineer Alex Silva at the low-rent, "absolutely tiny" The album was mixed by Mark Freegard, who had previously worked with the Breeders. "She Is Suffering" was produced by Steve Brown. The recording took four weeks. Bradfield has described the recording of the album as preventing him from having a social life and Alex Silva attributes the break-up of his relationship with his girlfriend at the time to the long hours involved in the recording. He was drinking heavily and frequently crying. "Inevitably", says Bradfield, "the day would start with a 'schhht!'; the sound of a can opening." The album was constructed with "academic discipline", according to Bradfield, with the band working to headings and structures "so each song is like an essay". == Content ==

Lyrics Whereas lyric-writing on the two previous albums was split fairly evenly between Richey Edwards and Nicky Wire, the lyrics on The Holy Bible were 70–75% written by Edwards, according to James Dean Bradfield. At the time of the album's 10th anniversary reissue Wire claimed to be largely responsible for "Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwouldfallapart" (which cites the actor River Phoenix in the lines 'Big Mac / Smack / Phoenix, R. / Please smile, y'all') and "This Is Yesterday", contributing only titles to some of the other songs. The album's lyrics deal with subjects including prostitution, American consumerism, British imperialism, freedom of speech, the Holocaust, self-starvation, serial killers, the death penalty, political revolution, childhood, fascism and suicide. According to Q: "the tone of the album is by turns bleak, angry and resigned". The same magazine commented in 1994 that "even a cursory glance at the titles will confirm that this is not the new Gloria Estefan album". Sean Moore has described the content of the lyrics as being "as far as Richey's character could go". According to Bradfield: "Some of the lyrics confused me. Some [...] were voyeuristic and some were coming from personal experience [...] I remember getting the lyrics to 'Yes' and thinking 'You crazy fucker, how do I write music for this?'" According to Edwards, the "she" in the song title is desire: "In other Bibles and Holy Books no truth is possible until you empty yourself of desire". Use of dialogue samples Several tracks on the album are also complemented by samples of dialogue, in keeping with the themes of the songs themselves, as follows: • "Yes" contains dialogue from the 1993 documentary Hookers, Hustlers, Pimps and their Johns, by Beeban Kidron, about the prostitution trade. • "Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwouldfallapart" begins with a TV trailer for GOP TV's Rising Tide show. • "Of Walking Abortion" begins with an extract from an interview with Hubert Selby Jr. • "She is Suffering" on the US mix of the album begins with a sample of British scientist/philosopher John G. Bennett saying "It is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering." This dialogue is not present on the standard album/single version of the song. • "Archives of Pain" begins with the words of the mother of one of serial killer Peter Sutcliffe's victims from a TV report on his trial. • "4st 7lb" begins with dialogue from the 1994 documentary about anorexia, ''Caraline's Story'', by Jeremy Llewelyn-Jones about Caraline Neville-Lister. • "Mausoleum" features a quotation from an interview with J. G. Ballard explaining his motivation for writing the novel Crash. • "Faster" begins with dialogue from the 1984 film adaptation of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, spoken by John Hurt. • "The Intense Humming of Evil" begins with an extract from a report on the Nuremberg Trials. • "P.C.P." ends with dialogue spoken by Albert Finney from Peter Yates' The Dresser. Musical style Musically, The Holy Bible marks a shift from the modern rock sound of their first two albums, Generation Terrorists and Gold Against the Soul. It was described as alternative rock, post-punk, hard rock, punk rock, and glam punk, with influences from British punk, During the recording of the album, the band was mainly influenced by post-punk bands such as Wire, Public Image Ltd, and Joy Division, and their new sound drew comparisons to similar artists such as Magazine, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Gang of Four. The Jam was another influence; "This Is Yesterday" was inspired by the songs "In the Crowd" (1978) and "Ghosts" (1982), while the anorexia-themed "4st 7lb" featured a guitar riff influenced by "The Eton Rifles" (1979). "Of Walking Abortion" was described as a "punk metal assault" and was inspired by Magazine's "The Light Pours Out of Me" (1978), while "From Out of Nowhere" (1989) by Faith No More served as the template for "Faster". The latter and "Archives of Pain" have also been compared to the Buzzcocks and even heavy metal trailblazers Black Sabbath in what Louder than War described as "their hook-laden heaviness". The record's heavy style was also compared to that of popular industrial rock act Nine Inch Nails. Aesthetic , quoted on the sleeve of The Holy Bible James Dean Bradfield has described the album as representing "the most definitive period for us visually as well as the songs we were writing and the record [...] we've never been scared to admit that". A performance of "Faster" on the BBC's Top of the Pops in June 1994 resulted in a record number of complaints—over 25,000—due to Bradfield wearing a paramilitary-style balaclava. The album cover, designed by Richey Edwards while hospitalised, features a triptych by Jenny Saville depicting three perspectives on the body of an obese woman in her underwear, and is titled Strategy (South Face/Front Face/North Face). Saville gave her permission for use of her work for free after a discussion with Edwards in which he described each song on the album. The back cover features a photo of the band in military uniforms and a quote taken from Octave Mirbeau's book The Torture Garden. This album is also the first instance of the Manic Street Preachers using Gill Sans typeface with a reversed "R" in their album art. The typeface would be re-used on later albums and has become an easily recognised motif of the Manics' artwork. The typeface is similar to one used on Empires and Dance by Simple Minds, one of James Dean Bradfield's favourite records. The lyrics booklet features various images including Christian iconography, photographs of the gate at Dachau concentration camp and a plan of the gas chambers at Belsen concentration camp, a photograph of Lenin's corpse, an engraving depicting an execution by guillotine in Revolutionary France, a picture of an apple, a photograph of a woman with a parasitic twin, photographs of each of the Manic Street Preachers as children and a photograph of a group of British policemen in gas-masks. The booklet also contains a Buddhist saying from the Tripitaka alongside a dedication to the band's publicist, Philip Hall, The title "The Holy Bible" was chosen by Edwards to reflect an idea, according to Bradfield, that "everything on there has to be perfection". Interviewed at the end of 1994, Edwards said: "The way religions choose to speak their truth to the public has always been to beat them down [...] I think that if a Holy Bible is true, it should be about the way the world is and that's what I think my lyrics are about. [The album] doesn't pretend things don't exist". == Health of Richey Edwards ==

, Cardiff Richey Edwards had long-term problems with alcohol abuse, depression and self-harm. During 1994, these problems had, according to Wire, "escalated to a point where everybody got a bit frightened" and Edwards had also begun to suffer from anorexia nervosa. During April and May, when the band played concerts in Thailand and Portugal, Edwards was habitually cutting himself and appeared onstage in Bangkok with self-inflicted wounds across his chest. He talked openly in the music press about his problems, telling the NME: "When I cut myself I feel so much better. All the little things that might have been annoying me seem so trivial because I'm concentrating on the pain", and "I'm the sort of person who wakes up in the morning and needs to pour a bottle down my throat". His problems continued and, during the recording of the album, his mental state deteriorated after learning of the suicide of a close friend from university. In July, he was taken to hospital after severely lacerating himself at home, then transferred to Whitchurch Hospital, an NHS psychiatric facility in Cardiff. His weight had fallen to . By the time of the album's release in late August 1994, the band played as a trio at the Reading Festival while Edwards was hospitalised at the private Priory Hospital in Roehampton. He rejoined the band to tour during the autumn of 1994. Other band members felt that his drinking was under control at this point, but his eating continued to be a problem and he continued to self-harm. On 1 February 1995, he disappeared and is presumed to have taken his own life. His car was found close to the Severn Bridge. The Holy Bible has been described by Q as a "graphic, violent torrent of self-lacerating punk fury which infamously details the horrors in Richey Edwards' head". == Release ==

The album was released as a vinyl 12" picture disc, CD and minidisc. It reached No. 6 on the UK Albums Chart, remaining in the Top 100 for 11 weeks. Despite not charting outside the UK and Japan, by mid-2014 The Holy Bible had sold more than 600,000 copies worldwide. On 6 December 2004 an expanded version of The Holy Bible was released, containing two CDs and a DVD. Disc one comprised a digitally re-mastered version of the original album plus four live tracks. The DVD features an interview with the band, footage of TV and festival appearances and promo videos. The second disc includes a remix of the album by Tom Lord-Alge. The remixed version had been intended for release in the US, but this never happened "for well-documented reasons", according to James Dean Bradfield. As part of Record Store Day 2014 a 12-inch picture disc of the US mix of the album was released. Side A featured a mix of the Revol cover overlaid with the Jesus image from the CD. Side B was a white label image. The album was housed in a clear plastic sleeve. 1,500 copies were pressed. == Reception ==

Despite not charting in mainland Europe, and not selling very well initially, The Holy Bible received widespread acclaim from music critics upon release. Simon Williams of NME saw The Holy Bible as primarily the work of James Dean Bradfield, saying "The Holy Bible isn't elegant, but it is bloody effective". Observed Roy Wilkinson in Select: "Amid all the references to coma, carcasses, 'walking abortions' and dying in the summer sits the spectre of Richey, holed up in a private clinic, having drunk too much, eaten too little and cut himself for reasons varying between dramatic gesture, a surrogate for screaming out loud and something 'sexual' [...] Let's hope that, with a record of such unsettling, morbid resonance as The Holy Bible, no further gestures are required." == Touring ==

In April and May 1994 the band first performed songs from The Holy Bible at concerts in Thailand and Portugal and at a benefit concert for the Anti-Nazi League at Brockwell Park, London. In June, they played the Glastonbury Festival. In July and August, without Richey Edwards, they played T in the Park in Scotland, the Alte Wartesaal in Cologne, the Parkpop Festival in The Hague and the Reading Festival. James Dean Bradfield and Richey Edwards were due to fly to the United States for media interviews on 1 February 1995, the day of Edwards' disappearance, and Bradfield ended up doing this alone. Concerts in US cities as well as in Prague and Vienna had been scheduled for March and April 1995, but were cancelled. In late 2014 the band performed the album in full for the first time, at concerts in Glasgow, Manchester, Dublin and London, marking the 20th anniversary of its release. Following the UK concerts, the Manics took The Holy Bible tour to North America, and in April 2015 the band played in Washington DC, Toronto, New York, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago. They also played in the Cardiff Castle with 10,000 fans attending the gig, it was broadcast nationwide by BBC Two Wales. == Legacy ==

The Holy Bible has continued to be acclaimed in the years since its release, with many British music magazines listing it as one of the best albums of the 1990s and one of the greatest ever released. The same magazine placed the album at number 5 in their end of the year list of the best albums of 1994. In 2003 it was voted on number 37 on NME's poll of best albums of all time and, more recently, number 44 in their list of the 500 greatest albums ever made. The album is also featured in The Guardian's list "1000 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die". At the NME awards 2015, the album won "Reissue of the Year" for its 20th anniversary edition. Ben Patashnik of Drowned in Sound later said that, at the time of its release, the album "didn't sell very well, but its impact was felt keenly by anyone who'd ever come into contact with the Manics", and that it is now a "masterpiece [...] the sound of one man in a close-knit group of friends slowly disintegrating and using his own anguish to create some of the most brilliant art to be released on a large scale as music in years [...] It's not a suicide note; it's a warning." The album is also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. A 2017 collection by Repeater Books, entitled "Triptych", "consider(s) The Holy Bible from three separate, intersecting angles, combining the personal with the political, history with memory, and popular accessibility with intellectual attention to the album’s depth and complexity." == Track listing ==

10th Anniversary Edition DVD • "Faster" (performed on Top of the Pops) • "Faster" (performed on Butt Naked) • "P.C.P." (performed on Butt Naked) • "She Is Suffering" (performed on Butt Naked) • "4st 7lb" (performed on MTV Most Wanted) • "She Is Suffering" (performed on MTV Most Wanted) • "Faster" (performed at Glastonbury '94) • "P.C.P." (performed at Glastonbury '94) • "Yes" (performed at Glastonbury '94) • "Revol" (performed at Reading '94) • "Faster" (US video) • "Judge Yr'self" (video) • Yes (New Film Made by Patrick Jones) • Band interview == Personnel ==

Manic Street Preachers • James Dean Bradfield – lead vocals, lead and rhythm guitar, production • Richey Edwards (credited as Richey James) – rhythm guitar (credited but does not perform), sleeve design, production • Sean Moore – drums, production • Nicky Wire – bass guitar, production Technical personnel • Alex Silva – engineering • Mark Freegard – mixing • Tom Lord-Alge – mixing (US mix) • Steve Brown – production ("She Is Suffering") • Jenny Saville – front cover painting • Barry Kamen – back cover painting • Neil Cooper – sleeve photography • Octave Mirbeau – author of back cover text (from The Torture Garden) == Charts and certifications ==

Weekly charts Certifications == References ==