Mark Wainwright

It's pretty bold of a band to announce a new album with "we're going for big radio hits on this one". It's also hard to think of one that could escape a backlash against this type of honesty, but in this case the band in question is the Manic Street Preachers and their career is basically built around the combination of honestly and shoot-your-mouth-off boldness. It's a credit to the band that they escape — and indeed, transcend — any accusation of 'selling out', but it's also unsurprising given a look at their 18 year back-catalogue, which is partly based around the type of grainy, acetic and often aggressive tunes that were never designed for radio. The band acknowledged this head-on with 2009's Journal For Plague Lovers — the second best epitome of this after The Holy Bible — from which they didn't even release any singles. Read more →