It took only a couple of hours on the ground in Berlin on September 12, near the Tiergarten and Zoo Station, amid the swirling leaves of a gusty, cool autumn day, to convince me that in spite of my best efforts at intellectual equilibrium, returning after a quarter-century to a place that occupies an almost mythical status in the narrative of my adulthood was going to be a deeply heartfelt, emotional experience.
And so it was. I had to grapple with it every minute, and try to wrestle these feelings to the ground. They wouldn’t let me. Two of Tony Judt's Euro history classics and a Berlin Wall book later, the aura’s still there. I can't shake it.
I’d been back to Berlin several times since the critical year of 1989 and my first (and only) look at the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), which came just a few months prior to its collapse. However, my last visit came in 1999, and of course, Berlin had changed immensely.
As it turns out, so had I.
In my life, transformative moments like these always are accompanied by ghosts and music, and as Diana and I took to the Berlin streets for a walkabout on the morning of arrival, phantoms were lounging on every historic corner, and music started playing in my head. The latter kept looping constantly for two solid days, as I suspected it might.
What better accompaniment to Berlin than Futurology, the 2014 album by the Manic Street Preachers, which was recorded partly in the city, and now feels as though it was performed precisely to serve as the sound track of my emotional return. For that reason, it’s my album of the year for 2014.
I began 2014 with a flurry of reading about World War I on its 100th anniversary, and these musings gradually yielded to thoughts about the post-WWII European “Great Power” settlement, which included two German states and a divided city of Berlin, this being the geopolitical status quo 25 years ago when I went there.
Meanwhile, it was announced that a new Manic Street Preachers album would be released, less than a year after the last one, and the advance word was encouraging. Concurrently, we began planning the September trip, and realized Berlin would be the perfect place to start.
Put it all together, and you’ll understand why I guessed Futurology would be my favorite album of the year before I’d even heard it for the first time.
Simon Price (at The Quietus) had the very same feeling.
The first sign that Rewind The Film's sister album would be a different proposition was, again, a visual one. Manics followers attuned to semiology would have spotted the clue when the ads started appearing in music magazines for the band's March/April 2014 tour, featuring that minimalist, pseudo-Soviet font with the backwards Rs from The Holy Bible (stolen, of course, from Simple Minds' aforementioned Empires And Dance), with a triptych of Wire-Bradfield-Moore photos underneath consciously echoing Jenny Saville's Strategy (South Face/Front Face/North Face) paintings, as used on that album. The message was clear, to anyone who wanted to read it: THAT version of the Manics was back, and Futurology was going to be one of THOSE albums.
And oh my god, it really is. There aren't many artists I can think of who are able to deliver something as vital as Futurology on their twelfth studio album. In fact, historically there's just one: David Bowie. And Bowie's twelfth was Heroes. Therefore it's fitting that the Manics actually used Hansa studios in Berlin, where both those albums were recorded, for their own twelfth effort.
According to John Garratt (PopMatters), reflection is nice, but introspective advocacy is even better.
Since it comes hot off the heels of Rewind the Film, it’s easy to think of Futurology as its sister album. It’s likely the songs were written right around the same time, but that’s about all of the similarities you can squeeze out of that pair. Rewind the Film was the album where the Manics’ protagonist poured himself a scotch on the rocks, sat down in his easy chair, and scanned his back story. He looked inward and realized that he missed the Tokyo skyline, reflective stuff like that. Now that Futurology has hit the present, the same man has vacated his chair, dumped the contents of his glass into the sink and left the house in a restless huff. He mutters to himself “What is wrong with everyone? What is wrong with me?”
Or, perhaps the finest review summary, by Joseph Viney at Sputnik Music: "He who controls the past controls the future."
History hangs over the Manic Street Preachers more than most bands.
Be it their combative early days, the disappearance of Richey Edwards or the strong body of work they’ve released while still in their erstwhile guitarist’s shadow, MSP have remained stalwarts of British music despite any number of accidental or self-imposed obstacles.
Their most recent records have leaned very heavily upon the concept of history and the self-imposed mythology that surrounds the Welsh trio. Journal For Plague Lovers in essence put the ghosts of Richey away in a box, Postcards From A Young Man spoke of a group of men coming to terms with the present while Rewind The Film was akin to a OST love letter to a life well lived.
But one of the reasons MSP remain so popular and vital is their steadfast refusal to rest on their laurels. Futurology wraps up the ideals of what has come before it, mixed it with their present experience and forged ahead with songs that demonstrate a group with a lot more life in them yet.
There’s plenty to be pleased about here.
Thanks for indulging my year in music. Verily, it was a fantastic musical year when it comes to the type of music Roger likes. Now, let's go to war and run for mayor.
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