Manics Top 50s - 28th February 2015

It's great to see that, apart from the last chart, all of the contributors so far (including a couple not yet blogged) are new participants, it bodes well for increasing our overall total!

Today's chart sees a number one that hasn't yet had that particular accolade as yet and as mentioned in the first 'additional comments by the author' section below it's quite evenly spread across the albums.

Today's blog feels like an opportune moment to mention my own chart endeavours.  I will of course be submitting my own top 50 in due course, but I'm not stopping there.  I'm extending my chart to include ALL of the eligible songs, yes, all 307 of them.  Only the top 50 will get a score for the overall chart of course, but it will definitely be interesting attempting to rank all of the songs!!  I can't say yet when my chart will be complete but rest assured there will be a full Twitter countdown in chunks of 25!  If any of you stay awake that long, that is.......

Stunned Fox (via email)

"This has ended up rather more evenly spread between eras than I anticipated... I first came across "New Chart Riot" about a week after the first chart was compiled, so I'm glad to have the opportunity to contribute this time around. Hopefully "Epicentre" can, if nothing else, crack the top 100 - criminally underrated track and definitely my favourite Manics tune."

Stunned Fox Top 50

1. Epicentre

2. If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next

3. Motown Junk

4. Faster

5. Some Kind of Nothingness

6. I Live To Fall Asleep

7. Ready For Drowning

8. Mausoleum

9. Little Baby Nothing

10. You're Tender and You're Tired 

11. Solitude Sometimes Is

12. This is Yesterday

13. Door to the River

14. PCP

15. Doors Closing Slowly

16. Golden Platitudes

17. Roses in the Hospital

18. Black Dog on my Shoulder

19. Archives of Pain

20. Sepia

21. This Sullen Welsh Heart

22. All is Vanity

23. Broken Up Again

24. Let Robeson Sing

25. Dreaming a City (Hughesovka)

26. Kevin Carter

27. Walk Me to the Bridge

28. Jackie Collins Existential Question Time

29. Interiors (Song for Willem de Kooning)

30. The Year of Purification

31. A Design for Life

32. ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart

33. Rewind the Film

34. 1985

35. Australia

36. Of Walking Abortion

37. Running Out of Fantasy

38. La Tristesse Durera (Scream to a Sigh)

39. Imperial Bodybags

40. Empty Motorcade

41. A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun

42. A Song For Departure

43. Freedom of Speech Won't Feed My Children

44. Nobody Loved You

45. Misguided Missile

46. Life Becoming a Landslide

47. The Everlasting

48. Let's Go To War

49. Motorcycle Emptiness

50. To Repel Ghosts

By Era

Generation Terrorists 3

Gold Against the Soul 3

The Holy Bible 7

Everything Must Go 5

This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours 6

Know Your Enemy 4

Lifeblood 5

Send Away the Tigers 1

Journal for Plague Lovers 3

Postcards From a Young Man 4

Rewind the Film 3

Futurology 5

Others 1

Manics Top 50s - 24th February 2015

It's early days yet in the Manics Top 50 process, but our second chart is from a returning special guest contributor from last time.  In fact, even though it wasn't something I had explicitly mentioned in the rules, for anyone who compiled their chart last time there is the perfectly valid option of simply resubmitting that entry with no new changes and that's the case here.

After earlier success in TV and in print, Dominik Diamond now has a career in radio in Canada and after immersing himself in the local music scene isn't quite as familiar with the newer material as the rest of us, hence their non-appearance here.  So with this resubmission we get a chart heavily weighted towards the first two albums and early material in general, which has been a feature in these early charts (including one yet to appear on the blog).  Thanks again to Dominik for supporting the blog.

But with many of us still thinking about knuckling down to tackle our charts it's still early days and I'm sure the later songs will pick up their fair share of votes.  In fact, after last time, will we manage to get a 100% turn-out in votes from all of the album tracks again?  The last no-vote album track managed to find its way into the last chart about 20 minutes before the deadline, thus completing the set, so let's see if we have a repeat (pun intended) this time!!

Dominik Diamond @DominikDiamond

1. Motorcycle Emptiness

2. Motown Junk

3. New Art Riot

4. From Despair to Where

5. ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart

6. Yes

7. You Love Us

8. Little Baby Nothing

9. Patrick Bateman

10. Roses in the Hospital

11. Life Becoming a Landslide

12. Sleepflower

13. La Tristesse Durera (Scream to a Sigh)

14. Suicide is Painless (Theme from MASH)

15. The Drowners

16. PCP

17. Slash N' Burn

18. Nat West - Barclays - Midlands - Lloyds

19. Revol

20. Love's Sweet Exile

21. Let Robeson Sing

22. Another Invented Disease

23. Stay Beautiful

24. So Dead

25. Born to End

26. Suicide Alley

27. Yourself

28. She is Suffering

29. You're Tender and You're Tired

30. Australia 

31. Repeat

32. Of Walking Abortion

33. No Surface All Feeling

34. Everything Must Go

35. Ocean Spray

36. Nostalgic Pushead

37. So Why So Sad

38. Tennessee

39. Symphony of Tourette

40. Gold Against the Soul

41. Spectators of Suicide

42. Your Love Alone is Not Enough

43. A Design for Life

44. Drug Drug Druggy

45. Damn Dog 

46. Crucifix Kiss

47. Methadone Pretty

48. Condemned to Rock 'n' Roll

49. Donkeys

50. Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head

By Era

Generation Terrorists 21

Gold Against the Soul 12

The Holy Bible 7

Everything Must Go 5

This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours 1

Know Your Enemy 3

Lifeblood 0

Send Away the Tigers 1

Journal for Plague Lovers 0

Postcards From a Young Man 0

Rewind the Film 0

Futurology 0

Others 0

Manics Top 50s - 23rd February 2015

Well, after being up and running for a day we already had our first entries last night and while one of the entries ponders over some accompanying text to go with his chart who better to kick things off than someone I'm sure everyone with an interest in this blog is familiar with - John Slatex aka Manic Street Mania!!!

Big thanks to MSM for ongoing support for the blog with retweets, mentions and facebook posts as always, I'm sure we're all intrigued to see his selections and I'm glad he could find some spare time in amongst everything else Manics-related to contribute.  Keep up the great work!!!

As with the charts last time, the 'By Era' summary appears below each entry, giving a guide as to which albums people may lean towards and which ones may be lower down the personal pecking order.  Of course they can be misleading if your top 3 are from one album and 41 to 50 are from another but it's intended as a rough guide.

There's loads of time to submit before the May 31st deadline, so whether you go for the spur of the moment, how you feel right now approach or the going through everything with a fine tooth comb method (and all points in between) we can gradually keep feeding through your selections as they appear.  Have fun compiling!

Manic Street Mania @manicstmania
1. Yes
2. Motorcycle Emptiness
3. A Design for Life
4. PCP
5. If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next
6. So Dead
7. Faster
8. You Love Us
9. La Tristesse Durera (Scream to a Sigh)
10. Motown Junk
11. Patrick Bateman
12. The Convalescent
13. Under My Wheels
14. A Vision of Dead Desire
15. You're Tender and You're Tired
16. Little Baby Nothing
17. Small Black Flowers that Grow in the Sky
18. No Surface All Feeling
19. Sorrow 16
20. Stay Beautiful
21. From Despair to Where
22. Roses in the Hospital
23. Quarantine (In My Place of)
24. All is Vanity
25. Ocean Spray
26. Sleepflower
27. 4st 7lb
28. Suicide is Painless (Theme from MASH)
29. The Girl Who Wanted to be God
30. Golden Platitudes
31. Everything Must Go
32. Archives of Pain
33. Dead Martyrs
34. Die in the Summertime
35. Ready for Drowning
36. Empty Souls
37. Me and Stephen Hawking
38. Love's Sweet Exile
39. Further Away
40. Of Walking Abortion
41. Prologue to History
42. Nobody Loved You
43. Never Want Again
44. ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart
45. Tsunami
46. Mr Carbohydrate
47. Removables
48. Enola/Alone
49. Mausoleum
50. The Last Time I Saw Paris

By Era
Generation Terrorists 12
Gold Against the Soul 5
The Holy Bible 9
Everything Must Go 9
This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours 6
Know Your Enemy 3
Lifeblood 2
Send Away the Tigers 0
Journal for Plague Lovers 2
Postcards From a Young Man 1
Rewind the Film 0
Futurology 1
Others 0

Manics Top 50 is back!!!!!!

Some of you may remember the original Manics Top 50s from summer 2013 where 62 of us locked ourselves away and deliberated for days, weeks and months over what to include, what to leave out and the vital battle of what would be your number 1 Manics song.  Some of you weren't around at that time and have been regularly asking when it will make a return, especially given there have been two further albums and associated B-sides since then.  Well here it is!!!

In summer 2013 Rewind the Film was only just starting to seep into our consciousness via the title track and then Show Me the Wonder, both of which were selected even at that early stage by some people.  And Futurology also came along shortly after, loved by many, to suggest an even further shake-up in the running order of the chart this time around.

But how many of the new songs will push their way through?  Will they trouble the older classics in the higher echelons of the chart?  Wherever your loyalties lie, the only way to affect the outcome is by sitting down, re-listening to the back catalogue (a chore I know...any excuse) and compiling your chart.  This time you also get the opportunity of writing about your choices and your own personal Manics journey if you wish, see the rules below.

As my fellow Manics blog buddy JamGaw (@starsfrighten) has been valiantly flying the flag through the B-side Battle and the Ultimate Manics Album, hopefully we have many more new Manics Family members joining the core voters from last time.  The aim is therefore to break the 62 barrier and make it even bigger than last time, not to mention statistically more reliable.  So spread the word, grab all your Manics-loving friends and get voting!!!!

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If you're taking part in selecting your 50 favourite Manics songs then it's obviously predominantly all about fun and revisiting all of the albums, B-sides etc. to make your choices!  But, for consistency, we need a few rules just so we're all working the same way.

The Rules!

• Each chart contains 50 songs, in order of preference from 1 to 50 (the ordering is important as scoring for the overall fans' chart at the end will depend on this - see below***).
• Each selection will be based on songs rather than versions.  Therefore 'You Love Us', 'Spectators of Suicide' etc. appear once only regardless of which version you prefer.
• Live tracks can be included if they have appeared on an official release, for example as a B-side, but don't have a corresponding studio version e.g. 'It's So Easy'.
• Cover versions are perfectly valid entries.
• Remixes are not included as they are other artists' interpretations of Manics songs.
• Solo tracks by James or Nicky are not included.
• Guest appearances by any Manics member under another band's name are not included.
• Songs released on bootlegs are not included (most will be covered by the above anyway).
• For a full list of valid entries go here (and do let me know if you think I'm missing any!!).

Submitting your Entry

Once you have your final 50, participants are encouraged to count down from 50 to 1 in true chart style on Twitter for a lively debate with your followers!!  If you do this, put your own personal hashtag against each entry (e.g. #ManicsTop50IanL) and let me know @Pyfbrown so that I can compile and publish your chart.  Each entry will go up on this blog with your Twitter name for anyone that misses the countdown to study and critique!!

However, if you would rather blog your own chart, make it into an artistic piece (like with some of the fantasy setlists) or just send me your chart without counting down on Twitter in this way that's fine too, you can send it to me at pyf78 @ hotmail . com (obviously remove the spaces, just trying to beat the spammers!).

This time, you can also have the opportunity (if you wish) of talking about your top 50.  After a lot of entries last time it was kind of difficult for me to find anything new to say in the blog the longer it went on, so it's over to you.  Alongside your chart you can let me know the thoughts behind your choices, at what point in their story you were first introduced to the Manics, favourite albums, reminiscences about seeing them live, meeting them etc.  Bear in mind that you may be sharing your blog entry with others so a few paragraphs will suffice, but we want to hear YOUR truth!

Alternatively you may find that compiling a chart is just too hard, or you just don't have the time, as some did last time.  No problem, you can write a small piece detailing your Manics history and why ordering them was just too difficult and you can have your say even if your vote isn't included!

The deadline for entries to be considered for the overall fans' chart is May 31st 2015. But if you don't hit the deadline feel free to still compile your chart!!  All this means is your chart won't be considered when compiling the Unofficial Manics Fans Favourite Songs!!  Happy ordering!!



***Scoring will be on the basis of 50 points for a number 1, 49 for a number 2, all the way down to 1 point for number 50.  The scores from each entry will be added together to produce the overall chart.