9 Times Manic Street Preachers Proved They Were The Most Exciting Band On The Planet
9. They Told Us We Loved Them, Even If We Didn't
In their earliest days, confidence oozed out of every pore of every member of Manic Street Preachers. In a letter to Melody Maker in 1990 they wrote: "We just wanna be the most important reference point of the Nineties. That's all." They said they wanted debut album Generation Terrorists to sell 16 million copies from Bangkok to Senegal and then they'd split up.
They grandstanded for fun, and one of their most pointed examples of this is You Love Us, the band's second single, and one which Nicky Wire called their mission statement. Their voices were for real, the song said, and it even managed to fit in a Public Enemy reference with the line "You better wake up and smell the real flavour".
It was a clarion call for fans, and two fingers to their detractors and critics. It said: you can pretend you dont like us, but we know you really do. In fact, you love us!