Track Listing

1. Design For Life
2. Motorcycle Emptiness
3. If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next
4. La Tristesse Durera (Scream To A Sigh)
5. There By The Grace Of God
6. You Love Us
7. Australia
8. You Stole The Sun From My Heart
9. Kevin Carter
10. Tsunami
11. Masses Against The Classes
12. From Despair To Where
13. Door To The River
14. Everything Must Go
15. Faster
16. Little Baby Nothing
17. MASH (Suicide Is Painless)
18. So Why So Sad
19. Everlasting
20. Motown Junk

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23097 in Music
• Released on: 2002-10-28
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
It's been a long, hard career for the Manic Street Preachers, from busking in Cardiff to losing a guitarist (Richey Edwards) and winning awards; but somehow the band survived. Forever Delayed is the long-overdue collection of their best songs, spanning the course of their turbulent career. This was always going to be a weak collection--not because of any shortcomings in their singles material, but because they've always been about something bigger than mere singles. They produced not so much concept albums, but albums of concept, presented as completed works of art. As such, removing any songs from their original context is to immediately weaken them.

It shows their career progression clearly--from the dark places of avant-garde The Holy Bible (the Richey album) to the critical and commercial high point of the era-defining Everything Must Go (the without Richey album) and the ensuing struggle with how to proceed musically. The loss of Edwards had an obvious effect, but wasn't immediately indicative of an artistic decline. Only when they tried to revert to their roots did they come unstuck without him (2001's Know Your Enemy). Their commercial and artistic high points rarely combined, but to produce a collection from this period is to do the Manics a great injustice--even if it does have "Motown Junk" on it. --Ben Johncock

CD Description
'Forever Delayed' culls the most popular tracks from the Manic Street Preachers' first six studio albums. From their Clash-influenced, hard rock material of the early 1990's to their arena filling chart friendly rock of the new century - their whole career is covered by this release. It features noless than ten UK top ten singles, including the no.1's 'If You Tolerate This...' and 'The Masses Against The Classes'.

Customer Reviews

James, I just hope you can forgive them....
....but why is this being panned for entirely the wrong reasons? Before even venturing an opinion, this is a "Greatest Hits". A 'best of' album would be a six-disc epic of all the albums. And any Manic's song plucked randomly from each of the different sounding albums would be out of place on its own.

The album itself for me, as a Manic's fan, represents a good starting block for anyone who wants to get into them but isn't sure what they prefer-the six albums comprise of early glam punk, slick rock, despair, regeneration, mainstream lighter waving emotion and a nostaligic return to punk. It is worth listening to the songs and deciding which era you prefer.

Whatever era you listen too, the Manic's never fail to hit you lyrically and this is expressed in the songs on here. No matter what your background, lifestyle or age, there is one song or lyric for everyone. 'A Design For Life' is majestic, a sweeping tirade of life for the working classes with a brilliant video. 'Motorcycle Emptiness' is probably the best teen theme since 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' only far bleaker and intelligent and 'Tolerate' is the best song ever written about the Spanish Civil War (other candidates on a postcard please). 'La Tristessa' is weak musically in my book, but lyrically quite hot. 'Grace Of God' is sombre, brooding and elegant and a return to form for the Manics who should have never tried to grasp hold of their past again, and the same can be said for 'Door To The River' and 'The Everlasting'. 'Faster' is furious, self pitying and a peep through the keyhole into Richey's mentality and the bands early sentiments are rammed into the doubters faces with the storming 'You Love Us'. Elsewhere, 'Tsunami' and 'Stole The Sun' are stadium rock with anthemic choruses; "I love you all the same" is often bellowed by crowds at their live shows, and 'Little Baby Nothing' is bizarre glam acoustic feminism with Traci Lords. This leaves the intimate letter to the fan 'Everything Must Go', the angry and loud 'Motown Junk', the tribute to the late-photographer 'Kevin Carter', the Clash-combat rock 'Suicide Is Painless', the Beach Boys-esque 'So Why So Sad' and the strange hybrid of 'A Design For Life' and a nasty version of 'Everything Must Go' called 'Masses Against The Classes', complete with James scream. The remixes are nothing to shout about frankly and a collection of live songs would have been much better.

'Forever Delayed' is often hypocritical. It is a 'Best Of' but 'Let Robeson Sing', 'Found That Soul' and 'Ocean Spray' all charted higher than 'Motown Junk', but it is the bands digression as to which songs appear. As it happens, the inclusion of them would have probably made the album a tad top heavy towards the mainstream, so leaving them out created a balance. But in creating this balance it does create this effective timeline of their albums and styles. It also offers five songs that aren't on any album which is handy for Manics fans wanting to complete their collections. So go out, buy, listen and make your own mind up. You won't be disappointed.

Generation Terrorists: You Love Us, Little Baby Nothing, Motorcycle Emptiness
Gold Against The Soul: La Tristessa, From Despair To Where
The Holy Bible: Faster
Everything Must Go: A Design For Life, Kevin Carter, Everything Must Go
This Is My Truth: Tolerate, Tsunami, Everlasting
Know Your Enemy: So Why So Sad
One off singles/songs: Grace Of God (02), Door To The River (02), Masses (99), Suicide Is Painless (93), Motown Junk (91)

The Concise Manic Street Preachers
Forever Delayed is OK. It essentially compiles the Manics' most accessible singles but its trump card is that a quarter of the twenty songs have never previously been available on any album. I don't have a problem with the tracklisting. There's a time a place for everything, and the place for The Intense Humming Of Evil isn't on a Greatest Hits. I also think that the 'radio anthem' side of the Manics isn't celebrated enough, and it's telling that their most cherished song Motorcycle Emptiness feels totally at home snuggled up to You Stole The Sun From My Heart and Australia.

The main flaw with the collection is that they've had to edit quite a lot of the tracks to fit all twenty on. In some instances this means including the radio edits, in others the radio edits have been edited (!). This lets it down, and it's also now two albums out of date, so hopefully one day we'll get a more comprehensive Manics primer. I like the format of the Pet Shop Boys compilation Pop Art, with one disc containing their big radio anthems and the other gathering together their more 'arty' side. It would work well for the Manics - a band who can never please everyone.

Great Collection of Singles
For someone relatively new to MSP (first picked up on them in 2000), but more recently familiar with the Richey-era, "Forever Delayed" makes a great starting point for anyone curious about the band. If I had followed the band from very early in the nineties, I would probably also bemoan the lack of songs from "The Holy Bible" in favor of the "Everything Must Go" and "This Is My Truth" period. Just the same, this collection provides a good balance of past and present. Besides, it's not as if the beautiful "Motorcycle Emptiness" had been left off the running order. Even the tracks from the misguided mess "Know Your Enemy" fit fine here, though I'd have to agree with several reviews that "Ocean Spray" and "Let Robeson Sing" would have been welcome. The best surprise, though, would be "There By The Grace Of God", a fantastic single that shows the band could be back on the upswing.