About

Manic Street Preachers’ masterpiece, The Holy Bible was so much more than just a rock album. In a musical landscape in which grunge was reaching the end of its glory days and Britpop was on the rise, it was an anomaly and an education, a reading list, a warning from history.

It offered art appreciation, political studies, and sent so many of us running into the arms of Sylvia Plath, George Orwell and JG Ballard, scouring local libraries for the authors and novels it referenced. It offered kinship, a haven of deep thought and raw, often uncomfortable honesty that acknowledged the emotional struggles and political questioning that come as part and parcel of the teenage experience. As the boorish laddishness of bands like Oasis began to take over, to some of us it was not just welcome, it was essential. – Louder Sound