Manic Street Preachers: People Ruin Paintings

Reviewed By Paul Taggart

The Manic Street Preachers new single is called ‘People Ruin Paintings’. I can ruin a painting before I even start on one, I can’t even paint a wall but that’s beside the point. The abstract artists Pollock and Rothko are name checked in this third advance single taken from the forthcoming album but musically there is very little abstract about this tune from the veteran Welsh band. It is typical widescreen bravado from the Manics, riding a lilting guitar riff and an anthemic chorus punctuated by a spiralling guitar solo from James Dean Bradfield’s seemingly endless repertoire of guitar hero noises. Nicky Wire even manages a catchy little bass part, in between providing the song’s lyrics.

The song lyrically seems to address what truth is, clashing with declared human viewpoints in this age of social media. It is addressed in a typical smarty-pants Nicky Wire way, so I could be reading too much into lines like, “I just don’t care about the framing/Cos people always ruin paintings”. Sometimes his lyrics can be well intentioned but somewhat ham-fisted in delivery. On the whole, this is well written, I especially like “Take Van Gogh, leave us the sunflowers.”

‘People Ruin Paintings’ is a typical late-era anthem from the Manic Street Preachers but is far superior to the last two rather dreary tracks released. It doesn’t reinvent their wheel but since the band are pretty set in their ways now  there is not anything  particularly wrong with such a fact.

“People Ruin Paintings” is out now.

The new album “Critical Thinking” is out at the end of the month