Sony
2002
Forever Delayed (The Greatest Hits)
About This Album
Manic Street Preachers have always been a band of very specific charms, something that has not translated outside of the U.K. particularly well. Although it boasts a generous 20 tracks, the 2002 compilation Forever Delayed isn't likely to change that situation, even if it has the lion's share of their big singles, since a band devoted to sloganeering doesn't play outside of their province, or era, without some knowledge of their context. Plus, it's bewilderingly sequenced -- not chronologically, not as a set list, not with the hits loaded toward the front but as if you had all six albums on shuffle play on your CD carousel -- this disc careens between its 20 songs, occasionally gaining momentum through its juxtapositions (the opening one-two punch of "A Design for Life" and "Motorcycle Emptiness" captures the essence of the two phases of the band) but more often illustrating the extreme difference in the band during the Richey James Edwards and post-Richey eras. And though they certainly don't avoid Richey -- his face is on the cover, he provides the subtext of the band's entire career -- they do submerge the unsettling The Holy Bible, a record as nakedly honest and disturbing as In Utero, by just including one song, "Faster," from what is surely their best album.
Track List

Disc 1 (try tracks 2,6,7,12,15,17 and 20)

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Disc 2

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