Know Your Enemy (Manic Street Preachers album)

Background

The album features Nicky Wire's debut as a lead vocalist, on the track "Wattsville Blues", and James Dean Bradfield's debut as a lyricist, on "Ocean Spray". Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine plays guitar on the album's final track.

The left-wing political convictions of the Manic Street Preachers are apparent in many of the album's songs, such as "Baby Elián" as they comment on the strained relations between the United States and Cuba as seen in the Elián González affair, a hot topic around the album's release. The band also pays tribute to singer and Civil Rights activist Paul Robeson in the song "Let Robeson Sing".

About the political side of the record Wire spoke in an interview about the subject: "Unfortunately it was four years before everyone else got interested in politics. It took everyone else a war. Where have these people been the last four years? Forty years? American foreign policy's never changed. There's a track called 'Freedom Of Speech Won't Feed My Children' about forcing freedom on societies that says everything we ever needed to say." Wire also described the album as "a deeply flawed, highly enjoyable folly".

Musically, the album departs from the arena rock sound of their previous two albums for a bigger and more abrasive rock sound. The album also features influences from various genres. On the album's diverse sound Pitchfork Media stated that "Know Your Enemy finds the Manics attempting to write a protest song in just about every genre." The punk rock-influenced "riotous" sound of the tracks "Found That Soul", "Intravenous Agnostic" and "Dead Martyrs" attribute influences to Sonic Youth and Joy Division. Tracks such as "The Year of Purification" and "Epicentre" foray to a R.E.M.-indebted jangle-pop style. The tracks "So Why So Sad" and "Miss Europa Disco Dancer" were described as "a Beach Boys homage" and "a disco parody," respectively. The tracks My Guernica", "His Last Painting" and "The Convalescent" were also described as "dark, marching and charging post-punk anthems."

It is the longest album released by the Manic Street Preachers, as it is slightly longer than their debut Generation Terrorists.

Release

Know Your Enemy was released on 19 March 2001. The album debuted and peaked on number 2 in the UK Album Chart, it spent a total of 16 weeks in the charts. In Ireland the album reached number 5, and around the world it was pretty successful, it peaked in number 3 on Finland, remaining 5 weeks in the Finnish charts, number 6 in Denmark number 7 in Sweden, and number 8 in Norway and in Greece. Also in Germany, Belgium and in Australia it charted within the top 20.

Four singles were released, Found That Soul and So Why So Sad were released on the same day, the other two Ocean Spray and Let Robeson Sing were released later. All the four singles charted within the Top 20 in the UK Singles Chart.

The album has reached the Top 10 in seven countries, it peaked at number 5 in the European charts and since its release on March 2001 Know Your Enemy has sold more than one million copies worldwide.

Reception

Critical response to Know Your Enemy has been generally mixed: even if the album received positive comments, it also received some negative ones. At Metacritic which gives a normalised rating out of 100, the album holds a score of 57, that indicates "average reviews".

Robert Christgau gave the album a two-star honorable mention, calling it "punk propaganda poppified" and citing "Ocean Spray" and "Let Robeson Sing" as highlights.

Victoria Segal from the NME gave a positive review to the album and wrote: (...) "'Know Your Enemy' sees them scrabbling for some of that early freedom, catapulting themselves back to a time when their minds could only just keep pace with their lipsticked mouths and they had all the establishment credentials of a red light district. It's a dangerous mission, returning to the scene of your earliest triumphs is a textbook example of the fool's errand."

Pitchfork Media described the album as "provocative, well-done, but not quite focused enough to take the listener anywhere in particular."

Mojo called the album "such a sprawling, unwieldy beast that the instrumental hooks take time to emerge."

A negative review came from Rolling Stone, which wrote "nowhere amidst all the confusion is there even a worthwhile tune to be salvaged", calling it "hideously dull".

Track listing

All lyrics written by Nicky Wire, except "Ocean Spray", by James Dean Bradfield; all music composed by Bradfield and Sean Moore, except "We Are All Bourgeois Now", written by Tim Gane, Malcolm Eden, John Williamson and Gary Baker.