Music
So in the end they didn't split up after their first album, and if, as is expected, 2002 sees the end of the Manic Street Preachers it will be an uncharacteristically formulaic farewell. Here are presented the greatest hits, the best moments of a career that has captured the imagination of music lovers everywhere (except possibly America). Surely then this album is beyond reproach...it has to be fantastic doesn't it? Doesn't it?...
Music: Dead band beats live
Now that Morrissey is back, what does this mean to me? It means that I am more in tune with irony. Tonight, Flawed have a little irony. Echoboy, probably from supporting 'margin walkers' Six By Seven have way too much. And Puressence, possibly by virtue of their tautologous name, have none. In reverse order then, the Manc miserabilists end up in their darker moments sounding like po-faced Depeche Mode imitators, when even La Mode knew they were hamming it up. In their rockier moments they dare to bare, and end up like a punkier Oasis. Every song (count them, there are lots) is a rousing verse-chorus-verse construction. I liked it, it's hard not to. But buy it? Nooo....
Music: Topman is top, man
Oxford, it must be admitted, has little to offer the more discerningly style-conscious male peacock. There is no H&M in which to purchase a delectable pair of flat-fronted lounge slacks, Littlewoods has replaced its line of golfer-motifed burgundy v-necks with a yuletide stud of all-weather plastic reindeer, and DNA has long since abandoned its half-shop flirtation with Abraham and his seed. In this barren wasteland, Topman stands alone, a beacon of light, a paradise for the undergraduate fashionmeister. Here, the latest trends are free to hang alongside those all-time faves. Perennially popular classics jostle for space on the highly polished chrome rails with items of pseudo-catwalk chic. ...
