168 Songs of Hatred and Failure: A History of Manic Street Preachers

Special Edition: Signed by the Band and Author, Exclusive Postcard, Bespoke Slipcase, Alternative Cover Art

The story of Manic Street Preachers is unique in pop. Raging out of the stricken mining
communities of south Wales in the late 80s, they were bonded by friendships, family ties and a self-styled "geometry of contempt", whereby James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore would orchestrate the daring intellectual broadsides written by Richey Edwards and Nicky Wire.

Seemingly condemned to mere cult status by a cruel juncture of artistic triumph, commercial failure and personal despair, the story took an agonising twist when the tragedy of Edwards' 1995 disappearance was followed by a remarkable rebirth built upon "A Design For Life's" hymn to the band's working-class roots, and then the award-winning, multi-million-selling album Everything Must Go, a majestic soundtrack to history and loss.

Less than five years later, Manic Street Preachers played to 60,000 at the national stadium of Wales and had their second UK Number 1 single. Subsequent output has confirmed the band as both a wellspring of restless creativity and a barometer of the cultural conversation.

Because it was music that saved them, it's through the prism of their music that Keith
Cameron tells the definitive history of Manic Street Preachers, drawing on many hours of new interviews to dive deep into 168 songs, from 1988's debut single "Suicide Alley" to the late day peaks of 2025's album Critical Thinking. Writing with the band's full co-operation, his book charts the dynamic evolution of a universe in which Karl Marx and Kylie Minogue happily co-exist, that accords Rush and The Clash equal favour, and where Morrissey & Marr meet Torvill & Dean via Nietzsche and New Order in a single four-minute pop song –The story of Manic Street Preachers is unique in pop.

Nicky Wire, of Manic Street Preachers, said: ‘No one understands the inner workings and shared aesthetics of Manic Street Preachers like Keith Cameron: the humour, the misery, the eternal doubt, the culture-alienation-boredom and despair. This book illuminates thirty- five years of songwriting history with immense skill, expert research, dedication and boundless patience. The art of writing about music and words is dying – the alchemy, the influences, the inexplicable accidents, the capacity songs have to transcend the people who wrote them; I’d like to think that art survives in this phenomenal book.’