• ‘168 Songs of Hatred and Failure: A History of Manic Street Preachers’ by Keith Cameron. •
• Published by White Rabbit on 11 September 2025. •
•••
“Two singles and ten million column inches of the music press – Manic Street Preachers time at Heavenly Recordings was fast, focused and a hell of a lot of fun. The Manics were the first curveball signing to what was then thought of as a post acid house record label, a band who immediately forced a reaction from audiences and media alike and clearly revelled in the space they created. Although Heavenly’s time with them was always going to be short, they’ve remained hugely supportive to this day (check their recent re-recording of Spectators of Suicide with Gwenno for Heavenly’s Believe in Magic book). Keith Cameron’s Manics book 168 Songs of Hatred and Failure takes name inspiration from the band’s first Heavenly single Motown Junk and allows the band’s James Dean Bradfield and Nicky Wire to pore over the Manics’ career through their songs. Part reflective biography, part hand scrawled route map for kids starting out, this is the best book about a British rock’n’roll band in years.“
•••
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 – all in the name of what Nicky Wire himself calls ‘the fabulous disaster’ of Manic Street Preachers.
•••
• PRE-ORDER • ‘Songs of Hatred and Failure’ via our Heavenly Bandcamp Store. • Published on September 11th by White Rabbit Books.
This special edition, only available via select record stores and signed by all three members of the band (James Dean Bradfield, Sean Moore and Nicky Wire) and author Keith Cameron, will feature alternate cover artwork and come housed in a bespoke slipcase. Limited edition of 1500.