The great Manic Street Preachers songbook

First came the “mess of eyeliner and spray paint” and lyricist Richey Edwards carving “4 real” into his arm. Next there was the second album that was never supposed to exist, followed by a third, an uncompromising exploration into humanity’s darkest impulses, and the disappearance of Edwards, who had suffered from severe depression. Then, most unlikely of all, mainstream success: number one singles, an Ivor Novello award and a sold-out stadium gig on the eve of the new millennium.

But what about the music itself? Manic Street Preachers, formed in south Wales in 1986, released their 15th album earlier this year. But have they earned their longevity? Is anything after that first decade worth hearing?

Keith Cameron’s biography of sorts attempts to answer these questions by analysing 168 tracks from throughout the band’s career – 168 being the number of seconds cited in breakthrough single Motown Junk for which a pop song “stops your brain thinking”. But rather than masking the realities of working-class life, as the Manics believed the Detroit-based hitmakers did, their work is dense and provocative.

Cameron tries to make sense of it all in a book that takes its structure from Revolution in the Head Ian MacDonald’s song-by-song profile of the Beatles. That project was acclaimed by critics but criticised by Paul McCartney for containing what he saw as “received wisdom shit”; this one is free of conjecture thanks to the involvement of Manics’ bassist/lyricist Nicky Wire and singer/guitarist James Dean Bradfield.

Wire is the band’s familiar mouthpiece, but Bradfield is equally engaging and particularly perceptive when discussing the band’s formative influences, musical and political. As Cameron, a contributing editor at Mojo, explains in a pivotal chapter on A Design for Life: “Most of the dozen or so remaining collieries around [their home town] Blackwood… closed in the aftermath of the 1984-85 miners’ strike.” By the end of that decade, the Manics had recorded their debut single, Suicide Alley, “in what had been the swimming pool of a miners’ institute”. Bradfield cites the strike as the catalyst for forming a band: “[Having watched] our own defeat, on TV and in real life… we were trying to carve out something new for ourselves from the ruins around us: bad fashion, bad music and bad political decisions.”

But there is positivity too. “South Wales was like the Klondike,” says Bradfield. “Yes it was tough, but it shaped an identity and gave people pride.” And it instilled in the Manics a work ethic that led to Bradfield being in the studio for 14 hours a day, seven days a week during the recording of 1994’s The Holy Bible. No wonder Cameron argues that although the Manics’ masterpiece “has become intrinsically associated with Edwards’s philosophical vision, Bradfield was every bit as much its architect”.

After Edwards’s still unexplained disappearance in 1995, the circumstances of which are covered only briefly but respectfully, Wire becomes the driving force. He bristles at the band’s association with the “archness” of Britpop: “Greyhound racing!” he says, referring to the cover of Blur’s Parklife. “I’ve actually been greyhound racing, at fucking Bedwellty, and it’s shit.” Instead, he steers the band inwards.

Cameron suggests that Wire’s lyrical contributions to the band’s dense early songs are undervalued, but there is a notable shift to a more concise style after Edwards’s disappearance. Inevitably, the chapters covering the Manics’ post-Edwards output are shorter than those on the wordy patchworks of 1992’s Generation Terrorists and The Holy Bible, but they are no less illuminating. Reference points for deep cuts such as To Repel Ghosts (Basquiat and Simple Minds), 30-Year War (Lowry and The Red Flag) and Black Square (Malevich and Shostakovich) show that the Manics still find inspiration outside pop’s traditional sphere of influence.

Neither Bradfield nor Wire shy away from what they see as failures, but Cameron has chosen not to cover some of their more egregious missteps: Another Invented Disease, a badly misjudged jab at Aids; the dad-at-a-wedding funk of Miss Europa Disco Dancer. Still, those less familiar with the Manics’ post-90s output will come away with the sense that albums such as Futurology (2014) are at least the equal of their earlier work.

Another beneficiary of Cameron’s reappraisal is Postcards from a Young Man (2010), the band’s “last shot at mass communication”, which many see as a low point. A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun and Don’t Be Evil reveal a mistrust of Silicon Valley that was unfashionable at the time but now seems prescient. The album’s Queen-like title track, meanwhile, finds them raging against the dying of the light, fighting what Wire describes as “the realisation… that your voice is most of the time unnecessary or unlistened to”.

And while it’s true that the Manics’ audience is dwindling, their music remains relevant. As Cameron writes: “Anyone seeking to fathom today’s contemporary landscape of tech-dysfunction and resurgent fascist demagogues could do worse than sift these 168 songs for clues from history.” He has crafted the definitive account of this remarkable band’s discography to date – one that demands to be heard in full.

168 Songs of Hatred and Failure: A History of Manic Street Preachers by Keith Cameron is published by White Rabbit (£30). Order a copy from The Observer Shop for £27. Delivery charges may apply

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Photography of Manic Street Preachers in 1992 by Shinko Music/Getty Images