The Holy Bible (album)
Encyclopedia
The Holy Bible is the third studio album by Welsh alternative rock band Manic Street Preachers
. It was released on 29 August 1994 by Epic Records
and was the last of the band's albums released before the disappearance of lyricist and guitarist Richey Edwards (credited as "Richey James" on the album sleeve), on 1 February 1995.
Edwards was severely struggling with depression, alcohol abuse
, self-harm
and anorexia nervosa
at the time the album was written and recorded, and its contents are considered by many sources to reflect his mental state. The songs focus on themes relating to politics and human suffering.
The album won widespead critical acclaim, and is frequently cited as one of the greatest albums ever made. It has been described by the NME
as "a work of genuine genius". Although it reached number six on the UK albums charts, global sales were disappointing compared to previous albums, and the record did not chart in mainland Europe or North America. The album was promoted with tours and festival appearances in the UK, Ireland and mainland Europe, in part without Edwards.
An expanded 10th Anniversary Edition of the album was released in 2004.
, the band felt it had been "going a bit astray" with its previous album, 1993's Gold Against the Soul
, and so the approach to the follow-up was for the band to go back to its "grass roots" and rediscover "a little bit of Britishness that we lacked". Singer and guitarist James Dean Bradfield
recalls the band feeling it had become "a bit too rockist ... we had lost our direction". The band stopped listening to American rock music and returned to influences that had inspired them when they first formed, including Magazine
, Wire
, The Skids
, PiL
, Gang of Four
and Joy Division
.
Epic Records
had proposed that the album be recorded in Barbados
, but the band had wanted to avoid what Bradfield called "all that decadent rockstar rubbish". It was bassist Nicky Wire
's idea, says Bradfield, that the band "should not use everything at its disposal" in recording the album. Instead, recording began with sound engineer Alex Silva at the low-rent, "absolutely tiny" Sound Space Studios
in Cardiff
. The album was mixed by Mark Freegard, who had previously worked with The Breeders
. "She Is Suffering" was produced by Steve Brown. The recording took four weeks.
Bradfield has described the recording of the album as preventing him from having a social life and Alex Silva attributes the break-up of his relationship with his girlfriend at the time to the long hours involved in the recording. Guitarist Richey Edwards attended recording sessions, but would, according to Wire, "collapse on the settee and have a snooze" while the other band members did all the recording. He was drinking heavily and frequently crying. "Inevitably," says Bradfield, "the day would start with a 'schhht!', the sound of a can opening."
The album was constructed with "academic discipline", according to Bradfield, with the band working to headings and structures "so each song is like an essay".
The album's lyrics deal with subjects including prostitution, American consumerism, British imperialism, freedom of speech, the Holocaust, self-starvation, serial-killers, political revolution, childhood, fascism and suicide. According to Q
: "the tone of the album is by turns bleak, angry and resigned". The same magazine commented in 1994 that "even a cursory glance at the titles will confirm that this is not the new Gloria Estefan
album".
Sean Moore has described the content of the lyrics as being "as far as Richey's character could go". According to Bradfield: "Some of the lyrics confused me. Some ... were voyeuristic and some were coming from personal experience ... I remember getting the lyrics to 'Yes' and thinking 'You crazy fucker, how do I write music for this?'". Critic Simon Price
notes that the potential radio-friendliness of the song is undermined by its focus on the subject of prostitution and the recurrence of sexual swearing in the lyric.
Interviewed at the time of the album's release, Nicky Wire said that the track "Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwouldfallapart" was "not a completely anti-American song" but was about "how the most empty culture in the world can dominate in such a total sense". "Of Walking Abortion" is about right-wing totalitarianism, of which Wire commented: "there's a worm in human nature that makes us want to be dominated". "Archives of Pain", dealing with the glorification of serial killers and seemingly advocating capital punishment
, he said, "was the song that me and Richey worried about most ... the song isn't a right wing statement, it's just against this fascination with people who kill". Later in 1994, Bradfield described the song as "one of the most important things we've done" but said it was also "very right-wing" and "miscalculated".
Wire described "Revol" as being about Edwards' idea that "relationships in politics, and relationships in general, are failures". "P.C.P.", he said, was about how "PC
followers take up the idea of being liberal, but end up being quite the opposite". He said that he was "completely confused" by "Faster" (most of which he had written), although Edwards had told him that it was about self-abuse.
"Mausoleum" and "The Intense Humming of Evil", Wire said, were both inspired by visits by the band to former concentration camps at Dachau and Belsen
. A first draft of the latter song had been considered insufficiently judgemental by Bradfield, who had asked for a re-write ("you can't be ambivalent about the Holocaust").
Wire said that "Die in the Summertime" and "4st 7lb" were "pretty obviously about Richey's state of mind". According to Edwards, the former song is about a pensioner wanting to die with memories of childhood in his mind. 4 stones (25.4011727 kg) is the weight below which death is reputed to become medically unavoidable for anorexics.
"This Is Yesterday", according to Wire, is "about how people always look back to their youth and look on it as a glorious period".
Wire and Bradfield have both expressed a disliking for the lyrics to the song "She Is Suffering
", Wire saying it suffers from "man coming to the rescue syndrome". According to Edwards, the "she" in the song title is desire: "In other Bibles and Holy Books no truth is possible until you empty yourself of desire".
While touring in early 1994, the band visited army surplus stores and bought clothing to wear on stage, in a homage to The Clash
. This military image was used consistently by the band during the promotion of The Holy Bible, including in their videos and television appearances. A performance of "Faster" on the BBC
's Top of the Pops
in June 1994 resulted in a record number of complaints—over 25,000—due to Bradfield wearing a paramilitary-style balaclava.
The album cover, designed by Richey Edwards while hospitalised, features a triptych
by Jenny Saville
depicting three perspectives on the body of an obese woman in her underwear, and titled Strategy (South Face/Front Face/North Face). Saville gave her permission for use of her work for free after a discussion with Edwards in which he described each song on the album. The back cover features a photo of the band in military uniforms and a quote taken from Octave Mirbeau
's book The Torture Garden
.
The lyrics booklet features various images including Christian iconography, photographs of the gate at Dachau concentration camp and a plan of the gas chambers at Belsen concentration camp, a photograph of Lenin's corpse, an engraving depicting an execution by guillotine
in Revolutionary France
, a picture of an apple, a photograph of a woman with a parasitic twin
, photographs of each of the Manic Street Preachers as children, a photograph of a group of British policemen in gas-masks. The booklet also contains a Buddhist saying from the Tripitaka
alongside a dedication to the band's publicist, Philip Hall. He had died in 1993.
The title The Holy Bible was chosen by Edwards to reflect an idea, according to Bradfield, that "everything on there has to be perfection". Interviewed at the end of 1994, Edwards said: "The way religions choose to speak their truth to the public has always been to beat them down ... I think that if a Holy Bible is true, it should be about the way the world is and that's what I think my lyrics are about. [The album] doesn't pretend things don't exist".
Richey Edwards had had long-term problems with alcohol abuse
, depression
and self-harm. During 1994, these problems had, according to Wire, "escalated to to a point where everybody got a bit frightened" and Edwards had also begun to suffer from anorexia nervosa
. During April and May, when the band played concerts in Thailand and Portugal, Edwards was habitually cutting himself and appeared onstage in Bangkok with self-inflicted wounds across his chest.
He talked openly in the music press about his problems, telling the NME
: "When I cut myself I feel so much better. All the little things that might have been annoying me seem so trivial because I'm concentrating on the pain" and "I'm the sort of person who wakes up in the morning and needs to pour a bottle down my throat".
His problems continued and, during the recording of the album, his mental state deteriorated when he learned of the suicide of a close friend from university. In July, he was taken to hospital after severely lacerating himself at home, then transferred to Whitchurch Hospital
, an NHS psychiatric facility in Cardiff. His weight had fallen to 6 stones (38.1 kg).
By the time of the album's release in late August 1994, Edwards was hospitalised at the private Priory Hospital
in Roehampton
. He rejoined the band to tour during the autumn of 1994. Other band members felt that his drinking was under control at this point, but his eating continued to be a problem and he continued to self-harm. On 1 February 1995, he disappeared and is presumed to have committed suicide.
The Holy Bible has been described by Q
as a "graphic, violent torrent of self-lacerating punk fury which infamously details the horrors in Richey Edwards' head".
saw The Holy Bible as primarily the work of James Dean Bradfield, saying "The Holy Bible isn't elegant, but it is bloody effective". Melody Maker
, seeing it as primarily the work of Richey Edwards, described it as "the sound of a group in extremis ... hurtling towards a private armageddon". Upon its re-release ten years later, the NME described it as "a work of genuine genius".
According to Stylus Magazine
: "The Holy Bible is easily one of the best albums of the 90s—ignored by many, but loved intensely by the few who’ve lived with it over the years ... It puts everything the Manics have done since to shame, not to mention nearly everything else". Rolling Stone
also reviewed the album positively: "even the pall of [Edwards'] absence can't cancel out the life-affirming force that hits you with the very first song".
In 2005, the record topped a BBC
Newsnight
viewers' poll as favourite album of all time. In 2000, it was voted by writers of Melody Maker as the 15th best album of all time. In 2001, it was voted by readers of Q as the 10th best album released during the magazine's lifetime and in 2003 as the 18th greatest album ever. In 2005, Kerrang!
placed it 10th in a list of the greatest rock albums ever.
The album peaked at number six on the British albums chart in 1994. This was seen by some as commercially disappointing, however. The record did not chart in mainland Europe or North America, although it reached number 50 in the Japanese chart.
at Brockwell Park
, London. In June, they played the Glastonbury Festival
.
In July and August, without Richey Edwards, they played T in the Park
in Scotland, the Alte Wartesaal in Cologne
, the Parkpop
Festvial in The Hague
and the Reading Festival. During September, October and December, there was a headline tour of the UK and Ireland and two tours in mainland Europe with Suede
and Therapy?
. In December, three nights at the London Astoria
ended with the band smashing up their equipment and the venue’s lighting rig, causing £26,000 worth of damage.
James Dean Bradfield and Richey Edwards were due to fly to the United States for media interviews on 1 February 1995, the day of Edwards' disappearance, and Bradfield ended up doing this alone. Concerts in US cities, as well as in Prague and Vienna, had been scheduled for March and April 1995, but were cancelled.
. Disc 1 comprised a digitally re-mastered version of the original album plus four live tracks. The DVD features an interview with the band, footage of TV and festival appearances and promo videos. The second CD includes a remix of the album by Tom Lord-Alge
. The remixed version had been intended for release in the US, but this never happened "for well-documented reasons", according to James Dean Bradfield. The band felt the second mix was superior to the version originally released. As Bradfield puts it: "For once we got something back from the American record company—who we despised—and it was brilliant".
: Digitally re-mastered original album and live tracks
CD 2: US album mix/Demos and radio sessions
DVD
Manic Street Preachers
Manic Street Preachers are a Welsh alternative rock band, formed in 1986. They are James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire, Richey Edwards and Sean Moore. The band are part of the Cardiff music scene, and were at their most prominent during the 1990s...
. It was released on 29 August 1994 by Epic Records
Epic Records
Epic Records is an American record label, owned by Sony Music Entertainment. Though it was originally conceived as a jazz imprint, it has since expanded to represent various genres. L.A...
and was the last of the band's albums released before the disappearance of lyricist and guitarist Richey Edwards (credited as "Richey James" on the album sleeve), on 1 February 1995.
Edwards was severely struggling with depression, alcohol abuse
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
, self-harm
Self-harm
Self-harm or deliberate self-harm includes self-injury and self-poisoning and is defined as the intentional, direct injuring of body tissue most often done without suicidal intentions. These terms are used in the more recent literature in an attempt to reach a more neutral terminology...
and anorexia nervosa
Anorexia nervosa
Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by refusal to maintain a healthy body weight and an obsessive fear of gaining weight. Although commonly called "anorexia", that term on its own denotes any symptomatic loss of appetite and is not strictly accurate...
at the time the album was written and recorded, and its contents are considered by many sources to reflect his mental state. The songs focus on themes relating to politics and human suffering.
The album won widespead critical acclaim, and is frequently cited as one of the greatest albums ever made. It has been described by the NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
as "a work of genuine genius". Although it reached number six on the UK albums charts, global sales were disappointing compared to previous albums, and the record did not chart in mainland Europe or North America. The album was promoted with tours and festival appearances in the UK, Ireland and mainland Europe, in part without Edwards.
An expanded 10th Anniversary Edition of the album was released in 2004.
Recording
According to drummer Sean MooreSean Moore (musician)
Sean Anthony Moore is the writer, drummer/percussionist and sometime trumpet player of the Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers.-Early years:...
, the band felt it had been "going a bit astray" with its previous album, 1993's Gold Against the Soul
Gold Against the Soul
Gold Against the Soul is the second album by Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers released on June 14, 1993.All lyrics were written by Nicky Wire and Richey James Edwards, all music was written by James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore.-Album overview:...
, and so the approach to the follow-up was for the band to go back to its "grass roots" and rediscover "a little bit of Britishness that we lacked". Singer and guitarist James Dean Bradfield
James Dean Bradfield
James Dean Bradfield is the lead guitarist and vocalist for the Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers.- Early life :...
recalls the band feeling it had become "a bit too rockist ... we had lost our direction". The band stopped listening to American rock music and returned to influences that had inspired them when they first formed, including Magazine
Magazine (band)
Magazine are an English post-punk group active from 1977 to 1981, then reformed in 2009. Their debut single, "Shot by Both Sides", is now acknowledged as a classic and their debut album, Real Life, is still widely admired as one of the greatest albums of all time...
, Wire
Wire (band)
Wire are an English rock band, formed in London in October 1976 by Colin Newman , Graham Lewis , Bruce Gilbert , and Robert Gotobed...
, The Skids
The Skids
Skids were an art-punk/punk rock and new wave band from Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland, founded in 1977 by Stuart Adamson , William Simpson , Thomas Kellichan and Richard Jobson...
, PiL
PIL
PIL may refer to:* Private International Law* Carlos Miguel Jiménez Airport , in Pilar, Paraguay* Port Isabel-Cameron County Airport , in Port Isabel, Texas...
, Gang of Four
Gang of Four (band)
Gang of Four are an English post-punk group from Leeds. Original personnel were singer Jon King, guitarist Andy Gill, bass guitarist Dave Allen and drummer Hugo Burnham. They were fully active from 1977 to 1984, and then re-emerged twice in the 1990s with King and Gill...
and Joy Division
Joy Division
Joy Division were an English rock band formed in 1976 in Salford, Greater Manchester. Originally named Warsaw, the band primarily consisted of Ian Curtis , Bernard Sumner , Peter Hook and Stephen Morris .Joy Division rapidly evolved from their initial punk rock influences...
.
Epic Records
Epic Records
Epic Records is an American record label, owned by Sony Music Entertainment. Though it was originally conceived as a jazz imprint, it has since expanded to represent various genres. L.A...
had proposed that the album be recorded in Barbados
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...
, but the band had wanted to avoid what Bradfield called "all that decadent rockstar rubbish". It was bassist Nicky Wire
Nicky Wire
Nicholas Allen Jones, known as Nicky Wire, is the lyricist, bassist and occasional vocalist with the Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers.-Early life:...
's idea, says Bradfield, that the band "should not use everything at its disposal" in recording the album. Instead, recording began with sound engineer Alex Silva at the low-rent, "absolutely tiny" Sound Space Studios
Sound Space Studios
Sound Space Studios is a recording studio and rehearsal facility located in Cardiff, Wales.The original Sound Space Studios existed in Cardiff in the early 1990s The Manic Street Preachers and Stuart Cable are among those to have used it, the former recording their third album The Holy Bible there...
in Cardiff
Cardiff
Cardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales and the 10th largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for...
. The album was mixed by Mark Freegard, who had previously worked with The Breeders
The Breeders
The Breeders are an American alternative rock band formed in 1988 by Kim Deal of the Pixies and Tanya Donelly of Throwing Muses. The band has experienced a number of line-up changes; the current line-up consists of Kim Deal , her twin sister Kelley Deal , Jose Medeles , Mando Lopez Todd the Fox...
. "She Is Suffering" was produced by Steve Brown. The recording took four weeks.
Bradfield has described the recording of the album as preventing him from having a social life and Alex Silva attributes the break-up of his relationship with his girlfriend at the time to the long hours involved in the recording. Guitarist Richey Edwards attended recording sessions, but would, according to Wire, "collapse on the settee and have a snooze" while the other band members did all the recording. He was drinking heavily and frequently crying. "Inevitably," says Bradfield, "the day would start with a 'schhht!', the sound of a can opening."
The album was constructed with "academic discipline", according to Bradfield, with the band working to headings and structures "so each song is like an essay".
Lyrics
Whereas lyric-writing on the two previous albums was split fairly evenly between Richey Edwards and Nicky Wire, the lyrics on The Holy Bible were 70-75% written by Edwards, according to James Dean Bradfield. Wire describes himself as largely responsible for "This is Yesterday" and "Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwouldfallapart" , contributing only titles to some of the songs.The album's lyrics deal with subjects including prostitution, American consumerism, British imperialism, freedom of speech, the Holocaust, self-starvation, serial-killers, political revolution, childhood, fascism and suicide. According to Q
Q (magazine)
Q is a popular music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom.Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were dismayed by the music press of the time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying CDs — then still a new technology...
: "the tone of the album is by turns bleak, angry and resigned". The same magazine commented in 1994 that "even a cursory glance at the titles will confirm that this is not the new Gloria Estefan
Gloria Estefan
Gloria María Milagrosa Fajardo García de Estefan; known professionally as Gloria Estefan is a Cuban-born American singer, songwriter, and actress. Known as the "Queen Of Latin Pop", she is in the top 100 best selling music artists with over 100 million albums sold worldwide, 31.5 million of those...
album".
Sean Moore has described the content of the lyrics as being "as far as Richey's character could go". According to Bradfield: "Some of the lyrics confused me. Some ... were voyeuristic and some were coming from personal experience ... I remember getting the lyrics to 'Yes' and thinking 'You crazy fucker, how do I write music for this?'". Critic Simon Price
Simon Price
Simon Price is a British music journalist and club promoter, born on 25 September 1967 in the Welsh town of Barry. He is now best known for his weekly review section in The Independent on Sunday and his book on Manic Street Preachers.-Career:...
notes that the potential radio-friendliness of the song is undermined by its focus on the subject of prostitution and the recurrence of sexual swearing in the lyric.
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
, he said, "was the song that me and Richey worried about most ... the song isn't a right wing statement, it's just against this fascination with people who kill". Later in 1994, Bradfield described the song as "one of the most important things we've done" but said it was also "very right-wing" and "miscalculated".
Wire described "Revol" as being about Edwards' idea that "relationships in politics, and relationships in general, are failures". "P.C.P.", he said, was about how "PC
Political correctness
Political correctness is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts,...
followers take up the idea of being liberal, but end up being quite the opposite". He said that he was "completely confused" by "Faster" (most of which he had written), although Edwards had told him that it was about self-abuse.
"Mausoleum" and "The Intense Humming of Evil", Wire said, were both inspired by visits by the band to former concentration camps at Dachau and Belsen
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
Bergen-Belsen was a Nazi concentration camp in Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle...
. A first draft of the latter song had been considered insufficiently judgemental by Bradfield, who had asked for a re-write ("you can't be ambivalent about the Holocaust").
Wire said that "Die in the Summertime" and "4st 7lb" were "pretty obviously about Richey's state of mind". According to Edwards, the former song is about a pensioner wanting to die with memories of childhood in his mind. 4 stones (25.4011727 kg) is the weight below which death is reputed to become medically unavoidable for anorexics.
"This Is Yesterday", according to Wire, is "about how people always look back to their youth and look on it as a glorious period".
Wire and Bradfield have both expressed a disliking for the lyrics to the song "She Is Suffering
She Is Suffering
"She Is Suffering" is a song by the Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers. It was released on 3 October, 1994 as the third single from the band's third studio album, The Holy Bible. It reached number 25 in the UK Singles Chart on 15 October 1994....
", Wire saying it suffers from "man coming to the rescue syndrome". According to Edwards, the "she" in the song title is desire: "In other Bibles and Holy Books no truth is possible until you empty yourself of desire".
Use of dialogue samples
Several tracks on the album are also complemented by samples of dialogue, in keeping with the themes of the songs themselves, as follows:- "Yes" contains dialogue from the 1993 documentary, Hookers, Hustlers, Pimps and their Johns, by Beeban KidronBeeban KidronBeeban Kidron is an English Film Director known for her much-lauded adaptation of Jeanette Winterson's autobiographical novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and for directing Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason...
, about the prostitution trade. - "Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwouldfallapart" begins with a TV trailer for GOP TV's Rising Tide show.
- "Of Walking Abortion" begins with an extract from an interview with Hubert Selby, Jr.Hubert Selby, Jr.Hubert "Cubby" Selby, Jr. was a 20th century American writer. His best-known novels are Last Exit to Brooklyn and Requiem for a Dream . Both novels were later adapted into films within his lifetime....
. - "Archives of Pain" begins with the words of the mother of one of serial killer Peter SutcliffePeter SutcliffePeter William Sutcliffe is a British serial killer who was dubbed "The Yorkshire Ripper". In 1981 Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering 13 women and attacking seven others. He is currently serving 20 sentences of life imprisonment in Broadmoor Hospital...
's victims from a TV report on his trial. - "4st 7lb" begins with dialogue from the 1994 documentary about anorexiaAnorexia nervosaAnorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by refusal to maintain a healthy body weight and an obsessive fear of gaining weight. Although commonly called "anorexia", that term on its own denotes any symptomatic loss of appetite and is not strictly accurate...
, Caroline's Story, by Jeremy Llewelyn-Jones. - "Mausoleum" features a quotation from an interview with J. G. BallardJ. G. BallardJames Graham Ballard was an English novelist, short story writer, and prominent member of the New Wave movement in science fiction...
explaining his motivation for writing the novel Crash. - "Faster" begins with dialogue from the 1984 film adapationNineteen Eighty-Four (film)Nineteen Eighty-Four is a 1984 British science fiction film, based upon George Orwell's novel of the same name, following the life of Winston Smith in Oceania, a country run by a totalitarian government...
of George Orwell'sGeorge OrwellEric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
1984 spoken by John HurtJohn HurtJohn Vincent Hurt, CBE is an English actor, known for his leading roles as John Merrick in The Elephant Man, Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Mr. Braddock in The Hit, Stephen Ward in Scandal, Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant and An Englishman in New York...
. - "The Intense Humming of Evil" begins with an extract from a report on the Nuremberg TrialsNuremberg TrialsThe Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
. - "PCP" ends with dialogue spoken by Albert FinneyAlbert FinneyAlbert Finney is an English actor. He achieved prominence in films in the early 1960s, and has maintained a successful career in theatre, film and television....
from Peter YatesPeter YatesPeter James Yates was an English director and producer. He was born in Aldershot, Hampshire.The son of an army officer, he attended Charterhouse School as a boy, graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and worked for some years as an actor, director and stage manager...
' The DresserThe DresserThe Dresser is a 1983 film which tells the story of an aging actor's personal assistant, who struggles to keep his charge's life together. It is based on a screenplay by Ronald Harwood, in turn based on his successful 1980 West End and Broadway play of the same name.The film was directed by Peter...
Aesthetic
James Dean Bradfield has described the album as representing "the most definitive period for us visually as well as the songs we were writing and the record ... we've never been scared to admit that".While touring in early 1994, the band visited army surplus stores and bought clothing to wear on stage, in a homage to The Clash
The Clash
The Clash were an English punk rock band that formed in 1976 as part of the original wave of British punk. Along with punk, their music incorporated elements of reggae, ska, dub, funk, rap, dance, and rockabilly...
. This military image was used consistently by the band during the promotion of The Holy Bible, including in their videos and television appearances. A performance of "Faster" on the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops, also known as TOTP, is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly from 1 January 1964 to 30 July 2006. After 25 December 2006 it became a radio program, now hosted by Tony Blackburn...
in June 1994 resulted in a record number of complaints—over 25,000—due to Bradfield wearing a paramilitary-style balaclava.
The album cover, designed by Richey Edwards while hospitalised, features a triptych
Triptych
A triptych , from tri-= "three" + ptysso= "to fold") is a work of art which is divided into three sections, or three carved panels which are hinged together and can be folded shut or displayed open. It is therefore a type of polyptych, the term for all multi-panel works...
by Jenny Saville
Jenny Saville
Jenny Saville is a contemporary British painter; best known as one of the Young British Artists. She is known for her large-scale painted depictions of naked women.-Life and career:Saville works and lives in Oxford, England...
depicting three perspectives on the body of an obese woman in her underwear, and titled Strategy (South Face/Front Face/North Face). Saville gave her permission for use of her work for free after a discussion with Edwards in which he described each song on the album. The back cover features a photo of the band in military uniforms and a quote taken from Octave Mirbeau
Octave Mirbeau
Octave Mirbeau was a French journalist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, novelist, and playwright, who achieved celebrity in Europe and great success among the public, while still appealing to the literary and artistic avant-garde...
's book The Torture Garden
The Torture Garden (novel)
The Torture Garden is a novel written by the French journalist, novelist and playwright Octave Mirbeau and was first published in 1899, during the Dreyfus Affair...
.
The lyrics booklet features various images including Christian iconography, photographs of the gate at Dachau concentration camp and a plan of the gas chambers at Belsen concentration camp, a photograph of Lenin's corpse, an engraving depicting an execution by guillotine
Guillotine
The guillotine is a device used for carrying out :executions by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame from which an angled blade is suspended. This blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing the head from the body...
in Revolutionary France
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
, a picture of an apple, a photograph of a woman with a parasitic twin
Parasitic twin
A parasitic twin is the result of the processes that produce vanishing twins and conjoined twins, and may represent a continuum between the two...
, photographs of each of the Manic Street Preachers as children, a photograph of a group of British policemen in gas-masks. The booklet also contains a Buddhist saying from the Tripitaka
Pāli Canon
The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the only completely surviving early Buddhist canon, and one of the first to be written down...
alongside a dedication to the band's publicist, Philip Hall. He had died in 1993.
The title The Holy Bible was chosen by Edwards to reflect an idea, according to Bradfield, that "everything on there has to be perfection". Interviewed at the end of 1994, Edwards said: "The way religions choose to speak their truth to the public has always been to beat them down ... I think that if a Holy Bible is true, it should be about the way the world is and that's what I think my lyrics are about. [The album] doesn't pretend things don't exist".
Health of Richey Edwards
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
, depression
Clinical depression
Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...
and self-harm. During 1994, these problems had, according to Wire, "escalated to to a point where everybody got a bit frightened" and Edwards had also begun to suffer from anorexia nervosa
Anorexia nervosa
Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by refusal to maintain a healthy body weight and an obsessive fear of gaining weight. Although commonly called "anorexia", that term on its own denotes any symptomatic loss of appetite and is not strictly accurate...
. During April and May, when the band played concerts in Thailand and Portugal, Edwards was habitually cutting himself and appeared onstage in Bangkok with self-inflicted wounds across his chest.
He talked openly in the music press about his problems, telling the NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
: "When I cut myself I feel so much better. All the little things that might have been annoying me seem so trivial because I'm concentrating on the pain" and "I'm the sort of person who wakes up in the morning and needs to pour a bottle down my throat".
His problems continued and, during the recording of the album, his mental state deteriorated when he learned of the suicide of a close friend from university. In July, he was taken to hospital after severely lacerating himself at home, then transferred to Whitchurch Hospital
Whitchurch Hospital
Whitchurch Hospital is a psychiatric hospital in Whitchurch, an area in the north of Cardiff. As well as general psychiatry, services include elderly psychiatry, neuropsychiatry, forensic psychiatry, rehabilitation and addiction services. It is part of the Cardiff and Vale University Health...
, an NHS psychiatric facility in Cardiff. His weight had fallen to 6 stones (38.1 kg).
By the time of the album's release in late August 1994, Edwards was hospitalised at the private Priory Hospital
Priory Group
The Priory Group is an independent provider of mental health care facilities in the United Kingdom. They also manage schools, some for students with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism...
in Roehampton
Roehampton
Roehampton is a district in south-west London, forming the western end of the London Borough of Wandsworth. It lies between the town of Barnes to the north, Putney to the east and Wimbledon Common to the south. The Richmond Park golf courses are west of the neighbourhood, and just south of these is...
. He rejoined the band to tour during the autumn of 1994. Other band members felt that his drinking was under control at this point, but his eating continued to be a problem and he continued to self-harm. On 1 February 1995, he disappeared and is presumed to have committed suicide.
The Holy Bible has been described by Q
Q (magazine)
Q is a popular music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom.Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were dismayed by the music press of the time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying CDs — then still a new technology...
as a "graphic, violent torrent of self-lacerating punk fury which infamously details the horrors in Richey Edwards' head".
Reception
When it was released in 1994, the NMENME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
saw The Holy Bible as primarily the work of James Dean Bradfield, saying "The Holy Bible isn't elegant, but it is bloody effective". Melody Maker
Melody Maker
Melody Maker, published in the United Kingdom, was, according to its publisher IPC Media, the world's oldest weekly music newspaper. It was founded in 1926 as a magazine targeted at musicians; in 2000 it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.-1950s–1960s:Originally the Melody...
, seeing it as primarily the work of Richey Edwards, described it as "the sound of a group in extremis ... hurtling towards a private armageddon". Upon its re-release ten years later, the NME described it as "a work of genuine genius".
According to Stylus Magazine
Stylus Magazine
Stylus Magazine was an online music and film magazine launched in 2002. It featured long-form music journalism, four daily music reviews, movie reviews, a number of different podcasts, an MP3 blog, and a text blog....
: "The Holy Bible is easily one of the best albums of the 90s—ignored by many, but loved intensely by the few who’ve lived with it over the years ... It puts everything the Manics have done since to shame, not to mention nearly everything else". Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
also reviewed the album positively: "even the pall of [Edwards'] absence can't cancel out the life-affirming force that hits you with the very first song".
In 2005, the record topped a BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
Newsnight
Newsnight
Newsnight is a BBC Television current affairs programme noted for its in-depth analysis and often robust cross-examination of senior politicians. Jeremy Paxman has been its main presenter for over two decades....
viewers' poll as favourite album of all time. In 2000, it was voted by writers of Melody Maker as the 15th best album of all time. In 2001, it was voted by readers of Q as the 10th best album released during the magazine's lifetime and in 2003 as the 18th greatest album ever. In 2005, Kerrang!
Kerrang!
Kerrang! is a UK-based magazine devoted to rock music published by Bauer Media Group. It was first published on June 6, 1981 as a one-off supplement in the Sounds newspaper...
placed it 10th in a list of the greatest rock albums ever.
The album peaked at number six on the British albums chart in 1994. This was seen by some as commercially disappointing, however. The record did not chart in mainland Europe or North America, although it reached number 50 in the Japanese chart.
Touring
In April and May 1994, the band first performed songs from The Holy Bible at concerts in Thailand and Portugal and at a benefit concert for the Anti-Nazi LeagueAnti-Nazi League
The Anti-Nazi League was an organisation set up in 1977 on the initiative of the Socialist Workers Party with sponsorship from some trade unions and the endorsement of a list of prominent people to oppose the rise of far-right groups in the United Kingdom. It was wound down in 1981...
at Brockwell Park
Brockwell Park
Brockwell Park is a 50.8 hectare park located between Brixton, Herne Hill and Tulse Hill, bordered by Brixton Water Lane, Norwood Road, Tulse Hill , and Dulwich Road in South London....
, London. In June, they played the Glastonbury Festival
Glastonbury Festival
The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, commonly abbreviated to Glastonbury or even Glasto, is a performing arts festival that takes place near Pilton, Somerset, England, best known for its contemporary music, but also for dance, comedy, theatre, circus, cabaret and other arts.The...
.
In July and August, without Richey Edwards, they played T in the Park
T in the Park
T in the Park is a major British music festival that has been held annually since 1994. It is named after its main sponsor, the brewing company Tennents. It was originally held at Strathclyde Park, Lanarkshire but since 1997 has been held at a disused airfield in Balado, Kinross-shire...
in Scotland, the Alte Wartesaal in Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
, the Parkpop
Parkpop
The Parkpop festival is a free music festival held annually on the last Sunday of June in the city of The Hague, The Netherlands/Holland.It was first held in 1981 and attended by 35,000 visitors. Today up to 350,000 people visit the festival every year. They held the title for largest free pop...
Festvial in The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
and the Reading Festival. During September, October and December, there was a headline tour of the UK and Ireland and two tours in mainland Europe with Suede
Suede (band)
Suede are an English alternative rock band from London, formed in 1989. The group's most prominent early line-up featured singer Brett Anderson, guitarist Bernard Butler, bass player Mat Osman and drummer Simon Gilbert. By 1992, Suede were hailed as "The Best New Band in Britain", and attracted...
and Therapy?
Therapy?
Therapy? is an alternative metal band from Northern Ireland. The band was formed in 1989 by guitarist–vocalist Andy Cairns from Ballyclare and drummer-vocalist Fyfe Ewing from Larne, Northern Ireland. The band initially recorded their first demo with Cairns filling in on bass guitar...
. In December, three nights at the London Astoria
London Astoria
The London Astoria was a music venue, located at 157 Charing Cross Road, in London, England. It had been leased and run by Festival Republic since 2000. It was closed on 15 January 2009 and has since been demolished...
ended with the band smashing up their equipment and the venue’s lighting rig, causing £26,000 worth of damage.
James Dean Bradfield and Richey Edwards were due to fly to the United States for media interviews on 1 February 1995, the day of Edwards' disappearance, and Bradfield ended up doing this alone. Concerts in US cities, as well as in Prague and Vienna, had been scheduled for March and April 1995, but were cancelled.
10th Anniversary Edition
On 6 December 2004, an expanded version of The Holy Bible was released, containing two CDs and a DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
. Disc 1 comprised a digitally re-mastered version of the original album plus four live tracks. The DVD features an interview with the band, footage of TV and festival appearances and promo videos. The second CD includes a remix of the album by Tom Lord-Alge
Tom Lord-Alge
Tom Lord-Alge is a four-time Grammy Award–winning record producer and mixer. He is the youngest of Vivian Lord's five children, Mark Lord-Alge, Lisa Lord-Alge, Chris Lord-Alge, Jeff Lord-Alge and Tom Lord-Alge...
. The remixed version had been intended for release in the US, but this never happened "for well-documented reasons", according to James Dean Bradfield. The band felt the second mix was superior to the version originally released. As Bradfield puts it: "For once we got something back from the American record company—who we despised—and it was brilliant".
1994 release
- The Japanese release of the album features four additional tracks, recorded live: "Drug, Drug, Druggy", "Roses In The Hospital", "You Love Us", "New Art Riot"
10th Anniversary Edition
CD 1CD 2
DVD
Singles
| UK release date | Song | Peak position |
|---|---|---|
| UK UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ... |
||
| 6 June 1994 | "Faster/P.C.P. Faster/P.C.P. "Faster/P.C.P." is a double A-side single by the Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers. It is the ninth track from their 1994 studio album, The Holy Bible, and was released as the album’s lead single in June 1994. It reached number 16 in the UK Singles Chart... " |
16 |
| 1 August 1994 | "Revol Revol (song) "Revol" is a song by the Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers. It was released on August 1, 1994 as the second single from their third studio album The Holy Bible which was released later in the month. It reached number 22 in the UK Singles Chart on August 13, 1994.-Music and lyrics:The song's... " |
22 |
| 3 October 1994 | "She Is Suffering She Is Suffering "She Is Suffering" is a song by the Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers. It was released on 3 October, 1994 as the third single from the band's third studio album, The Holy Bible. It reached number 25 in the UK Singles Chart on 15 October 1994.... " |
25 |
Personnel
Manic Street Preachers- James Dean BradfieldJames Dean BradfieldJames Dean Bradfield is the lead guitarist and vocalist for the Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers.- Early life :...
– lead vocals, guitar - Richey JamesRichey James EdwardsRichard James Edwards was a Welsh musician who was rhythm guitarist and lyricist of the alternative rock band Manic Street Preachers. He was known for his politicized and intellectual songwriting which, combined with an enigmatic and eloquent character, has assured him cult status...
– guitar, design - Sean MooreSean Moore (musician)Sean Anthony Moore is the writer, drummer/percussionist and sometime trumpet player of the Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers.-Early years:...
– drums - Nicky WireNicky WireNicholas Allen Jones, known as Nicky Wire, is the lyricist, bassist and occasional vocalist with the Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers.-Early life:...
– bass