Supergrass Vs The Manic Street Preachers

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Supergrass
42
68%
The Manic Street Preachers.
20
32%
 
Total votes: 62

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The Prof
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Supergrass Vs The Manic Street Preachers

Postby The Prof » 02 Aug 2009, 19:00

Fresh from seeing the 'grass at Stockton yesterday, it struck me that there were quite a few ways both bands could be compared. They've both been releasing guitar-based pop/rock for over 15 years and had a fair degree of chart success with both albums & singles.
The Manics always seem to have a bit of an agenda. Supergrass content to just rock out.

Who do you prefer if push came to shove?

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Re: Supergrass Vs The Manic Street Preachers

Postby Insouciant Western People » 02 Aug 2009, 19:03

I don't think either of them are particularly great bands per se, although they've both made several decent enough albums. Supergrass's debut is excellent, but it's not as great as The Holy Bible so The Manics get my nod.

But only just.
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Re: Supergrass Vs The Manic Street Preachers

Postby Clippernolan » 02 Aug 2009, 19:06

Supergrass.

The Manics are great in places. But, there's something about their stuff which seems to lock me out a bit. Not so with the 'Grass.
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Re: Supergrass Vs The Manic Street Preachers

Postby Bungo the Mungo » 02 Aug 2009, 19:17

Supergrass are the better band by miles, and they grew up a bit. The Manics are still dickheads. The (very) odd decent song can't mask a load of baby-ish boo-hooing, an overreliance on dumb adolescent sloganeering, stuff stolen from half-digested library books.

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Re: Supergrass Vs The Manic Street Preachers

Postby Insouciant Western People » 02 Aug 2009, 19:23

Supergrass are inescapably dadrock-ish though. I might say workmanlike if I wanted to be mean.

The Manics did blaze brightly and fiercely once upon a time.
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Re: Supergrass Vs The Manic Street Preachers

Postby Bungo the Mungo » 02 Aug 2009, 19:30

Nick wrote:Supergrass are inescapably dadrock-ish though. I might say workmanlike if I wanted to be mean.


The second album has that quality perhaps, but otherwise there's an energy there that you don't get with similar bands. The debut is anything but workmanlike.

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Re: Supergrass Vs The Manic Street Preachers

Postby soundchaser » 02 Aug 2009, 19:30

Nick wrote:Supergrass are inescapably dadrock-ish though.


I'm a Dad and I like Rock. Supergrass it is, then.

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Re: Supergrass Vs The Manic Street Preachers

Postby Clippernolan » 02 Aug 2009, 19:32

What the hell is Dad Rock, anyway? I never figured out what that meant.
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Re: Supergrass Vs The Manic Street Preachers

Postby Bungo the Mungo » 02 Aug 2009, 19:34

Clippernolan wrote:What the hell is Dad Rock, anyway? I never figured out what that meant.




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Re: Supergrass Vs The Manic Street Preachers

Postby Clippernolan » 02 Aug 2009, 19:41

Sir John Coan wrote:
Clippernolan wrote:What the hell is Dad Rock, anyway? I never figured out what that meant.





I kind of like that. I realize of course that our friendship is now over as a result, John. :(
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Re: Supergrass Vs The Manic Street Preachers

Postby Balboa » 02 Aug 2009, 19:46

Supergrass by a million miles. Much better songwriting, better hooks, more fun.
Of course, I was mostly stoned at the time.

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Re: Supergrass Vs The Manic Street Preachers

Postby The Prof » 02 Aug 2009, 19:47

Clippernolan wrote:What the hell is Dad Rock, anyway? I never figured out what that meant.


Plodding guitar-based rock that brings nothing new to the table. See Oasis

They do both veer that way on occasions though.

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Re: Supergrass Vs The Manic Street Preachers

Postby Clippernolan » 02 Aug 2009, 19:52

The Prof wrote:
Clippernolan wrote:What the hell is Dad Rock, anyway? I never figured out what that meant.


Plodding guitar-based rock that brings nothing new to the table. See Oasis

They do both veer that way on occasions though.


I getcha.

In those stakes, I think it's harder to attach Supergrass to an identifiable rock tradition, or play spot the influence. I suppose it's tough to do the same for the Manics too, to be fair.
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Re: Supergrass Vs The Manic Street Preachers

Postby Bungo the Mungo » 02 Aug 2009, 19:53

Clippernolan wrote:
Sir John Coan wrote:
Clippernolan wrote:What the hell is Dad Rock, anyway? I never figured out what that meant.





I kind of like that. I realize of course that our friendship is now over as a result, John. :(


;)

I don't dislike it, but it's almost entirely without.....well, oddness, isn't it? and I like a bit of oddness in my music.

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Re: Supergrass Vs The Manic Street Preachers

Postby Clippernolan » 02 Aug 2009, 20:01

Sir John Coan wrote:
I don't dislike it, but it's almost entirely without.....well, oddness, isn't it? and I like a bit of oddness in my music.


It's like the music equivalent of comfort food. I like comfort food from time to time.
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Re: Supergrass Vs The Manic Street Preachers

Postby the masked man » 02 Aug 2009, 20:08

Both have their merits and drawbacks. I admire the ambition of the Manics, but there's something a little lumpen about the execution. Too often they fall back on inflexible slabs of pseudo-metallic guitar while the singer attempts to cram too many syllables into a line. For all that, The Holy Bible was genuinely impressive, and Everything Most Go seemed to hint towards a sleeker, more pop-friendly approach that was never subsequently explored. A shame, since EBG is easily their most digestible LP.

As for Supergrass, they're more consistent, and have more natural chemistry as musicians. All their albums sound highly enjoyable to these ears, but, well, something's missing. They seem content to stay within narrow parameters of "quite good-ness". Never straying from their comfort zone, there's no sense that they ever stretch themselves enough. I get the feeling they could, if they wanted, make a searingly exciting LP, but that would be too much of an effort. I have precisely the same problem with Teenage Fanclub.

I'd go for the Manics; The Holy Bible and Everything Must Go produce a one-two sucker punch that leaves the 'Grass reeling, even though the Oxford combo looked otherwise ahead on points.

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Re: Supergrass Vs The Manic Street Preachers

Postby robertff » 02 Aug 2009, 20:12

Manics for me - just a lot more interesting.

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Re: Supergrass Vs The Manic Street Preachers

Postby sloopjohnc » 02 Aug 2009, 20:15

Balboa wrote:Supergrass by a million miles. Much better songwriting, better hooks, more fun.


Yes.

The Manic Street Preachers are one of those British bands I never, ever got. I've tried.

Kinda like Suede. I never got the popularity of those guys at all.

I think Dad Rock is a convenient catch-all for non-challenging music, but I think you could lump Steely Dan into Dad Rock and it would be a complete misdirective. Somehow AOR got turned into Dad Rock one day.
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Re: Supergrass Vs The Manic Street Preachers

Postby copehead » 03 Aug 2009, 09:36

I like both bands but I prefer the rockier end of the spectrum so the Manics win this one hands down for me. Back in the Britpop years I prefered Supergrass, but with hindsight that was a lunacy based on the fact that I hadn't listened to the Manics much until the post EMG era.

The fact that they are lyrically engaging and thought provoking in a way that Supergrass could never be is simply a bonus.

Supergrass have been woefully inconsistent over the years with dross like Road to Rouen making it out of the studio, whereas the manics have never released an album without 4 or 5 good to great songs on it.

When the book of British popular music comes to written upergrass will get a couple of lines about their Britpop years, but the Manics will get a page or two, they are far more important.

robertff summed it up pretty well - they are simply more interesting.
Last edited by copehead on 03 Aug 2009, 09:48, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Supergrass Vs The Manic Street Preachers

Postby copehead » 03 Aug 2009, 09:43

Sir John Coan wrote:Supergrass are the better band by miles, and they grew up a bit. The Manics are still dickheads. The (very) odd decent song can't mask a load of baby-ish boo-hooing, an overreliance on dumb adolescent sloganeering, stuff stolen from half-digested library books.


This is the sort of snobbish ignorance that the Manics have to put up with though -

The best British guitarist of the last 20 years

A classically trained musician

and two men with degrees in Political History

-are dismissed by a simpleton as stealing stuff from half-digested library books

That's the sort crap you have to put up with if you try and say anything remotely interesting in the conservative world of rock music.

It is why bands like Supergrass with their "Diamond Hoo Ha" crap will always win polls like this, dumb people like them as well.
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