Professional dilettante

Hello, people!

I've finally finished the first part of my Manic Street Preachers retrospective project. I worked on it for a long time and poured a lot of my energy and strength into it, so I really hope it turned out okay.

Thank you everyone who helped me with pictures and sources over the course of my work here on Tumblr and thank you to @jesuisgourde especially for helping me with sources as well and for proofreading my first full draft!

Telegra.ph said my article's too big, so I uploaded it onto Medium:

My plans are to continue the project, focusing on different album eras for each consecutive part of the retrospective. I really want this to, perhaps, become a video-retrospective someday. I've been dreaming of making something comprehensive about what the Manics had to say ever since 2022 and I'm finally taking steps to fulfill this ambition.

Reading old articles in fanzines/music magazines can be a very rewarding experience, because sometimes the writing can be so refreshingly sincere and pleasantly pensive. This is an article from 1988 about Blackwood's small music scene, harboring one of the earliest mentions of Manic Street Preachers anywhere, it seems before Richey Edwards was a member. Patrick Jones actually travelled to Blackwood to talk to locals and bands about the state of the country and the future of the town's culture. I especially loved the ending paragraph: