Teenage 20/20

Release date: 22/06/90 | Length: 3:01 | Release: New Art Riot | EMS: #165

Speeding so lonely into wall after wall

Let’s go all the way back to 1990, to what many consider to be the Manics’ first proper release. Of course Suicide Alley predates this, but the New Art Riot EP was the group’s first label release, on Damaged Goods. The label typically covered punk reissues, but were willing to take a punt on a hot young band famed for riotous gigs and a gobby attitude.

Unsurprisingly for a ramshackle band with a rather unclear direction at the time, New Art Riot was a raggedly recorded piece of work that fails to hold up to their subsequent releases, but is still important even if just for having the honour of being the band’s first and only EP (yes, I know Life Becoming a Landslide and God Save the Manics are classified as being EPs, but the former was basically a glorified single and the latter was not commercially available).

It ends with Teenage 20/20, in my view the weakest of the four tracks. It’s the least melodic of the songs, and the group have yet to really develop their knack of fitting square lyrics into round holes (hear the awkward stumbling of “Teenage 20/20 beat the in-call”). It opens with a classic rock and roll guitar riff with no actual connection to the song, and Sean Moore’s percussion has a likeable monotony to it, but that’s about it. The final third of the song is a rather fragmented guitar solo, with some basic bass notes that linger in the air for far too long. As with most of New Art Riot, James Dean Bradfield’s vocals are mostly indecipherable, but likely due to circumstance rather than design, struggling to be heard over the music.

It feels harsh to put down such an early recording of the band, but New Art Riot has better songs that at least offer a glimpse of what was to come.