Manic Street Preachers. Forever Delayed (2002)

Forever Delayed is a greatest hits album by the Manic Street Preachers, released in 2002.

The album included three singles which had never appeared on the earlier albums ("Motown Junk", "Suicide Is Painless" and "The Masses Against The Classes"), the latter being one of the band's two UK #1 hits, along with "If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next". Several songs were edited for length ("Motorcycle Emptiness", "You Love Us", "Australia", "Everything Must Go", "Little Baby Nothing" and "The Everlasting") so that more tracks could fit onto the CD. The album entered the UK Album Chart at #4.

The album featured two new songs; the single "There By The Grace Of God" and "Door To The River". "Door to the River" was originally recorded in the sessions for the Know Your Enemy album, but the band deemed the song to be too unfitting to the album's general style. "There By the Grace of God" can be seen as a foreshadowing of things to come, as it features a more electronic/keyboard-heavy style that would eventually be the main style of the band's next studio album, Lifeblood.

The tracklisting wasn't chronological; however it gave an excellent representation of the Manic's work so far and showed how far the band had progressed musically and lyrically since they formed.

The title of Forever Delayed is lifted from the lyrics of their song "Roses In The Hospital" (which ironically does not feature on the CD album). This title for their greatest hits package had also been planned for several years previous, Nicky Wire first mentions it in Everything - A Book About Manic Street Preachers published in 1998.

Track Listing

1. "A Design for Life"
   
2. "Motorcycle Emptiness"
   
3. "If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next"
4. "La Tristesse Durera (Scream to a Sigh)"
   
5. "There by the Grace of God"
6. "You Love Us"
7. "Australia"
8. "You Stole the Sun from My Heart"
9. "Kevin Carter"
   
10. "Tsunami"
    
11. "The Masses Against the Classes"
12. "From Despair to Where"
13. "Door To The River"
14. "Everything Must Go"
    
15. "Faster"
    
16. "Little Baby Nothing"
    
17. "Suicide Is Painless (Theme from M*A*S*H)"
    
18. "So Why So Sad"
19. "The Everlasting"
20. "Motown Junk"

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