The Masses Against the Classes
| "The Masses Against the Classes" | |
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| Song |
"The Masses Against the Classes" is a song by Manic Street Preachers, released as a limited-edition single in November 1999.
The single reached number one in the UK charts on January 16, 2000 without any promotion by the band; it was their second #1 single joining "If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next" (August 24 1998). It was deleted (removed from wholesale supply) on the day of release.
It knocked Westlife "I Have a Dream/Seasons in the Sun" off the #1 spot after four weeks and claimed the first new #1 of the millennium.
"The Masses Against the Classes" was released both as a CD single and 10"; each version also featured the songs "Close My Eyes" and a cover of Chuck Berry’s "Rock and Roll Music".
A live version of the song has also appeared as a B-side on "Found That Soul" (February 26 2001).
Although "The Masses Against the Classes" was not formerly featured on any album release, it was included on Forever Delayed (October 28, 2002), Manic Street Preachers' Greatest Hits album, as track eleven.
The single begins with a Noam Chomsky quotation and ends with a quotation from Albert Camus. The record sleeve features the Cuban flag, a mark of the band's socialist political ideology. They were to play in Havana in February 2001 to a sold-out Karl Marx theatre with Fidel Castro in the audience, whom they met when he arrived just thirty minutes before they were due to play.
The song appears to be a musical reply to criticism of the band's This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours album, seen by many fans as a shift in style from the usual angry alternative rock produced by the band in the early to mid nineties, as it is noticeably harsher and louder than most of the material the band had recorded in the years leading up to the release of the single, most of the lyrics confirm this.
The title is possibly an allusion to a quote from William Ewart Gladstone - All the world over, I will back the masses against the classes.
Track listing
CD / 10"
- "The Masses Against the Classes" - 3:23
- "Close My Eyes" - 4:27
- "Rock And Roll Music" (Chuck Berry cover) - 2:53