The Manic Street Preachers best-of collection starts off with their most touching lyrics, the one that, for me, encapsulated their charm. They are, of course, the first words of 'A Design For Life':

Libraries gave us power
Then work came and made us free
What price now for a shallow piece of dignity.

With 'A Design For Life,' the first post-Richey sound the band released, they became the sort of honest workmanlike band that releases best-of-albums. And however much they randomize the track listing, there will always run an abyss through their oeuvre, marked by the disappearance of Richey. 'A Design For Life," while musically a pleasurable anthem, is thematically the essence of the band: working class pride that can't be taken for granted but must be transcended through the use of knowledge. Indeed, the pleasure of the Manics for me always was a matter of reading, more than listening. From day one with Motown Junk, they sounded out-of-time, a competent if unspectacular reworking of punk and metal ideas. The talk of wanting to fuse Guns 'N Roses (medium) with Public Enemy (message) worked one-way, and to be really special, they should have turned the influences around from time to time. Their much-talked-about plan to release just one double album that would change, well, everything, was launched too soon. With a lack of tunes, the pretension crash landed, and so they were forced to begin a real career.