Manic Street Preachers - Generation Terrorists: Official Charts Flashb

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Manic Street Preachers’ landmark debut album Generation Terrorists, we caught up with frontman James Dean Bradfield and bassist Nicky Wire.

Released in February 1992, Generation Terrorists, the debut album by Welsh rockers Manic Street Preachers, exploded onto the Official Albums Chart in a mess of eyeliner and spray-paint. Peaking at Number 13, the record sadly didn’t quite live up to the band’s own grand ambitions (they claimed at the time it would “sell 16 million copies and then [they would] split up”). However, it did change the face of British music, paving the way for all the guitar bands that followed - Oasis, Blur, Coldplay and Stereophonics to name but a few.

Generation Terrorists also saw the start of Manic Street Preachers' glittering singles career, with no less than seven Top 40 singles being released from the album (including Theme from M.A.S.H. (Suicide Is Painless), a charity release to raise money for The Spastics Society, which is included on the 20th anniversary reissue). Indeed, Stay Beautiful, the first single released from Generation Terrorists, began the Manics' impressive run of 33 Top 40 singles – a record which makes them the most consecutively charting British rock bands of the last 20 years, and beating such musical legends as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Iron Maiden in the all-time list.

Watch our interview with frontman James Dean Bradfield and bassist Nicky Wire below: The 20th anniversary edition of Generation Terrorists is out on Monday (November 5).