The Problem of Good Understanding

Abstract

On a May evening in 1991, after the indie rock band the Manic Street Preachers had played a gig at the Norwich Arts Centre and during an interview with New Musical Expres. (NM.) journalist Steve Lamacq, the band’s lyricist and rhythm guitarist Richey Edwards created one of contemporary rock music’s most infamous moments and one of its most challenging images. Lamacq had been publicly unimpressed by the band and was particularly unconvinced by their attempts to identify with the punk music of the late 70s and early 80s (Lamacq, 2000). He went as far as to suggest that their slogans of social outrage and youthful rebellion were little more than a cynical marketing strategy, an exercise in identity consumerism that wrapped resistance in a pop package, and it was in response to this accusation that Edwards produced a razor blade from his back pocket and proceeded to cut ‘4REAL’ into the full length of his forearm. The photograph that was taken of him only moments later shows his thin pale figure gazing steadily at the camera, his wounds open and fresh, a cloth wrapped around his hand to catch the blood.