Last of the top 5 meme responses

As pyroyale knows, this was a difficult set of choices. And I haven't totally cheated, there is a top 5. But there's also sub-listings for the ones that didn't quite make it. They've been divided into 'good music', 'good lyrics', 'good singing' and 'good other things'. I'm sorry, but it was like choosing between labrador puppies.

I've gone for ones they wrote, so there's no space for 'Suicide is Painless' or 'Working Class Hero'. Also nothing off 'Journal for Plague Lovers' because I haven't listened to it properly yet, so this might yet get updated.

1 - No Surface, All Feeling - okay, actually probably the worst song on the list, but my favourite, mostly because some part of me will always be the 12 year-old girl this song resonated so strongly for. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ldINetLTaA&feature=related Fan video, but the original audio.

2 - Faster - if someone came to me and said, 'I need to hear the one song that encapsulates the Manics', this would be the one I'd get them to listen to. It's angry and raw, and name checks Sylvia Plath and modernist architecture, and is about all of that and none of that at the same time. It still holds the record for the number of complaints for any Top of the Pops appearance. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hMqpR9AogI Top of the Pops performance.

3 - Motorcycle Emptiness - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YckDspM1AUw - that damn guitar line. And 'motorcycle nothingness'.

4 - Design for Life - As you may have gathered by the time taken to finalise this, these have not been easy decisions to make. This wasn't going to be on the list, then I heard it walking back to the lab, from a night out, and have taken it to be a sign. Because it is not one of my favourites, I mean it's awesome, and I used to use it to lull me to sleep at the worst of the bad times (I still hear the four beat silence between Elvis Impersonator:Blackpool Pier and this, even now). It's definitely the best example of mid-period Manics statuesque (yes, I treat them like artists, they get divided into periods, not just pre and post Richey). And I'm sorry, what other band would have their greatest (in terms of sales) hit start with the line 'Libraries gave us power'. It's all about the destruction of working class people by the parasitic activity of the business classes and the distractions provided by cheap entertainment (booze, on this occasion).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFsneyMNLvw

5 - This Is Yesterday - Chosen as an example of James Dean Bradfield's singing. It's a song that loses a tiny bit of it's value ripped out of the context of its album, because it follows Faster which is a almost peaen of destruction and anger, and this sounds so gentle in comparison. And it is softer, but is every bit as bleak.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGzybat3gzk&feature=related

( Songs that missed out, but are musically excellent )

( Songs that missed out but are lyrically excellent )

( Songs that missed out, but you have to see them for the video )

( Songs that Missed Out but James Dean Bradfield breaks my heart every time he sings them )

( Others )