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Since their formation in Blackwood, South Wales in 1986, the Manic Street Preachers have released eight full length albums and three EPs, had two UK number 1 singles, played a massive gig in Castro's Cuba, lost a member in a suspected suicide, and will in 2008 be named "Godlike Geniuses" at the NME awards for their career achievements. Their bassist, the self-styled Nicky Wire, frequently wears skirts and knee-high socks to gigs and uses a mic stand covered in pink tinsel. Their lead singer, James Dean Bradfield (who was originally to be called Clint Eastwood Bradfield until his mother protested) has collaborated with Tom Jones and Kylie Minogue and the band worked with notorious pornstar Traci Lords on their début album.

One of the most controversial, overtly political, outspoken and unique bands the UK has ever produced, the Manic Street Preachers are often thought of only when people are in a strictly 90s mindset – but as they continue to tour, having released their eighth album in May 2007, why are the Manics still relevant? And how best to begin to understand such a long-running, iconoclastic and cult band?

Blackwood is a former mining town in deepest darkest Wales, severely affected by the Miner's Strike in 1984-5 that occurred during the Manics' teenage formative years. A few years after that, lead singer and guitarist James Dean Bradfield began teaching himself guitar by playing along to Guns n' Roses' Appetite for Destruction in his front room with the curtains closed. For some years he lived with his cousin, Sean Moore, who subsequently became the band's talented and energetic drummer. The other two band members, Nicky Wire (born Nicholas Jones, younger brother of poet and playwright Patrick Jones) and Richey James Edwards, lived nearby. Wire eventually settled into the role of bassist once previous short-lived bassist Miles Woodward – aka Flicker, left. Edwards was supposedly rhythm guitarist, but in fact played so poorly that he would usually mime on stage or have his amps turned down, Bradfield playing all the band's guitar parts (except for on two songs).

In August 1989, the band put together their very first self-made single – "Suicide Alley". The DIY attitude was obvious by the fact that Edwards couldn't appear in the cover photo because he had taken it and because the photo itself was a clear homage to the cover of The Clash's debut album. After the New Art Riot EP in 1990, the band released their first fully-fledged non-album single in the form of the iconoclastic "Motown Junk" – it gained the band notoriety, being mentioned in national newspapers for the use of the line "I laughed when Lennon got shot." The song remains a live favourite, and has been played at the vast majority of Manics gigs, aside from a stint in 2004. Sampling both Public Enemy and The Skids, the song began to show off the endless cultural referencing he band have since become known for.

By the time the debut album, Generation Terrorists, was released in 1992, the band had already attracted a cult following due to their furious live shows. The band had long stated that their plan was to release an album that would outsell Appetite for Destruction, then they would headline Wembley for three nights and then burn out. This plan was more than slightly hindered by the fact that the anti-Americanism of much of the lyrical content crippled the US release, which had several of the album's extravagant 18 tracks dropped. That said, the album was a reasonable success, reaching #13 on the UK album chart. Unsurprisingly, the band didn't burn out but did tour extensively before thinking about their second album, named Gold Against the Soul, which was released in 1993.

Gold Against the Soul was a very different affair to the previous album. Clocking in at a much more modest 10 tracks, the album was meant to, in the words of the band, "piss on the floor of Seattle". Ironically, the album had a sound more indebted to the Seattle-based grunge sound than the band might have admitted. Perhaps worried by the fate of the previous album in the US, the Manics made sure that GATS had significantly less politically-derived lyrics and themes. It comes across as a mixture of arena rock and grunge, like a Welsh, left-wing proto-Audioslave. The album fared even better then the first in the UK charts, reaching #8. Today, a B-side on the "Life Becoming a Landslide" single – "Comfort Comes" – is now looked back on as the track which birthed the completely unique sound of the next, legendary, Manics album: The Holy Bible.

Recorded in a small studio in Cardiff's red light district, The Holy Bible saw the Manics returning to the drawing board. Bradfield was verging on alcoholism, Edwards was becoming worryingly prone to self-harming and the band felt that the GATS period had been a deeply negative one. With the band in this precarious condition, they embarked on writing and recording what is now widely thought of as one of the darkest albums in the history of rock music. The Holy Bible is fierce, punk-influenced, and harrowing. Its lyrics deal with such issues as prostitution, the Holocaust, anorexia, nihilism, misanthropy, political correctness, US military interventionism, and censorship, among others. It is about as un-radio friendly as an album could possibly be, and its singles did not perform very spectacularly. In fact the album was a commercial failure – but gained and maintained enormous critical success for its scathing condemnation of just about everything and anything, its clever use of harrowing song-intro soundbites, and unique, ferocious sound. Perhaps the most amazing thing about it is that despite how amazingly dark and brutal it is, it somehow feels like an weirdly positive experience to hear it and to know it. In a difficult to describe way, it feels like an absolving experience. There's a much-referred to soundbite by author JG Ballard in the song "Mausoleum" in which he says, "I wanted to rub the human face in its own vomit – and force it to look in the mirror". In many ways, it feels as though this is what the Manics wanted to achieve with The Holy Bible. They explored the dark recesses of the human condition, so – to quote Mr Muscle – we don't have to. It's as though we can hear it all, in all its chainsaw-guitar fury, and then feel that having been exposed to it, having been educated about these things, we can move on and get back to living life. It is thought that at least 70% of the lyrics on The Holy Bible were written by Edwards.

1995 was a very bad year for the Manics. On the 1st of February, Richey Edwards disappeared. His car was found on the Severn Bridge, a notorious suicide spot, and Edwards had not taken his passport or anything else of any importance with him. Various sightings have been reported over the years, including one of him apparently being seen in Goa, India – but none have ever been confirmed. In 2002, Edwards' parents were given the chance to have their son declared legally dead, but they declined. Richey Edwards remains listed as a missing person, having now not been seen for almost 13 years. Most assumed that Manic Street Preachers would cease to exist, but in 1996, the Manics were ready to release their fourth album, Everything Must Go, without Edwards. The album's recording was spurred on by Wire's writing of "A Design for Life" now one of the most famous Manics songs, which reached #2 on the UK singles chart.

Like The Holy Bible, Everything Must Go is often vying for the position of the best-loved Manics album – but the two could hardly be more different. By contrast to its predecessor, EMG was built around accessible, anthemic arena rock – in some ways an extension of the sound used on Gold Against the Soul. "A Design for Life", a idealised ode to the working class, quickly became the most successful Manics single to that point. The other singles, like "Australia", which was cryptically inspired by Edwards' disappearance, also fared well. In terms of capturing a wide audience, EMG was a massive success for the band, and claimed almost as much critical acclaim as the previous album without the harrowing content. Far from being destroyed by Edwards' disappearance, the band were moving on strongly. That said, the album did include Edwards' contributions for the last time – five of the songs, including the almost Holy Bible-esque "Small Black Flowers That Grow in the Sky" were all or partly written by him.

In 1998, the band gained the very first UK #1 single with the brilliantly-titled "If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next", which broke a world record for the longest #1 single title without brackets. Interestingly, it is also the only Manics song ever to have been released as a single in the United States. Inspired by Spanish Civil War works such as Orwell's Homage to Catalonia and The Clash's song "Spanish Bombs" , the song was from the band's fifth album, the also excellently-titled This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours. The album itself spent a full three weeks at #1 on the UK album charts – it was the height of the Manics' chart success to date.

In 2001 and 2004, the Manics released arguably their two least-popular albums – Know Your Enemy and Lifeblood respectively. The sound had again changed dramatically on Lifeblood – Wire described the aesthetic as "elegiac pop" and whilst the change was not popular with all the band's fans the singles were surprisingly successful. After Lifeblood was over with, the band were silent for three years until March 2007.

Now having been a band for 21 years, the Manics announced that they would release a new song called "Underdogs" as a free download – a gift to the many fans who had supported them in their lengthy and often difficult career. Short, loud and punchy, the song went down well and in May, the eighth Manic Street Preachers album was released – Send Away the Tigers. The band themselves described it as "a mixture of Generation Terrorists and Everything Must Go" and their endless cultural and historical referencing returned to the fore – the album's title is a reference to a phrase made by Tony Hancock, and the album deals with such themes as extraordinary rendition, the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the JFK assassination – even featuring a soundbite from Lee Harvey Oswald. As if in another nod to their debut album (which had featured that duet with notorious pornstar Traci Lords) SATT features its own duet, this time with Swedish songstress Nina Persson of acclaimed band The Cardigans. "Your Love Alone Is Not Enough", a return to OTT song titles, narrowly missed out on a UK #1 single, charting at #2 instead. The album itself also reached #2 on the UK album chart, missing out on the top spot by just 690 copies.

SATT has rejuvenated the Manic Street Preachers. Far from being another victim of the demise of Britpop (with which they were scarcely affiliated in the first place – being far too hard-edged and political) they have survived enormous changes to the music industry and landscape. Suddenly they are darlings of the musical press again – their award from NME is a testament to that, and they are newly in demand for magazine interviews and articles. Like Radiohead, they are embracing the internet music revolution – releasing their second free song of 2007 in the shape of the enormously fun Christmas song "Ghost of Christmas". And with another album still to come on their current Sony contract (and promises of venturing into independence after that) the Manic Street Preachers have every chance to become more relevant and powerful than ever.

The Manics are a challenging but extremely rewarding band – their works are known for referencing popular culture, history, politics and more in an almost Thomas Pynchon-esque fashion. To get the very most from their extensive discography, keep the lyrics to hand on the first few listens – and I would also recommend the excellent The Annotated Manic Street Preachers