Manic Street Preachers have shared a new playlist focussing on the cover versions they’ve recorded over the course of their career – listen below.

Titled ‘Sleep Next To Plastic’, the 37-track collection consists of lost recordings, B-sides and album tracks. Fifteen of the cuts were previously unavailable through official streaming platforms – including the band’s recent spin on Madonna’s ‘Borderline’.

The Manics first aired their rendition of the pop icon’s 1983 song during a performance at the BBC 6 Music Festival in March. James Dean Bradfield and co later revealed that they’d recorded the rendition because they “enjoyed playing it live so much”.

‘Borderline’ was tracked by the band at their Door To The River studio especially for the new playlist, which also includes versions of Rihanna‘s ‘Umbrella’, ‘In Between Days’ by The Cure (Live at the BBC) and ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ by Guns N’ Roses (Live at Cardiff Castle).

‘Sleep Next To Plastic’, the latest in in a series of band-curated playlists is streaming now on Spotify. The playlist includes a cover of Madonna’s ‘Borderline’, which the band debuted at Cardiff’s Clwb Ifor Bach in March.

Listen here: https://t.co/cXl3Cjy0Om pic.twitter.com/UAgH7QBx6S

— Manic Street Preachers (@Manics) July 5, 2022

“Cover versions have always offered us a chance to pay direct, public tribute to records we grew up obsessing over, be that C86 bands or artists as diverse as Madonna, John Cale and Paul Robeson,” the Manics said in a statement.

“Collectively, these covers are a heartfelt musical tribute to our formative influences.” You can listen to ‘Sleep Next To Plastic’ in full above.

Last November, the Welsh group shared a playlist of duets they’d recorded between 1992 and 2021.

Manic Street Preachers released their most recent studio album, ‘The Ultra Vivid Lament’, last September.

Manics fans are now eagerly awaiting news of the band’s long-mooted 20th anniversary reissue of their divisive 2001 album ‘Know Your Enemy‘, as well as bassist and lyricist Nicky Wire’s “jazz-meets-C86” solo album.

Asked about the progress on the reissue during a recent conversation with NME, Wire replied: “It is staring at me right now! There are two boxes of stuff. I’m sat in the studio with our engineer and it’s there, confronting me.”

He continued: “It was quite exciting because I’ve actually discovered two songs that have never been released. Unless I’ve made a fuck-up somewhere, there’s a song called ‘Rosebud’, which no-one has ever heard, and another called ‘Studies In Paralysis’ which has never been heard, plus a completely different version of ‘Let Robeson Sing’ that James [Dean Bradfield, frontman] did in his flat in London on a keyboard, and bares no resemblance to what it became.

“There are actually a lot of goodies. Even I’m quite giddy with excitement. James and Sean [Moore, drummer] weren’t arsed though…”

Meanwhile, it’s been revealed that frontman James Dean Bradfield has contributed to The Proclaimers’ forthcoming “political” record, ‘Dentures Out’. It’ll arrive on September 16 via Cooking Vinyl.