This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours

The title is a quotation from a speech by Aneurin Bevan, and the working title was simply Manic Street Preachers. The cover photograph was taken at Black Rock Sands near Porthmadog. Music is by Bradfield and Moore, and it was the first Manics album with lyrics solely by Wire. The sound moves toward cleaner guitars and more strings, keyboards and percussion. Clash magazine described it as a glacial distillation of the anthemic rock that had served them so well two years earlier. Bradfield named John Frusciante as the main influence for the intro riff of "My Little Empire".

It debuted at number 1 in the UK with 136,000 copies and stayed there for three weeks, which kept Steps' album Step One at number 2. It was certified Triple Platinum in the UK and won Best British Album at the 1999 Brit Awards. The singles were "If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next", "The Everlasting", "You Stole the Sun from My Heart" (number 5) and "Tsunami", which was inspired by the Silent Twins. Reviews were generally positive. The NME gave it 7/10, and Entertainment Weekly gave it a C minus.