It’s been a while since I listened to any Mansun. This alternative rock band from the late nineties had a string of hits in the UK but failed to make much impression outside their native homeland, besides perhaps one song.
Looking back into their past, they appear to have a dedicated army of fans who adores them while categorising them into the late 'brit-pop' era.
I tend to regard brit-pop as one of the last distinguishable eras of specific types of sounds in the UK. I mean, what else came after brit-pop?
The problem with Mansun is however much I listen to their material there were only ever two songs that hit me.
What makes it worse is I really like both of them, and can’t understand the hype about all the rest. I must not be hearing what their fans do.
So I will highlight THREE songs but I mentioned I only like TWO of their entire catalogue. This is not one of them, but the idea of throwing a huge wad of money into Liverpool St Station and watching ensuing chaos is hilarious.
Building the video around the build-up and execution makes it watchable and earned them a lot of attention at the time.
The comments by British Rail were predictable and laughable. Watch the inspector pocket some fivers! It's not a bad song, but doesn't hit my sweet spot.
Perhaps their most widely known song, Wide Open Space has been taken apart and dance versions created from it by some of these DJs.
This song attracted me to the band though unfortunately, I have overplayed it somewhat over the years.
It did make a little ground in the USA so maybe some of my American friends may recognize it.
Now this to me is Mansun at their best and was their most successful single in the UK hitting number 7 in 1998.
Yet, Wide Open Space is the song the band is most remembered for. I hated the promotional video they made, using Thunderbird puppets, so have used a clip from Top of the Pops.
They are all miming as was the style then and the video copy is atrocious, but it's still better than that shitty video they made for it.
The band split in 2004 leaving the final album Kleptomania unfinished.
The band split up while recording songs for the album Kleptomania, leaving unfinished tracks that were never released.
An extensive explanation of the break-up has never been made public although a press release by Paul Draper stated that the band had simply "grown apart".
Several attempts have been made to reform, but one member 'Dominic Chad' steadfastly refuses to co-operate. In other words, it isn’t gonna happen.
If you found this article so invigorating that you are now a positively googly-eyed, drooling lunatic with dripping saliva or even if you liked it just a bit, then please upvote, comment, rehive, engage me or all of these things.
