Book description
In the crazed aftermath of the late '80s northern pop explosion there
have been few survivors. The Charlatans, however, still prosper despite
once being perceived as runts of the Manchester music scene. The
cruellest of luck has visited heartbreaking death, nervous exhaustion, a
jail sentence, and the prospect of falling almost totally out of fashion
upon them. And yet, a deceptively tough band with a charismatic lead
singer, their combination of unnerving honesty, sheer pop talent, great
live shows, and a total and touching commitment to their fans has seen
them survive some of the worst disasters that fate has thrown at any pop
group. They have remarkable street suss that, with their small town
backgrounds makes them totally at one with their huge following -- a
relationship that has given them a fistful of number one albums. This is
a tale of a love of pop and a lust for life. A story of northern pop and
a band with guts and a passion for creativity. It traces the rise of the
Charlatans from the fringes of the Manchester scene in the late Eighties
to their current position at the top of British music, one of the key
bands of the Nineties in possession of a rare and beautiful canon of
great pop tunes. John Robb lives in Manchester and was the first
journalist to write about The Charlatans in the national press. In his
acclaimed first book,
The Stone Roses and the Resurrection of British Pop
he evocatively captured the heady amphetamine rush of the rainy city's
post house guitar boom. In We Are Rock
he breathes the same stale air of the small clubs that gave birth to
the bands, surfs the freaked excitement of the tight circle of creative
minds at the centre of the storm, and bears witness to the birth of a
music scene that now dominates Nineties British pop.
