Ian Brown ‘The Greatest’ Released 19/09/05 (Fiction Records)

It all could have been so different for the self-proclaimed King Monkey: the painful haemorrhaging of the most influential band of a generation, a bizarre DIY effort at a solo debut and a spell at Her Majesty’s Pleasure could all have spelt extinction for the most simian of Madchester icons.  Instead, the other Stone Roses faded away, his first album showed glimpses of a rare and individual talent, and his imprisonment energised a singular vision, that manifests itself in his next three albums and on this retrospective, titled with typically Ali-esque self-belief. 

It’s true that Brown’s albums are great dividers of opinions: to some, he comes across as the possessor of a near-mystic wisdom whose dubby take on funk puts old sidekick John Squire’s material in the shade; to others the albums smack of self-indulgence and amount to little more than cod-electronica.  On this collection though, the singles come to the fore and not many would argue that his 45s are anything other than bloody great.  They’re all here, from the insistent and rocky comeback ‘My Star’ and the anti-Squire shuffle of ‘Corpses in Their Mouths’ from ‘Unfinished Monkey Business’, to the ‘Fool’s Gold’-gone-minimal ‘Love Like a Fountain’, the Michael Jackson-on-dope groove of ‘Dolphins Were Monkeys’ and the exotic techno/guitar fusion of ‘Golden Gaze’ from 2000’s magnificent ‘Golden Greats’.  The follow up, ‘F.E.A.R’, is his masterpiece; as defining a single for him as ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ is for The Verve, with Brown exploring permutations of the acronym ("Fantastic expectations/Amazing revelations… Finding Everything And Realising") over immense stabs of synths and strings.  So far, so Great.

Alas, the collaboration with Noel Gallagher, ‘Keep What Ya Got’, trundles into town next: an unimaginative strum that wouldn’t even grace an Oasis album, let alone this one.  It’s the only real dip on a collection that also gives us the collaborations with UNKLE, newly recorded takes as well as two fresh tracks: anti-hardline religion single ‘All Ablaze’ ("Masqueraders flip the scriptures/Don’t even know his name") and ‘The Return of The Fisherman’ which smoulders with the simplicity of an Middle-Eastern hymn.  If these were a taster of how his next album will sound then we’d be lodging our pre-orders now, but Brown has already hinted that he will be going for an orchestral feel next time around.  Therein lies the beauty of Ian Brown: he never stays in the one place for too long, and this, ‘The Greatest’, is a fine way to sample the highlights of his journey thus far.