Mansun

Four likely lads from Chester with an ear for sprawling guitars, heart-on-sleeve candour and enough bravado to position themselves as the next hot young things, Mansun came to the fore at the heady height of Brit-pop in the mid-1990s. Debut album Attack of the Grey Lantern (1997) lived up to the hype, shooting straight to Number 1 in the UK (knocking Blur off top spot) and producing the hits Wide Open Space, Stripper Vicar and She Makes My Nose Bleed. The video for the album's fourth single, Taxloss, captured the era's spectacular excess when the band threw £25,000 worth of £5 notes into the air at London's Liverpool Street train station, leaving commuters desperately scrabbling around on the floor. Follow-up Six (1998) also fared well, producing the band's highest charting track Legacy, but by the time third album Little Kix (2000) came round, the party was all but over and the band officially split in 2003.