Manchester to Madchester and Beyond

In the words of Morrissey, "Oh, Manchester, so much to answer for" — and he couldn't be more right. Liverpool gave us the Beatles, but the English North-Western pop crown must rest squarely on the head of neighbouring Manchester, which delivered Herman's Hermits in the '60s, 10cc in the '70s, the Smiths in the '80s, and Oasis in '90s.

It doesn't matter that the weather's bad: There must be something good in the water up north, because the supreme quality of Manchester bands is an ongoing marvel. The Buzzcocks' "Harmony in My Head" is a great punk single from '79 (with Steve Diggle on vocals), and "Step On" by the Happy Mondays is a Madchester anthem.

The margins of Manchester contain some of the city's most representative sounds. Vocalist Mark E. Smith lends his gruff local dialect to the Fall ("Hit the North, Part 1") who have merrily ploughed their own peculiar furrow for decades, while few guitar bands top the rich textures of the Durutti Column ("Longsight Romance").

Manchester has it all: a ship canal, constant drizzle, and some of the world's most groundbreaking music, from the Smiths and Joy Division to Oasis and Badly Drawn Boy. Although the city has found its calling as the mother of rock invention, it also boasts a fair share of chart-friendly crowd-pleasers like Simply Red, Lisa Stansfield, and Take That, the boy band that gave the world Robbie Williams. Come to Manchester: It's damp and it's dirty, but with sounds like these, who cares?