Ian Brown

When the Stone Roses suffered acrimonious collapse in 1996, some expected frontman Ian Brown to lick his wounds in permanent retreat — but since that demise he has hit back with a salvo of outstanding solo releases, and has only strengthened his position as the North's reigning rock god-in-chief: a hugely influential artist who will be immortalized as more than just a leading light of the Madchester scene. Begin sampling his eclectic palette with the startlingly pretty "F.E.A.R.", the anti-war protest track "Illegal Attacks" (with Sinead O'Connor) and the gently unnerving "Corpses in Their Mouths" (with Noel Gallagher on backing vocals).

Soul, old punks and a dash of Spanish can be found among Ian Brown's Next Steps.

The southern soul of "So High" — from 2009's brilliant My Way, for which Brown has said he used Michael Jackson's Thriller as a "blueprint" — taps into the artist's roots as a face on the fading northern soul circuit of his youth: legend has it that he once bumped into Geno Washington, who presciently noted of the young, undiscovered Brown: "You're a star". "Sister Rose", from 2007's The World Is Yours, features guest session slots from Sex Pistols Steve Jones and Paul Cook; "El Mundo Pequeno" is an earlier Spanish-language curiosity; and "Time Is My Everything" from 2004's Solarized pulls in a brass section to die for.

Former Stone Roses frontman Ian Brown could have rested on past glories, but his solo work forms a galaxy of original sound and imagery well worth the exploration. From the delirious string section on "F.E.A.R." to his laid-back, thoroughly northern cover of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean", and his occasional use of the animal kingdom as a reservoir of metaphor ("Dolphins Were Monkeys"), Brown has made it his mission to keep the leading edge of rock 'n' roll as sharp as a shiv. Here we map out a solo career that started in 1998 with Unfinished Monkey Business (a project that found fertile creative ground in his differences with former Stone Roses bandmate John Squire), and progressed with triumphal certainty through a further five albums, up to 2009's fascinating, defiant, gorgeous My Way.