Travis – The Man Who (1999)

I don’t know much about this Scottish group formed in the mid-nineties, except that the lead singer is Fran Healey.  They seem to have come out of nowhere and similarly disappeared – but that belies a truth; they had been knocking around for almost a decade with a couple of name and personnel changes before the huge success of this, their second album actually, arrived.  Their next was almost as huge and subsequent albums have sold well – though none as huge as this one.  I stopped following the charts in the early 90’s and reading magazine such as Uncut, and Mojo a good decade ago, so only occasionally to do I get a whiff of ‘Popular’ music.  Like millions I bought this record with it’s huge single ‘Why Does It Always Rain On Me’ – which has become a staple of MOR radio.  I bought the follow-up too – but then for some reason stopped; maybe my attention span was too short, or other more obscue artists took over; I do have a tendency to move on when Artists achieve commercial success.  Best on this are ‘Wriring To Reach You’, ‘Driftwood’ and ‘As You Are’.  Relistening reminds me how very good they actually were.