The Stone Roses are the most influential British rock band of the last 15 years, but since their long-drawn-out and frankly ludicrous demise five years ago, vocalist Ian Brown has taken a lot of playground flak.
It all started when Brown squawked rather than sang his way through a Roses set at Reading Festival in 1996. Critics thought that was the end. It was the end of the Roses. But not of Brown.
Two years later, his debut solo album, "Unfinished Monkey Business," was a big hit. But the media still wanted to take the piss. The nickname "King Monkey" stuck, and while his music received praise, the man himself was dismissed as a "new-age hippie gone crazy after too many psychedelics." But these minor barbs rather miss the point.