KEY POINTS:
As every day brings news of yet another 1990s group reuniting in a blaze of publicity, Britpop fans are rejoicing at the announcement that the Verve are to make a comeback.
The group, one of the most influential bands of the previous decade despite fracturing spectacularly 10 years ago just as they were poised for international fame, announced the decision on their website this week.
The statement said four of the five original members were "getting back together for the joy of the music".
The band were back in the studio last week recording tracks for an album due later in the year. They also announced a series of six dates kicking off in November. Tickets are due to go on sale next month.
It follows a spate of high-profile reformations ranging from the Spice Girls and All Saints to indie favourites James, and balladeers Crowded House.
But what makes the reunification of arguably the finest band to emerge from the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan in recent decades even more surprising is the scepticism of front man Richard Ashcroft to the move. He told an interviewer this year: "You're more likely to get all four Beatles back on stage."
One member of the original line-up who will not be present is guitarist and keyboardist Simon Tong. He is part of Damon Albarn's supergroup, the Good, the Bad and the Queen, with Paul Simenon of the Clash.
The Verve formed while studying together at Winstanley College in 1989. They split in April 1999 by which time they had recorded three albums, the most successful of which was the landmark Urban Hymns.
Written at the height of the band's highly publicised drug use, the first single taken from the album was Bitter Sweet Symphony. A huge commercial success, it made number two in Britain and cracked the US top 20.
But even the most ardent Verve fan had to admit it paid more than a passing resemblance to an orchestrated version of the famous riff from The Last Time, originally recorded by the Andrew Loog Oldham Orchestra but made famous by the Rolling Stones.
The Verve yielded victory in court to the Stones' former manager Allen Klein, giving up all publishing royalties and were later sued by Loog Oldham for £1 million ($2.6 million). The band claim never to have made any money from the grim paean to life in a northern town, which also featured in a number of commercials and a film, against their will. They eventually sought to prevent the further distribution of the track.
However, it was resurrected for a high-profile outing at 2005's Live8 concert, where Ashcroft sang to the backing of Coldplay.
Aschcroft embarked on a solo career following the break-up of the Verve, with three albums and a clutch of singles to his name. Despite critical success many feel he failed to live up to the promise of the mid-1990s.
This year, Bitter Sweet Symphony was named as the track which most typifies the Blair years.
It beat competition from Robbie Williams, Oasis, Coldplay, Kaiser Chiefs and the Arctic Monkeys in a poll by Radio Five Live listeners.
- INDEPENDENT
