Product Description

Breakthrough album for the Glaswegian, jangly guitar pop act. 'The Man Who' is a much more downbeat affair than their debut album, 'Good Feeling'. The hit singles 'Why Does It Always Rain On Me', 'Driftwood', 'Turn' and 'Writing To Reach You' are all included.

Track Listing

1. Writing To Reach You
2. Fear
3. As You Are
4. Driftwood
5. Last Laugh Of The Laugh
6. Turn
7. Why Does It Always Rain On Me
8. Luv
9. She's So Strange
10. Slide Show

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12641 in Music
• Released on: 2004-12-13
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
The ultimate slow-burner, Travis's second album infused its way into the psyche of post-Radiohead Britain with an endearingly humble grace. It's not quite certain how Travis went from being the happy-clappy Britpop also-rans of their debut Good Feeling to becoming the gifted pop craftsmen that moulded the gentle emotional trough of the chart-topping The Man Who, but it would seem that the tired, lonely lovelorn niche is one that suits Travis rather well. So, "Writing To Reach You", "Driftwood" and "Why Does It Always Rain On Me?" are the meekest songs to ever eat daytime radio alive. Elsewhere, "As You Are" sounds like Thom Yorke swaddled in blankets, and the closing "Slide Show" punctures rock mythology with an impossibly beautiful lyric: "There is no design for life/ There's no devil's haircut in my mind/ There is not a wonderwall to climb, or step around". --Louis Pattison

Customer Reviews

A perfect album
Music from the heart - somehting we hear little of these days. I guess thats why I love this album so much - each song is very meaningful, with excellent lyrics, and a good variety of sounds too, so it doesn't become bland and boring.
I've listened to alot of Travis, and is their is most mature album yet. Writing to reach you is an excellent way to start the album, and other brilliant songs include As you are, the feel good Driftwood (nice video too!) Why does it always rain on me, and Shes so strange.
A classic album not to be missed!

The Man Who
Although it could probably be fairly argued as of now that Travis's time in the limelight is all but over you can't argue that this recording is anything but a superb album.

Containing their most well known hits this is also a great musical memory trip to the late 90's and the guitar driven rock that was so prevalent at that time. Although obviously compared to their peers like Coldplay, Oasis, Radiohead and the like, Travis had, in my opinion anyway, a more "poppy" sound and were able to mix the harder rock sound with light ballads easily as well.

There's several examples of this acoustic strumming slow song on the album, songs like "Luv", "She's so Strange" and "Side Show", interestingly the final three tracks, give the album a mellow, chilled-out ending (that's of course if you end the album playing before the "hidden track" which is of a much harder style!). This is in comparison with the rhythmic sing-along style of songs like "Driftwood" and "The last laugh of the laughter" and the splendid opener "Writing to reach you" which go before.

Final mention for the two most well known songs, "Why does it always rain....." which popularity was probably its own downfall insomuch as it was overplayed to death, and "Turn" the hardest heaviest sounding track on the album and probably the best.

A masterpiece.
This is easily the pinnacle of Travis albums. Their first album,Good Feeling, was good, their third album, The Invisible Band, was excellent, and their fourth album, 12 Memories, was awful. None of those albums, not even The Invisible Band, come close to the brilliance displayed in The Man Who. With the tracks 'Writing To Reach You', 'Driftwood', 'Turn', and 'Why Does It Always Rain On Me?', The Man Who clearly demonstrates, once and for all, that quantity always loses out over quality (the album only has 10 tracks).

Make sure you don't miss out on a genuine classic.