Rather like the career of fellow Mancunian, Moz, IBX (as he used to scratch into his desk at school, fact fans) has, despite fallow periods, controversial blunders and some damn-average LPs, managed to emerge from the ashes of a legendary band with his individual reputation intact.

For that, he has to thank a combination of his own iconoclasm, some useful selections of co-writers and probably our own estimations of him as an artist. From the first jail-fraught years of winging it on his reputation alone to present day, Brown has become a fully-formed solo artist; with his own post-Roses identity to boot (unlike the aforementioned Morrissey).

This Best Of - cheeky title and all - charts that rise from superb demos (essentially what ‘My Star’ and ‘Corpses In Their Mouths’ are) to fully fledged epics (the Dave McCracken inspired, string-strewn ‘F.E.A.R’.).

Along the way, we take in the crunching rock of the ‘Golden Greats’ era – see the Darwin-tastic ‘Dolphins Were Monkeys’ and ‘Love Like A Fountain’ – and spook-isms of his UNKLE collaborations (‘Be There’ is ace, ‘Reign’ less so), finally ending with the mariachi tinged ‘Time Is My Everything’ from his last LP, ‘Solarized’.

Rather like his career, it’s a jumble of styles and influences held together mainly by the spectral mumblings of the shaky-lunged man himself. When it clicks however, like in the dense, Massive Attack-esque ‘F.E.A.R.’, it’s quite magnificent. That’s not to say that it’s a hit all-round – the songs from ‘Golden Greats’, his second album, sound oddly dated, while a few other efforts like ‘Longsight M13’ could have been trimmed from the tracklisting altogether. Stone Roses show at the Reading Festival, it’s quite a feat he’s got this far. For him to be able to serve us this, a bonafide greatest hits album, is quite miraculous.

Top man.