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To celebrate the return of Chris Evans and TFI Friday to our screens on 12th June, this album is packed with the original versions of tracks that were performed on the show during its run from 1996 – 2000 and defined this era. Featuring Ocean Colour Scene, Pulp, Cast, The Charlatans, Catatonia, Stereophonics, James and of course the theme, Man In A Suitcase.
If I was rating this purely as a compilation of Britpop songs (which, well - it is), I would have to give this new double collection five stars. Most of the notable names from the era, apart from Blur and Oasis (both of which were ironically THE biggest) are here. There have been many similar compilations in the past, and I don't doubt that there will be so many more to come, which makes me wish that it could have just lived upto it's name of 'TFI Friday - The Album' more.
Although all of the bands here did indeed all play on Chris Evans' Channel 4's 'TFI Friday' programme throughout it's original 1996 to 2000 run, all of the songs, with just one exception, are the easy-to-find studio versions. The one exception is Shed Seven's cover of The Rolling Stones' classic 'Jumping Jack Flash', quite a rarity in itself (it was only released as a B side to one of their singles), but it's the live version from TFI that we are given here. So why just the one then? This is certainly a missed opportunity, the compilation could have been very different to the 'norm', offering us music fans something new, and make us more than happy to cough up the cash, but alas, it's just virtually the same as countless others.
So, if you don't already have a multi-artist Britpop compilation filled with the era defining hits, 'TFI Friday - The Album' is a great one to start off with. Those of us who do, and own these songs so many times over (including on the band's original studio albums of course), might well be disappointed by the lack of live recordings up on offer here.
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