Welcome To The Beautiful South

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Adventurous to be sure, Heaton and the rest of the “South” ventured outside of the boundaries of northern soul, with the inclusion of jazz-beats, sophisticated piano melodies, and New Wave guitars to create the sound of The Beautiful South that would last for almost 20 years. While original lyricism was their raison d’être, they weren’t afraid to throw in an unexpected cover, especially their brilliant take on the 80s R&B hit “Girlfriend” by Pebbles. “I’ll Sail This Ship Alone” throws another curveball, with Heaton in a rare moment of vulnerability finally shows a chink in his armor on this melancholic ballad. If you never knew you could bop your head to lighthearted songs about murder, well, welcome to The Beautiful South. After politically minded Hull-based indie pop outfit The Housemartins went their separate ways in 1988, vocalist Paul Heaton and drummer Dave Hemingway formed The Beautiful South, the name being a glib nod to Southern England from a band with Northern roots. Their first single—a deeply cynical love song called "Song for Whoever”—was released in September of 1989 and laid out the band’s musical framework of pairing darkly tongue-in-cheek lyrics with jazzy piano riffs and sprightly melodies. The band’s first foray climbed to No. 2 on the charts and their equally bitter romp, "You Keep It All In", with vocalist Briana Corrigan providing a sweet counter note, followed suit. A month later, they released their debut, Welcome to the Beautiful South, sharing their caustic musical humour with fans who were in on the joke. Their peppy breakup anthem "A Little Time" from their 1990 album Choke went to No. 1 as fans related to its spurned lover’s revenge theme, and the singles compilation, Carry on Up the Charts, which they released in 1994, was so popular it reportedly could be found in one in every seven UK households. Over the course of the next 10 years, the band released a steady stream of albums that told grim stories and bleak romances all wrapped in jaunty tunes, as well as jazz-pop covers of songs like Pebbles’ “Girlfriend” and Fred Neil’s “Everybody’s Talkin’”. The band broke up in 2007, spinning off into solo acts and other iterations. On their way out the door, they released a statement saying they were splitting up “due to musical similarities”—a fittingly cheeky farewell. HOMETOWN Hull, England

The Beautiful South – the Band". BBC News. 29 November 2001. Archived from the original on 24 April 2011 . Retrieved 29 August 2023. There are some songs from your childhood that you clearly remember hearing on the radio for the first time. It was summer 1989, and it was a period of change in my life which my ten year old self was feeling pretty optimistic about. My family were about to move house, I was about to go up to senior school, both big life-events for your average ten year old. I was sat in our old kitchen, my mum was cooking tea with the radio on, something which she habitually did despite the fact she wasn’t a huge fan of late 80s pop music, when suddenly this piano feature was punctuated with a line which I now consider among the greatest opening lines in the history of popular song “I love you from the bottom of my pencil case”. As opening lines to songs go, it’s an absolute winner. Except this just wasn’t any old song. This was the debut single by The Beautiful South, and therefore the first time the public had heard anything by this band. As opening lines to your career go, “I love you from the bottom of my pencil case” may very well be the greatest ever, and is certainly in songwriter Paul Heaton’s top five. The Beautiful South's 1989 debut would be important if only to mark the partial continuance of the Housemartins' legacy. But when vocalist Paul Heaton and drummer Dave Hemmingway greeted the world with Welcome to the Beautiful South, the handshake came with a Cheshire grin. Nothing in the Beautiful South was as it seemed. Where there was jaunty, jazzy pop, crossed fingers warned of murderous lyrics. If a single featured a fluttering flute, it was filled with familial terror. "Woman in the Wall," featuring one of the year's most memorable melodies and Heaton's plaintive lead vocal, also featured lines like "He'd enjoyed the thought of killing her before" and "when the rotting flesh began to stink." But even in the album's most gruesome moments, the streak of cynical, caustic sarcasm running through it was as clear as crop circles. This fact only made Welcome's twee goodness that much more fun, for with each well-placed barb it further proved what the Housemartins had started: pop didn't have to be stupid. The group were known for their wry and socially observant lyrics. They broke up in January 2007, claiming the split was due to "musical similarities", [2] having sold around 15 million records worldwide. The album Quench (1998) was released with similar commercial success, again reaching number one in the UK album charts. " Perfect 10", the first single to be released from the album, also provided the band with further singles chart success. The album is also notable for being more uptempo, and being the first on which Heaton and Hemingway's former Housemartins colleague Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim) was used in a consultancy role. [14] Painting It Red release and Abbott's departure [ edit ]

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Stavropoulos, Laura (9 May 2023). " 'Welcome To The Beautiful South': The Beautiful South's Subversive Pop Debut". udiscovermusic.com . Retrieved 22 July 2023. This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sourcesin this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. European platinum certificates: 1996". ifpi.org. Archived from the original on 22 February 2012 . Retrieved 1 March 2010. Obviously, the Beautiful South are never going to be the most fashionable group in the world, and there’s a good chance that Superbi will sell to their fanbase without making any big splashes in the chart. Yet Paul Heaton and company have never been particularly bothered about being hip, and Superbi is another example of this most resolutely British of bands quietly getting on with what they do best” – MusicOMH Bourne, Diane (15 February 2007). "Why does it always rain on us?". Manchester Evening News . Retrieved 29 August 2023.

Although 2000's Painting It Red album reached Number 2 in the UK charts, the band suffered difficulties in its promotion and in touring, and a substantial number of the CDs were faulty. Jacqui Abbott left the band in the same year, discouraged by the pressures of touring and needing to concentrate on looking after her son, who had just been diagnosed with autism. [15] [16] [17] After completing their tour obligations, the band marked time with a second greatest-hits album ( Solid Bronze) in 2001, and took time off to refresh themselves. Heaton embarked on a solo career under the Biscuit Boy (a.k.a. Crakerman) alias [18] and released the Fat Chance album in 2001. It did not sell well, despite being critically acclaimed, and was reissued under Heaton's own name the following year. The third initial bandmember was Dave Rotheray, a songwriting guitarist who'd previously played with Hemingway in two other Hull bands, the Newpolitans and the Velvetones. At the time, Rotheray was studying for a PhD at the University of Hull and living on Grafton Street, where Heaton also lived. Rotheray and Heaton became the songwriting team for the Beautiful South, which was conceived as a quintet with Heaton and Hemingway (who was no longer drumming) as the two lead singers. The core band was completed by Dave Stead (ex-Luddites/Vicious Circle) on drums, and former Housemartins roadie Sean Welch on bass guitar. Also important to the band's sound was studio keyboard player Damon Butcher — though never an official member of the group, he would end up playing virtually all the piano and keyboard parts on the band's albums. French album positions". infodisc.fr. Archived from the original on 20 August 2008 . Retrieved 1 March 2010. years later and “Song for Whoever”, with its subverting and brilliant pulling apart of love song tropes, is still my favourite Beautiful South song. So why didn’t I buy Welcome to The Beautiful South at the earliest opportunity? Because I was ten years old when it came out, that’s why. A few years later there would be a copy of the The Best of The Beautiful South: Carry On Up the Charts compilation in our house. This compilation opened with “Song for Whoever”, and contained pretty much every Beautiful South number that I had any affection for, and as a teenager with very limited disposable income, I never really investigated The Beautiful South any further, outside of being partial to their tunes when I heard them on the radio. Using Ms. Corrigan's chirpy passion, Mr. Hemingway's boyish murmur and his own torchy voice, Mr. Heaton has perfected the sort of vocal arrangements he had experimented with on the group's two previous albums. The vocalists don't sound like soul singers, but they do sing soulfully. The Beautiful South is now able to present emotional contrasts throughout the album's various pop styles, ranging from 50's dance beat to British music-hall patter.

Waller, Don (13 May 1990). "The Beautiful South, 'Welcome to the Beautiful South,' Elektra / Beats International, 'Let Them Eat Bingo,' Elektra". Los Angeles Times.

But this winning formula of sharp lyricism couched in bright pop melodies really began with the seminal 80s pop-soul band, The Housemartins, where singer-songwriter Paul Heaton and drummer-turned vocalist David Hemingway spun their societal observations into infectious pop hits on their 1986 debut album, London 0 Hull 4, featuring the single “Happy Hour.” Then in 1988, during the very peak of their popularity, the group split, and Heaton and Hemingway shifted their sights from garage pop to Top Of The Pops. With a new line-up consisting of former Housemartins’ roadie, bassist Sean Welch, Hemingway’s former Velvetones bandmate, guitarist and co-songwriter Dave Rotheray, and drummer Dave Stead, the group was primed to make their entrance. Loftus, Johnny. " Welcome to the Beautiful South – The Beautiful South". AllMusic . Retrieved 15 August 2009. Power, Mark (28 July 2020). "When REM created a Monster: inside the tour that almost destroyed them". The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved 30 August 2023. So here we are 30 years after its release. Is Welcome to The Beautiful South as good as the band's arresting debut single would suggest?Gettelman, Parry (27 April 1990). "The Beautiful South". Orlando Sentinel . Retrieved 24 February 2023. Clark, Graham (8 August 2022). "Interview With Dave Hemingway - Ex Beautiful South Singer". The Yorkshire Times . Retrieved 30 August 2023.