Defend The Indefensible: The Beautiful South

I quite like the idea of Simply Red fans humming along without ever really taking lyrics like "don't marry her, fuck me" in.

The Beautiful South are OK, I don't think they're as bad at the subversive-wit-and-wordplay thing as Tom clearly does (bloody better than The Divine Comedy, anyway, and not everyone can be a Luke Haines), and they've written some genuinely likeable ditties... 'A Little Time' is amusing enough, 'Song For Whoever' and 'Don't Marry Her' also pretty good. I mean... Beautiful South : Black Box Recorder :: Sheryl Crow : Lucinda Williams, and I don't mind Sheryl either. Populist versions of good things aren't necessarily bad.

not really a problem - and to touch on kilian's earlier point, that's almost Pulp anyway - almost

very few bands annoyed me in the 90s as much as The Beautiful South however

who is guiltier? its all relative surely

anyway, whoever compared them to the dave matthews band was pretty spot-on. i think i've maybe heard one beautiful south song, thought it was OK (but not spectacularly good, and nowhere near as good as the housemartins were). long way of saying -- i've no opinion re this!

a duck fucking Mick Hucknall

I want to read this as 'a fuck ducking Mick Hucknall' or 'a Huck duckfucking Muck Fucknuts.'

I think that many of the BS's songs failed to do what they seemed to be trying to do. For instance, the 'argument' of 'Perfect Ten' never becomes remotely 'convincing'. It says 'I like people who are fat and ugly by conventional standards', but doesn't make you feel: yes, I understand - that makes sense.

The thing I most like about the Beautiful South is that in May 1989 I was on a coach through the yellow and green English countryside, on an evening that will and can never be recovered, and I was reading the NME with the anon. Liverpool player on the cover, and the BS were giving what seemed like their first-ever interview, which I read as the country and the sky sped on past and above and below. They were talking about 'Song For Whoever' and I thought: well, no-one's going to buy that. But somebody did.

The BS vs Simply Red as a post-socialist, pre-Blairite battle for the suburban car stereo of Mondeo Man is a topic worthy of Robin Carmody, though.

It is good that people who liked the Housemartins for a year or two in the mid-80s should try to remember why, and what things it, or that, or they, fitted in with.

I guess it's all that rootsy socialist folk thing that Steve Redhead used to talk about. I also see an associated (pre-?)geezer aspect: real ale, Hull City, fourth division Britain.

Tom, you are a fule. I kiss you.

It's funny how much your act of guilt parallels the Nipper's act of rage with the Housemartins.

Probably people buy their records because they think they quite like the band, as they probably do with Destiny's Child records.

Perhaps they listen to them in their homes or in their cars, as people probably do with Jennifer Lopez records that they have bought.

AHA! Tom is revealed as an indie-snob of webzines! I'm sure Ryan'd love to have you writing for PFM, Tom... ;o)

'A Little Time' is probably the best Beautiful South song - a marital tiff on record is at least entertaining in theory.

[Black Box Recorder:] The Beautiful South with cred

• Song For Whoever?!?!
  
• Old Red Eyes Is Back?!??!?!
  
• A Little Time!??!?! (Which I think is pretty underrated, you know!!!! Espcially since it inched all the way to the top of the brit hit parade!!!!)
  
• Rotterdam!??!?!
  
• Don't Marry Her?!?!?!
  
• Even 'Perfect 10' is not too bad either!!!!!!
  

Suddenly you realize the whole song has just come off the road and overturned with its wheels spinning, after travelling a few feet.

Q's point about subversion is marvellous as usual.

This is probably due to only hearing a few BBR records, though.

Just as well tha South don't make dance music or Pinefox would really have problems with them!!!!! :)

"Holding Back The Years" and their version of "If You Don't Know Me By Now" are fantastic.

The first two Beautiful South albums are really great. I also like "We Are Each Other". After that, they are kind of boring.

Perhaps I have forgotten it.

(i quite like it actually)

I suppose I quite like "A Little Time". the South's later stuff is horrendous.

I used to ADORE the Beautiful South . . . funny and witty and tunes. Good songs sung well . . . what more could you want?

Their pinnicle is the Blue is the Colour album. It is, without doubt, one of THE darkest albums ever made. But it's not dark in a dead-of-night kinda way . . . it's dark in a grey-day kinda way. You know . . . when the day is so boring, so bad, and so terrible, life looks like its viewed through a monochrome TV set with the contrast turned right down. The songs are great individually, but brilliant together, creating a kind of middle-class darkness thats far more convincing than your usual feel-my-pain Pink Floyd derived proclamations.

It least, that's what I thought at the time.

I listened to this album about a fortnight ago . . . it's still not bad. The full impact has been lost over time, but it's still good rousing stuff, especially Have Fun and Mirror, and Blackbird on a Wire is a lovely, lovely song.

Even if everything else they've done is a dud (which it isn't - Red Eyes is Back and Song for Whoever, despite the tweeness, are great songs) this album redeems them. Indefensible? Hardly.

"And the Sunday sun shines down on San Francisco bay" . . . that bit.

"Song for Whoever" may be the smuggest song ever as well. In a great way.

By the way, if you thought Heaton or anyone who wrote songs was the problem: http://www.newbeautifulsouth.co.uk/

I'd kind of forgotten how great "My Book" and "We Are Each Other" are.

My mind is kinda blown at noting Lex talking about how he doesn't mind them way upthread!

this revive was spawned by a coworker IMing me "What was that song that started 'I love you from the bottom of my pencil case'?" and me going on a Youtube binge shortly thereafter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_the_Beautiful_South

also I'd never seen the alternate album cover, lololol

"prevent the hoards of impressionable young fans from blowing their heads off in a gun-gobbling frenzy, or taking up smoking"

Indeed.

I am hoping that isn't a US/UK spelling thing and that they really do mean hoards of fans

The New Beautiful South have changed their name to 'The South'.
You can find The South at www.thesouth.uk.com
Its all about the songs!

Thank you

first album is still a monster

"Sail This Ship Alone" and "Woman in the Wall" are just... yeah I dig shit like that.

This is a band that I ought to have loved, but I am largely indifferent. A bit too pastoral maybe, but some of their songs are ace. "Song For Whoever" is still a classic.

The singles compilation is all anyone needs IMO, but that contains some of the finest pop songs I've ever heard. The two extra tracks slung on the end to ensnare the completists, "Prettiest Eyes" and "One Last Love Song", are very moving. I love the swell, grit and movement of this band.

edit: one extra track. "Prettiest Eyes" was not new.

I must be getting old but Beautiful South are starting to sound really good to me! I remember hating them along with everyone else but now the smoke has cleared I'm not sure why...

From the bottom of my pencil case,
AdamRL

Try listening to 'Amsterdam' all the way through without getting the urge to break something.

OK I'll try that now

Rotterdam?

OK. So the lyrics are TERRIBLE, the singing is mawkish, but the guitar is kind of cheery and inoffensive. Some OK canned strings too. Catchy chorus you have to say.

Some problems but I don't feel like breaking anything but a world record for AWESOMENESS

Lyrics sometimes read like Larkin without the talent.

But of course picking on song lyrics for not being poetry is unfair. I started listening to them because Xgau told us to, before I knew they were uncool. Still like them, although always kind of hated the cover art. Went to see them once, they came out on stage and Paul said "Jacqui's gone missing" - she had just quit- and our hearts sank. The show was alright, but it was kind of like listening to the stereo with only one of the channels working.

they probly went on too long but the first 3 or 4 albums are uniformly great. am i biased? probably but fuck it.

covers album near the end is also great.

Jacqui finally returned
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60s47twOm2I&feature=related

I just listened to "Rotterdam" and I have absolutely no need to break something.

If I need to break something, should I listen to some Captain Beefheart or James Brown instead then?

I think back on my days when I started buying Beautiful South albums. I did so for two reasons: 1) I kind of liked the Housemartins second album and figured it would be a more fleshed out idea of that record and 2) They were absurdly cheap used. Think I had the first three or four albums at one point. I actually listened to them a lot. This was about a decade ago, maybe?

Anyway, I remember nothing about them except for two things (both presumably from the first album, if I recall): 1) Their surprisingly convincing cover of Pebbles' 'Girlfriend' and 2) That one song about, "6am and even Big Ben is trying to put his head down"; that one was decent.

Other than that, the only thing I really remember is how aggressively middle of the road the actual music sounded. It's like he was trying to do the music boring, overproduced pop music he could, in order to get away with some occasionally "controversial" lyrics. I honestly have no clue what I was doing by forcing the band on myself the way I did for nearly a year.

Just dreadfully vapid music.

I like "Song for Whoever" a lot.

The first album is great IMO

It's like he was trying to do the music boring, overproduced pop music he could, in order to get away with some occasionally "controversial" lyrics.

I think it's basically this, except that the two of them really seriously liked a) pleasing-sounding MOR pop music, and b) other pleasing-sounding MOR pop music that also had dark or vicious lyrics

Wasn't the point of the band to create pleasant-sounding pop songs with evil lyrics? I think the joke was on the record-buying public.

You mean like Microdisney but actually popular?

loved Microdisney + Fatima Mansions

saw BS a number of times, incl when they had a big horn section doing "You Should Be Dancing"

We had the Roundhouse booked for two nights for the Q Awards next week. We didn’t have talent sorted when we had to Covid cancel in April, but Nadine Shah was presenting and the two gigs were Liam Gallagher one night, Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott the other.

— Ted Kessler (@TedKessler1) October 9, 2020

^ You have to follow the thread but this was really decent of Heaton.

Yeah sorry - follow the thread.

I don't think "my jam" is really appropriate in terms of the musicial elements, but I have feelings and fondness for "I'll Sail This Ship Alone" and "I've Come for My Award"

I think a Beautiful South jukebox musical could kill

Saw both Paul Heaton and Jaffa Cakes were both trending earlier and thought perhaps he'd finally overdosed