The Beautiful South

Hailing from Hull, England, The Beautiful South have been cranking out the hits since their transition from the gospelized Housemartins in 1989. Formed by Paul Heaton and David Rotheray after their previous musical venture went kaput, the band has had one of the most successful songwriting teams (Heaton doing lyrics and Rotheray writing the music) in British music history. The band lineup has been stable, except for first female lead vocalist Brianna Corrigan bowing out to persue an unsuccessful solo career after 0898 due to issues with singing Heaton's overly pessimistic words.

This is brit-pop straight up, no chaser, folks. Peppy tunes with cynical lyrics, service with a snarl. The Beautiful South are rather popular in Britain, but will probably never catch on in America, seeing as how their lyrics contain a bit more subtlety than your average Eminem tune, and the music is, for the most part, along the lines of lush adult contemporary (hardly the sort of thing that rocks anyone's trailer nowadays). Still, they have a following of dedicated fans over here despite the overall atrociousness of Quench.

The group's name comes from a play on common perceptions of regions in England: the band wanted a way to raz the hoity-toitiness of southerners (Hull being in northern England, and all). For a short time, they were even selling black t-shirts with huge white print that read "NORTHERN SCUM".

members:

• Paul Heaton: vocals
• Brianna Corrigan (1989 - 1993): vocals
• Jacqueline Abbott (1993 - 2001): vocals
• Dave Hemingway: vocals
• David Rotheray: guitar
• Sean Welch: bass
• David Stead: drums

discography:

• Welcome to the Beautiful South
  singles:
  • Song For Whoever
  • You Keep It All In
• Choke
  • I'll Sail This Ship Alone
  • A Little Time
  • My Book
  • Let Love Speak Up Itself
• 0898
  • Old Red Eyes Is Back
  • We Are Each Other
  • Bell Bottomed Tear
  • 36D
• Miaow
  • Everybody's Talkin'
  • Good As Gold
  • Prettiest Eyes
• Carry On Up the Charts (a best of compilation)
  • One Last Love Song
  • Pretenders To The Throne
• Blue is the Colour
  • Rotterdam
  • Don't Marry Her
  • Blackbird on the Wire
  • Liars' Bar
• Quench
  • Perfect 10
  • Dumb
  • How Long's A Tear
  • The Table
• Painting It Red
  • Closer Than Most
  • The River / Just Checkin'

website: http://www.beautifulsouth.co.uk/

mailing list: The Groove-A-Thon, P.O. Box 87, HU5 2EQ (There used to be an American info service -- Pumpkin Seeds -- but it seems to have gone tits up)