Beautiful South - Welcome To The Beautiful South (Anniversary Celebration)

Release date: 23rd October 1989
UK album chart peak: #2

Buy Welcome To The Beautiful South here (Amazon GB)
Read my Beautiful South anniversary posts here

When The Beautiful South formed out of the ashes of The Housemartins, they filled an important niche in the British charts. When their debut album, Welcome To The Beautiful South, was released in the autumn of 1989 the charts was dominated by music coming out of the Stock Aitken & Waterman Hit Factory, a new brand of dance music bubbling on the horizon (hello Black Box and Technotronic) and electro-synth in the form of Pet Shop Boys, Erasure and Depeche Mode. Of course, there were other genres floating around but what the driving force behind this new band (songwriters Paul Heaton and Dave Rotheray) did was provide a biting social commentary on British life through sing-along lyrics and indelible indie-pop melodies. The album scored some sizeable hits but wasn't without some scandal - there was much pearl clutching (particularly at the Mormon church I went to) over the original cover art (above) which featured a woman with a gun in her mouth and a man smoking. Honestly, the elders at the Mormon church were more concerned about us impressionable youth thinking smoking was cool, but most people felt the art was far too provocative and, due to powerhouse (at the time) record selling store Woolworths refusing to stock it, the cover was changed; as the band noted "prevent the hoards [sic] of impressionable young fans from blowing their heads off in a gun-gobbling frenzy, or taking up smoking". Still, thanks broadly to the success of the lead off single, Welcome To The Beautiful South made number two on the album charts and was a consistent seller for a good six months. A look back at the singles...

• Song For Whoever ~ while the band would become best known for their male-female trade off vocals, Paul and Dave Hemingway took the lead on this brilliantly subversive love song. Essentially a story about a cynical songwriter who romances ladies for inspiration for song lyrics, it didn't stop a healthy number of girls at my school swooning over it. "He says my name" proclaimed Jennifer, whilst Alison just nodded smugly behind her. I think I rolled my eyes so hard at this that the lunch lady Miss Trimble thought I was having a seizure, sent me to the school nurse and got me out of PE. Result. The song is also a corker - eminently singable with a pretty melody that lingers long after the song had finished. Solidly worked its way to the number two slot, held off by Soul II Soul's shuffling Back To Life. Sadly the b-side, Straight In At Number 37, didn't prove prophetic - it actually debuted two places higher...
• You Keep It All In ~ The band's second pre-album single was no slouch either; a worthy follow up to the bobby dazzler of a debut. This song gave broader focus to the band's other vocalist, Brianna Corrigan, who traded lyrical quips and melodic blame game with Paul Heaton brilliantly. A story all about repressing your feelings (which, as a closeted gay teen was something I excelled at), the duelling vocals gave two sides of the tale and gave rise to the brilliant lyric "the conversation we had last week/when you gagged and bound me up to my seat"; it just sounded (to my innocent, youthful ears) as dramatic as an episode of Brookside. Plus, as I would later learn, that's what happens when you forget the safe word in Middle England... Anyway, the song was another solid bronze hit, peaking at number eight (and giving the band their first US Billboard Chart hit by reaching number 19 on the Modern Rock chart).
• I'll Sail This Ship Alone ~ the third single from the debut set was hurried out for the competitive Christmas chart. Remixed from the album version (by adding drums to the piano and strings), the new version kept the melancholy of this pretty yet morose ballad in tact. I'll admit I prefer the album version but Paul Heaton's vocal is so achingly determined in his quest for pathos that either mix is lovely. Even though I was only 15 at the time this was released, the lyrics really resonated with me. I felt I was the one making all the effort in a friendship that was very important to me. I gave the person chance after chance until I came to the realisation that perhaps it just wasn't worth it not get nothing in return. It remains a crime that this stalled at number 31 (it actually had a fairly steady chart run over the festive period - as if a few more people discovered the loveliness of it each week), but hey at least Jive Bunny got a third chart topper with Let's Party!!
• Girlfriend ~ The Beautiful South always kept the promotional campaign for all their albums to three or four singles. After I'll Sail... got lost in the Christmas rush, it is no surprise there was no fourth single. Yet their interpretation of the Pebbles smash, Girlfriend, would have made a fine selection. They strip back the new jill swing and, through use of guitar and percussion, made it sound like the composition was always meant for them. Not only that, but this effusive jam session was definitely a precursor to the type of reinventions you would hear on BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge throughout the 90s/00s. Giving the song a male perspective, through Paul singing the lead, adds nuance to the now well-known story. Was almost guaranteed to make at least number 23, but alas it was not to be. Still Choke was just round the corner...