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Welcome To The Beautiful South
 
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Welcome To The Beautiful South

~ Beautiful South
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
Price: £4.98 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
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Welcome To The Beautiful South + Choke + Miaow
Price For All Three: £11.94

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  • This item: Welcome To The Beautiful South ~ Beautiful South

    In stock.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

  • Choke ~ Beautiful South

    In stock.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

  • Miaow ~ Beautiful South

    In stock.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
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Product details

  • Audio CD (30 April 1991)
  • Number of Discs: 1
  • Label: Go! Beat
  • ASIN: B000024K12
  • Other Editions: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 8,453 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Listen to Samples and Buy MP3s

Songs from this album are available to purchase as MP3s. Click on "Buy MP3" or view the MP3 Album.

Samples
Song Title Time Price
Listen  1. Song For Whoever 6:12£0.79
Listen  2. Have You Ever Been Away 5:11£0.69
Listen  3. From Under The Covers 4:04£0.69
Listen  4. I'll Sail This Ship Alone 4:39£0.79
Listen  5. Girlfriend 2:55£0.69
Listen  6. Straight In At 37 4:29£0.69
Listen  7. You Keep It All In 2:53£0.79
Listen  8. Woman In The Wall 5:16£0.69
Listen  9. Oh Blackpool 2:59£0.69
Listen10. Love Is... 7:04£0.69
Listen11. I Love You (But You're Boring) 4:31£0.69

Product Description

From Amazon.com

The Housemartins used crazily bouncing melodies to sweeten their political pop. After they broke up after just two albums, P.D. Heaton tried a similar technique with the Beautiful South--lush melodies, rolling piano, and beautiful voices sugar-coating delightfully subversive lyrics. Only where the Housemartins railed against bankers and unthinking sheep, the Beautiful South moved from the political to the personal (except for some delicious swipes at the music biz), writing gorgeous love songs to dull partners ("I Love You But You're Boring"), gruesome murders ("Woman in the Wall"), and conversation fear ("You Keep It All In"). Funnier still is "Song for Whoever," which reveals the man behind the love song: "Oh Shirley, Oh Deborah, Oh Julie, Oh Jane/I wrote so many songs about you/I forget your name." --David Daley


CD Description

Formed from the ashes of the Housemartins, The Beautiful South became one of England's most successful bands. Released in 1989, their debut, WELCOME TO THE BEAUTIFUL SOUTH, introduces the band's style. Musically, the songs are often deceptively sweet sounding, while lyrically brutally sardonic, even cruel. This combination keeps their records extremely edgyand sometimes uncomfortable, though there's no denying the band's skill.
A perfect example of this is "Woman in the Wall", which is musically energetic and triumphal, though its lyrics owe something to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart", telling a horrifying story of spousal abuse that results in murder. Other standouts include "Song for Whoever", which starts as a sweet love song before the narrator confesses that the song was written for at least 10 different women, "Straight In at 37", which takes a couple of memorable potshots at popsters Simon Le Bon and Paul Young, and the epic "Love Isa", featuring three different vocalists, including Briana Corrigan, who eventually became a full-fledged member of the band.

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Customer Reviews

6 Reviews
5 star:
 (3)
4 star:
 (2)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.3 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect pop... a Pet Sounds for the 80’s., 21 Dec 2003
By Jonathan James Romley (Dublin, Ireland) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)   
This is one of the finest albums I’ve ever had on my CD player. Welcome to the Beautiful South is 50 minutes of pure pop perfection, as Heaton, Corrigan and Co. croon along to infectious jazz beats with literary pop hooks, tales of marital abuse, alcoholisms and the moribund exasperation of modern-day relationships. If this were Radiohead or Lou Reed, the band would have had us reaching for the razor blades by the end of track three. Instead, song-writing duo Heaton and Rotheray take a leaf out of Morrissey’s song book and inject their morbid musing with a satirical wit and comedic depth.

The result is how you would imagine Noel Coward sounding if he’d lived through the eighties recession. Bitter, bile-spewing though utterly charming; lifting the spirits for those unwilling to pay attention, whilst giving the rest of us a lesson in how to create substantial pop. The biggest hits are the best of the bunch, with Song for Whoever and You Keep it all In representing not only two of the finest tracks of 80’s pop music, but two of the finest works of pop music ever. They may be deceptively downbeat and cynical to the full, but still somehow, as romantic and beautiful as music can get. However, it is not just the jazzy piano ballads that impress, oh no, there’s also some wonderful guitar work on display... most notably on the rocking Girlfriend and the somewhat trivial, though always entertaining, Straight in at 37.

The closing numbers are as different as you could possibly get to the majority of pop music being created at the time. Love is... begins in a way not too dissimilar to the rest of the album with it’s melancholic tales of middle-class love; before transforming into a wild and raucous sing a long corker, with more than a passing nod to The Beatles. Whilst the closing number, the wonderfully titled I Love You (But You’re Boring) is truly, unlike anything else on the album. Here a solo acoustic guitar leads us through sound effects, vocal passages, hidden voices and a whole lot of distortion as Heaton screams about a love that was too busy listening to Carousel, to bake a phallic cake.

This really is one of the best albums ever... and a debut to boot. The music is catchy, memorable and always intelligent, whilst the musicianship of the band is absolutely faultless. Though the future line up would change, and the band as a whole would go on to explore further lyrical dimensions and more experimental sonic textures, this is still the greatest example of band’s undiluted creativity. A must own for every household.

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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Welcome to.. this band's best!, 21 Jan 2003
By B. Mullan "The Suitable Mouth" (Downpatrick, NI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
A magnificent album - this is the first long player from The Beautiful South. The production quality is raw, there is a great edge to it and itholds some of the best work the band have ever done - including their best ever "Woman In The Wall" with guitar and percussion that wouldn't sound out of place on Paul Simon's Graceland!

Song For Whoever gets a wonderful extended play here and the album version of I'll Sail This Ship Alone is also better!

Hilarious, moving, violent and political - this album has it all!!!

Welcome to really did introduce us to the new "Lennon and McCartney"!!!

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Welcome to the Liars Bar...., 29 Aug 2006
Something from the pen of Paul Heaton is always a cause for interest and this debut from the six-peice from Hull is certainly an album of interest.
"You Keep It All In" and "Song For Whoever" are intelligent pop-classics. "From Under The Covers" and "Woman In The Wall" are two other very examples of Heaton and Rotheray's excellent song-writing.
What lets this album down is its cheap production sound. There is no bass to the sound on this album and some of the other songs don't quite cut the mustard. However this album showed enough potential for you to buy their second one.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Stands the test of time....
This album is almost unique; lyrically it will make you laugh,wince,cry or even shock. This is often incongrous given the backdrop of joyful uplifting musicality that abounds... Read more
Published 6 months ago by D. L. Young

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent intro
An excellent introduction to The Beautiful South. Check out Paul Heaton's earlier incarnation in the Housemartins too... Read more
Published on 30 Jan 2006 by PJ Online

4.0 out of 5 stars good but not the best Beutiful south I have bought
This is an awful cd the worst one i have bought of the beautiful south collection but is still wonderful as beutiful south are the best. Read more
Published on 26 Feb 2000

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