Welcome To The Beautiful South

I was wondering why the band name seemed familiar and it's because there already was an album by these guys on here. It's fine. About as harmless as indie pop gets. Strong 2/5.

With an album cover like that, you'd expect something raw, challenging, or controversial. The most challenging thing about this album is staying awake long enough to turn it off - unless you're streaming from your PC. When your head inevitably hits the keyboard, that should pause it.

In the early 90s I happened to get Welcome To The Beautiful South’s “Choke” and was hooked on its wry, unique style. A year or so after that I bought this earlier album and loved it every bit as much. The songs reveal an interesting and vivid world or happiness, heartbreak and love. The style feels like happiness with strong tinges of pain or regret - and the lyrics explore a variety of positive and negative emotions that means a lot of these songs have stuck with me. With only two albums from this group in my repertoire its high time I do some more digging in their catalog!

Song for whoever brought back some memories if my time living in Europe. One of my favorite songs ever is by Beautiful South, A Little Time. Not on this album but they do have a great sound for the era. I’ll definitely keep listening.

That's two days in a row I've gotten an album where the cover shows someone pointing a gun at themselves. What the hell, what is the universe trying to tell me? I'll just chalk it up to coincidence but if I get another one tomorrow it's going to make me seriously wonder. The music is nice, pleasant, well done. I didn't realize this band was the follow-up to the Housemartins. They certainly have a distinctive style and every time I hear them I'm reminded how much the Barenaked Ladies borrowed that style. 4 stars.

Good 3 Budget The Smiths 4

Indie pop. Ni fu ni fa.

This is fine, never heard of these guys but it was enjoyable and slightly strange enough.

This is the debut album of The Beautiful South. I liked the other album on the user list (Blue Is the Colour) a lot better. On albums after this one a female singer is adding a pleasant dynamic in the vocals and overall presentation. Also this album has an second half of the 1980s production with prominent drums that sound dated. Not a bad album though.

This played while I listened

Rating: 9/10 Best songs: Song for whoever, Have you ever been away, From under the covers, Girlfriend, Love is…

This is considerably better than the other TBS album in the list, missing some of the poor choices that one made and instead opting for a new, different and refreshing approach that doesn't drag itself down. I don't believe I've ever sat and listened to this through before - I've naturally heard many of the tracks that had been selected for Carry On Up The Charts, but there's legit some decent stuff in here. Decent selection, although this one should probably crowd out Blue is the Colour - we don't need both.

Always love to hear a bit of The Beautiful South. Some lovely new to me songs.

Slightly dated Brit alternative but I enjoyed this one and the diversity within

The Housemartins are dead, long live the Beautiful South As someone who has only recently been put on to Housemartins, courtesy of this website, I'm not sure what to expect from this band To use the 1001 albums as reference, I can't decide if it's a) more like Viva Hate after the Smiths broke up, where Heaton and co. are restless to invent beyond the jangle pop of their original band, or b) like Dexys third album Don't Stand Me Down, where the tight pop-rock structures are expanded to 6 and 7-minute long odysseys, but without a clear stand-out track like their earlier records. This might grow on me, who is to say. Just because I wasn't taken by it as easily as the Housemartins' two-minute ditties, doesn't mean it wasn't a worthwhile listen 3.5 HL: "Song For Whoever", "You Keep It All In", "Woman in the Wall" March 22, 2026

This LP can’t decide if it wants to be a vocally-driven set of lullabies or a dollar-store Smiths ripoff, and both modes are pretty insufferable. The only standout quality is how downright goofy and baffling the lyricism is, otherwise the best parts of this album were lifted from much better listens.

This album really surprised me. We had The Beautiful South on this list much earlier and I did not like it at all. This really took me, though. It was right on the border between new wave (a genre I often find tiring) and Barenaked Ladies-style 90s alternative (a genre I often love). This feels like such a transitional album and I liked the silly lyrics and the lovely melodies. I was going to go 4 but I’m talking myself up to a 5!

Welcome To The Beautiful South was pretty boring to me, it's an endearing listen but really quite plain and not them at their best at all. Completely harmless and inoffensive radio pop, only Oh Blackpool lifted me from a slumber, 2/5, they've done better.