Welcome To The Beautiful South

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

Good 3 Budget The Smiths 4

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.

Another in the long list of I enjoyed it but would love to sit down and talk to the person who suggested it to find out why they put it forward. What put it across the line for them? That’s the problem with judging based on a single listen. Some of these need more context and repeat listens to really understand.

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 played while I listened

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

Indie pop. Ni fu ni fa.

this is an album that sounds like it was made in 1989 and should have stayed in 1989. There are some sparks of life but overall very bland and boring.

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.

I like The Beautiful South. I had high hopes of getting this one in the main list, so thanks to the user for the submission. They deserve a place in the main list. Someone else submitted "Blue Is The Colour"(another good one), but I prefer Brianna's vocals over Jacqui's. By far my favourite TBS album. Wish I could go higher than 5, but there we are.

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.

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

Always appreciate the juxtaposition of the upbeat Melodie’s with the acerbic lyrics. Was lovely to revisit this and it probably should have been on the original list

Inte fullt lika bra som "Blue is the colour" men inte så långt ifrån. Många av låtarna har jag inte hört förut så jag fick lägga till ett par, tre stycken på min Spotifylista.

Song for anyone is fun, and they have a great sound

I’m not familiar with The Beautiful South, but if an English band named themselves that today, you know the Alabama state legislature would pass a law banning their music. I’m not sure what to expect from this album, but I’m always down for some late eighties pop music. I thought this was a really solid album. If you threw XTC, Style Council, and The Smiths into a blender, you’d get The Beautiful South. I thought the arrangements on this album were excellent, and I enjoyed how the guitars, keyboards, and occasional horns were all layered together, giving this album a really unique sound. On top of that, the rhythms were really solid, making these songs really catchy and easy to get sucked into. The only downside of this album is that some songs felt like filler to me. But the best songs on the album really soared; “From Under The Covers” was my favorite one, but “Girlfriend” and “Have You Ever Been Away” were really solid too. I like albums like this, because I think it could be swapped in for another album on the main list, and it’s just one of those things that boils down to personal preference. This was a great submission for the user list!

I hate The Beautiful South.

I love the quirkiness that is this album, because I love when a band doesn't take itself too seriously. "Song for Whoever" is cute as it shoves in as many women's names as possible into the lyrics, the chorus of "Woman in the Wall" encourages us liberate the song's victim, and the title of "I Love You (But You're Boring)" made me laugh out loud. The Beautiful South didn't hold back. Even when topics were dark, the songs remained fun and light tonally. The multiple vocalists, particularly male and female vocalists, added to this as they traded off verses. Their voices complimented each other well. I'm a sucker for this kind of pop music. I enjoyed this album unironically.

It’s this sort of brit pop post punk sound that made me doubt the original list. Give some light to the genre, but not that much. Conversely, this is the first of the genre that I believe I’ve come across on the user list. Have I missed it? Not really. Made me a tad nostalgic, but I was back to my old pessimism by the end of the album. I wonder questions along the lines of, “how long is this song?”, “when will it end?”, “is this song on the album twice or does it just sound the exact same?”. Maybe I need to open my mind more. Point is, I didn’t enjoy this. Not obnoxious, quite good, actually, but not my style. 4/5

That was confusing as hell I never had an idea of what kind of song was going to come next. For the most part this was filled with incredible bops, but then would be followed by a weirder slow song. The ending song was strange. But there were a lot of very fun songs in here. SO with that this is a low 4

Didn't realize that this is the same band that made The Blue Is The Colour, I guess there are fans in this userbase. Much prefered this one though, breezy atmosphere 🌴

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

Me: I want to listen to The Smiths Mom: We have The Smiths at home The Smiths at home:

Can there have been a worse time to be a vaguely jangly pop band than 1989, when the UK was about to explode with either rave or Madchester or both. Never mind, they sold squillions of records. No-one could escape their singles in the nineties, no matter how hard you raved. Grudgingly they could always write a strong melody and this is perhaps ore interestingly arranged than I might have thought. Song for Whoever's chorus still irritates, so it's a solid but unexciting 3 from me. When is someone going to nominate the first Flowered Up album then?

I love the beautiful south for their quintessentially English sound. But their albums are patchy.

Maybe I listened to this one a bit too distracted with other business, but I honestly can't even remember if I liked it. I remember that it reminds me a bit of "The Smiths", but I'm not sure. I'll go with a safe 3 just to be fair.

Favourite songs: From Under the Covers, Oh Blackpool, Girlfriend, You Keep It All In, Song for Whoever, Woman in the Wall Least favourite songs: I Love You (But You're Boring) 3/5

I was not familiar with The Beautiful South prior to listening to this album, and I wasn't sure what I was expecting, but this ultimately was not it. I do find the album generally difficult to categorize. For having come out in the 80s, it isn't overly 80s sounding. At times, it's jazzy, poppy, indie-y, and even kind of ska-y. The lyricism stood out as rather interesting on this album; too. Lots of clever word-smithing. And the closing track, "I Love You (But You're Boring)"? Honestly, mood. All said and done, a unique and intriguing listen that is pretty hard to pin into a box -- and I'm not mad about that.

Kinda came and went. Caught my ear a couple times, but I never checked for a song name so nothing really stood out.

Wish I’d heard of them before but they sound dated now.

Fun

I like this more than the other album that was on the user list. It's fine. My personal rating: 3/5 My rating relative to the list: 3/5 Should this have been included on the original list? No.

You’re just a shit morrisey

Not their best album but still pleasant enough pop rock I’ll take it.

Low key kind of alt rock/new wave music, but every time I clocked on the lyrics some wierd and often dark stuff going on. Interesting though not entirely to my tastes.

The Beautiful South is an interesting band in the sense that they appear one way and then perform another. Their style is pretty laid back and chill but lyrically they explore much deeper subjects than most. Their album cover is provoking naturally. This album was good and after a couple on this list I’ve found that TBS is a good listen but they’re a mood band. If you don’t care to truly listen you may not like it which may be why my first review of them was so low. 6.0/10

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

5/10. Eh, liked Blue is the Color more, this just felt pretty generic by comparison

Huge gulf between how hard that album cover goes, and how sauceless the music is. Slightly more enjoyable than their other one on here, but I'm not super impressed with them.

Never heard of this and based on the album art work I was expecting something somewhat challenging and raw. This was anything but, relatively safe indie pop. This was fine, but pretty meh for me.

I had trouble connecting to this album. It wasn’t bad, but by the end I felt pretty indifferent to what I had listened to.

On one hand, I don't hate this. On the other hand I have neither the patience nor the desire to finish this. There were a couple of isolated parts where I thought to myself "this is kind of interesting" but that was swept away in a malaise of middle of the road bullshit. Meh / 5.

Don't love the vocals but hard to not love the instrumentals in Have You Ever Been Away. While it had its moments I was mostly waiting for it to be over.

I've expected more.

Ciertamente un poco flujo e insustancial. Demasiado tranquilo, reposado y sin alma. Pocas canciones me han dicho algo. Bastante soso.

Welcome to the Beautiful South opens with “Song for Whoever,” which perfectly sets out what The Beautiful South do. A breezy pop song about a songwriter cynically mining women’s pain for hits. The tune and the lyrics pull in opposite directions, and that tension is the whole point. Paul Heaton is a genuinely underrated lyricist. Dry, sardonic, very British. The album rewards paying attention to the words, and there’s a lot to admire there. The problem is the music underneath. It’s thin. Standard pop that doesn’t even fully commit to being great pop, just pleasantly filling space while the lyrics do the heavy lifting. Smooth, but ultimately empty. Great writing, forgettable music.

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.

I know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but this band might have some of the worst album covers I’ve ever seen. That said, compared to some of their others, this album’s cover might be one of their best. Case in point, their 1992 record, “0898”. Wow. It might actually be worthwhile for me to follow through with my thoughts on their artwork, because like it or not, music and its accompanying visual art are usually intertwined in the mind of the listener and maybe that will help me sort out some thoughts about this band. Not that it is essential, but a good album cover can convey some sense of what its contents sound like. At the least, it can be a way for an artist to convey to the listener who they are. So, then…this album cover: two sepia tone photos, one of a woman pointing a gun towards her mouth and the other, a shirtless man lighting a cigarette. Both photos are overlayed on an aquamarine/teal background. I think the background color choice is less relevant here and was likely made because it compliments/contrasts well with the sepia tone photos, rather than being used as a metaphorical representation of something else. On their face, what are these two photos meant to convey? Danger, self-destruction, reckless disregard for one’s self. Quite the contrast from the music contained within. Across the two Beautiful South albums I’ve listened to on this list, I’ve found their music to be cloying, upbeat lounge-y rock with some lite-jazz inflections. Dangerous and self-destructive wouldn’t be anywhere near the list of words I would use to describe their music. Another explanation could be that this is a juxtaposition of two incompatible ideas: The Beautiful South are, in fact, dangerous and self-destructive individuals, but they hide, like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, behind a saccharine sound as a means of being subversive. I suppose that may track, given some of the lyrical content here and their upbeat sound. However, putting your true, destructive wolf-self on the cover of your record, which will serve as your introduction to listeners, renders your sheep disguise useless… At this point, I feel like I’ve given just as much or more thought to the Beautiful South’s artwork than perhaps the band did, so I should start wrapping this up. This band is clearly not for me. After two albums, I don’t care for their sound or have a good understanding of what their intentions are as artists. It feels like music that is meant to be taken seriously, but also not taken seriously at the same time. That works for a band like Ween, but falls flat here, at least to me.

Oh well, a second, earlier The Beautiful South album, this one even worse than the first. Opener "Song For Whoever" is a very funny song, whose tongue-in-cheek lyrics fit well with the cheesiness of the music. Unfortunately, it's also a joke that goes on for too long with its unnecessary six-minute runtime and grating vocal performance at the end. Actually, the same thing could be said for the whole album. Music-wise and vocals-wise, too many of those tunes are near-obnoxious. And composition-wise, that whole shtick sounds unexceptional for my ears. Apart from the opener, the only truly memorable songs in the tracklist are "Straight In At 37", "Love Is" and "I Love You (But You're Boring)". The first is only a cassette and CD bonus track (sigh), and is basically a parodic Temu version of The Smiths' artistry. The second has interesting rhythm'n'blues arrangements. And the third is a lo-fi minimalistic closer that finally tries to explore some genuine emotions. But the rest tries way too hard, or comes off as too smart for its own good. Which ultimately, comes down to the same sort of "forced" intent. The manner in which singers Paul Heaton and Dave Hemingway reference their own songwriting abilities throughout the lyrics also comes off as jokingly masturbatory, and it had me roll my eyes so many times. I see that the user who selected this record also has The Magnetic Fields' *69 Love Songs* in their 5-star gallery... For me, the latter proves you can constantly pull off that sort of meta-joke in a way that can still be artful or interesting or truly emotional. The Beautiful South sound very cynical and opportunistic compared to this, except maybe for that last couple of the songs I have mentioned in my first paragraph, concluding the album. For once, I understand why Dimery and co. ignored a record (and why NME gave a 5/10 grade to this record). So whoever you are, you who submitted this album, I don't understand you. I agree with a lot of your tastes in your galleries, *except* for your four picks. How did you manage to have *four* picks anyway? Guess you are a very generous contributor, so thank you for helping Alexander run this generator. But my thanks won't extend to today's selection, I'm afraid. Another example where a skip button for the users list would have been useful for me... 1/5 for the purposes of this list dedicated to essential albums. 6/10 for more general purposes (5 for the musicianship and production values + 1 for the artistry) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 118 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 129 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 287 (including this one) ---- Ah Émile, je viens de me rendre compte que c'est à moi de répondre ! Je me suis emmêlé les pinceaux sur le suivi des messages cet été, on dirait... Petite question au préalable : tu as rejoint le serveur discord du générateur ? Et si oui, quel est ton pseudo là-bas ? Dis-moi juste ta réponse là-dessus dans ta prochaine review dès que tu vois ce message. Je te réponds ensuite en bonne et due forme dans la foulée (je vérifierai tes reviews tous les jours, j'ai moyen de le faire, je suis toujours en vacances...)

Great cover, but the actual album made me unreasonably angry. It’s just so… meh.

Well that was a waste of time.