This album has been submitted by a user and is not included in any edition of the book.
Blue Is the Colour is the fifth studio album from English band the Beautiful South, released in October 1996 through Go! Discs and in America through Ark 21 Records. The album was released following the two singles "Pretenders to the Throne" and "Dream a Little Dream", which never featured on any album until the release of the second greatest hits Solid Bronze in 2001. The album continued the melancholic tone of its predecessor Miaow, and is generally considered to be the band's darkest effort, reflecting Heaton's life at the time. This comes across in songs such as "Liars’ Bar" (about alcoholism), "The Sound of North America" (a sarcastic look at capitalism), "Mirror" (Prostitution), "Blackbird on the Wire", "Have Fun" (which Heaton has cited as his saddest song), and the self-explanatory "Alone". The album spawned four singles, the first being "Rotterdam", which peaked at No. 5 on the UK Singles Chart in September 1996. The follow-ups were "Don't Marry Her", which reached No. 8 in December, "Blackbird on the Wire", which peaked at No. 23 in March 1997, and "Liar's Bar", which stalled outside the top 40 in June. On "Liars' Bar", Paul Heaton's vocal consciously imitates the style of Tom Waits, while in "Alone" the bass line serves as another allusion to him. The album itself topped the album charts on 2 November 1996.
Knew the singles very well due to radio overplay in the 90s and as such thought of them as a singles band, this kept me rapt all the way through however with several clear stand outs, can easily see this album becoming standard rotation.
You had me at "don't marry her, fuck me". This is a delightful surprise! It's such a mixed bag of treasures. One minute, a sassy little pop/rock ditty, the next a growling Tom Waits-esque blues noodler. I really never knew what was coming next one track to the next and I cherished the journey. Good one!
One of the most underrated bands ever. This is a solid, rather than life changing entry in their canon, but still has all of the wit, fun and heartbreak you'd expect. A little too obsessed with a particular acoustic guitar sound, but still zips by and makes you smile with it's unexpected lines... "You don't name a boat Titanic 2"
It was fun to hear my wife singing along with this one. Turns out she'd bought it when it came out. Really good!
I owned “Welcome to the Beautiful South” and “Choke” in the 90s. Those were two of my favorite albums of my college years. Those albums have such a special connection - when this came up I started listening to them again before playing this and it has been too long. It’s exciting to experience a new-to-me album from this group that I really should have followed but for some reason never did after their second album. I like this album a lot, although I kept wanting to go back to those other two The Beautiful South albums because I like those more. Still, this album has its charms and I’m just so so happy someone put this group on this list. If you like this at all and haven’t listened to Choke (and Welcome To The Beautiful South) then I urge you to queue those up. And for my part I’ll be queuing up all their other albums that I for some reason never listened to.
Pleased to see recognition for this excellent British pop band, but disappointed to find the incredibly beautifully sung and often amusing and witty songs are a bit dull. The huge hit singles are great, the Tom Waits pastiche is fun, but the exquisitely sung thoughtful songs just don’t pull you in once you’ve got past the opening delight of the pretty singing. A band whose hits collections are a triumph, but individual albums are just a bit disappointing. The same goes for Heaton’s Housemartins albums. Get the compilations.
Wow this was horrible. The quirky lyrics do not make up for the terrible, cheesy 80s lounge act music.
Ew Fuck off
This one tickled my fancy.
Great album, but does feel maybe a hair bloated. I loved a few tracks of this album enough to elevate it to a firm 4 though!
I liked this pretty well, interesting lyrics. The music was very competently performed, a little too soft a touch for me though, it needed some more edge and texture.
This was a good alt country style album from a British band. Perhaps calling it country is too strong, but it certainly fits in with bands such as the Drive By Truckers. Lyrically this album was stark, laying bare the destitution and dignity of the forgotten and overlooked. The production is dated, but the album was still very good.
Rating: 7/10 Best songs: Don’t marry her, Little blue, Blackbird on the wire, Alone
This was a massive album in the 90’s with some great hit songs. Not going to pretend this is the greatest album ever (it’s got a lot of filler), but surely it deserves to be on the original list.
Blue is a kind of self-conscious indie record before its time; Not surpassing that, it gets points for creativity. The songs refuse to lock in place and the universality is first-order. Bad move: sacrifices almost all of it. I can easily imagine it as one's first Beautiful South record, don't have to imagine in fact.
It needed to grow on me, but in the end it still didn't. I found it more to be some background music
This sounded beautiful indeed, but also a bit tidy and nothing out of the ordinary.
I wanted to like this, really I did, but something about it rubbed me the wrong way. The songs were good but sounded awkward or forced in some way, like they were trying too hard to be clever. A good example: Liar’s Bar sounds like it could have been a really good song, but recording it with a bad Tom Waits impersonation? It just made me cringe. Made what should have been a really good song almost unlistenable. 3 stars.
Beautiful South is one of those bands I've always liked well enough when I heard them, but have never taken the time to explore. So this was a nice album to get. This is really charming, smartly made pop, that has aged quite well. I tend to prefer Paul Heaton's vocals to Jacqui Abbott's, but it's all good. Fave Songs: Blackbird on the Wire, Have Fun, Alone, Rotterdam (or Anywhere), Mirror, Artificial Flowers
Quintessentially British tales of life and society. Some really excellent songs. Rating: 3.5 Playlist track: Don't Marry Her Date listened: 05/08/24
Alternative rock, pop rock. Ni fu ni fa.
Ok
Who’s fuck ass child is this
Sometimes you can judge an album by it's cover.
I actually think there is nothing in this album that I actually like. It sounds hopelessly out-dated and cheesy. The lyrics are distracting and weird in a wrong way. For me, a total miss-hit.
Some of the odder lyricism and songwriting I've heard from an album here – at first intriguing, but things became much too amorphous and disparate as the LP progressed for there to be much of an artistic statement. Not sure what this band is trying to convey or affect here, and I think I was more confused at the album's end than before I had even begun.
It was ok. Some of the songs had humorous lyrics. The album was just there and I do not plan on revisiting it.
Really up and down attitude wise. Peaked early with don't marry her. The liars bar song was fucking awful.
Aside from this being pretty depressing and dark the music itself was also pretty blah. The soft pop folk style was very much lyrically based which made some of the songs a bore to get through with the bare bones instrumentals. Overall this is not something I heard before and really could’ve went without. 3.8/10
Very calm, soft pop, sometimes boring or slow
Oh god, it's more alternative folky garbage. Is this all the other users actually listen to? Every second user album is this crap ffs. 1/5.