I just learned that The Beautiful South, one of my favorite bands, split up in February '07 shortly after releasing their last album. They cited 'musical similarities' as the main reason for hanging it up.
They had a great run spanning almost 19 years...after the Housemartins split up in the late 80's, Paul Heaton and Dave Hemmingway formed the new group and released their first album in 1989. 9 more followed. It's said that their greatest hits compilation released in 1994 is owned by 1 in 7 British households. By contrast, they were all but unknown in the U.S. Their combination of melodic music and dark, gritty lyrics never caught on here. For me, that meant I never had to worry about getting sick of always hearing them on the radio. Heaton summed up the band's style pretty well from this quote:
"So many pop songs are written about 15-20 year olds. We've never really targeted them, or newly weds. We write about people who've lived together most of their lives."
Beef and I saw them perform in Chicago on Halloween in 2006. I'm certainly glad we did. Thanks for the years of great music.
2 comments:
I had the Housemartin's "London 0 Hull 4" back when I was in college and loved it. But Beautiful South was never on the radio near me, and so in those pre-internet days I never heard much by them. I'll have to check out that greatest hits collection.
Oddly I had amassed a decent-sized Fatboy Slim collection before I realized he used to play bass for the Housemartins. I guess it's not like the musical style would have been a clue.
I learned about Fatboy Slim's Housemartins roots just a couple years ago...kinda explains in a nutshell why the band split up - the very definition of 'musical differences'.
Post a Comment