Product Description

Formed in 1988 from the ashes of the short-lived, socialistpop group The Housemartins by singer/songwriter Paul Heaton(a Scotsman from Hull), The Beautiful South has continued plumbing Heaton's fascination with underdogs, domestic breakdowns, drunkenness (both relative to the previous and for itsown sake) and social inequities. In place of The Housemartins' ringing, British Invasion-inspired guitar backdrops, however, songwriter/guitarist David Rotheray and singers Dave Hemingway and Jacqueline Abbott have crafted a distinctive, folk-laced variety of chamber pop to draw Heaton into a more adult milieu.
Buoyed by great singing and stately melodies, the arrangements pointedly underscore each composition's lyrical content. As the group's fifth studio outing (a sixth, hits package CARRY ON UP THE CHARTS, was the fourth-fastest selling UK album of all time), BLUE IS THE COLOUR breaks no new ground for The Beautiful South, yet for consistent quality and stylistic variety, it ranks with their very best.

Track Listing

1. Don't Marry Her
2. Little Blue
3. Mirror
4. Blackbird On The Wire
5. The Sound Of North America
6. Have Fun
7. Liars' Bar
8. Rotterdam (Or Anywhere)
9. Foundations
10. Artificial Flowers
11. One God
12. Alone

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4122 in Music
• Released on: 2001-03-19
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Explicit Lyrics
• Running time: 49 minutes

Customer Reviews

Have someone elses fun
There is a criminally overlooked gem on this album called "Have Fun" which rates as one of the most moving and profound things to come from the nail-bitten bic pen of Heaton and Rotheray.

On the whole this album is polished and contains the hit-singles "Rotterdam" and "Don't Marry Her." These are quality tunes but there are a handful of other gems on here. "Liars Bar" is sublime in its Bukowskian swagger (or should that be stagger?) ; "Blackbird..." is a lonesome, plaintive gem ; "The Sound of North America" is rather lovely and "Alone" is a fantastic closer.

What lets "Blue Is The Colour" down are tracks like "Little Blue" which should have been left on the cutting room floor. "Mirror" should have been left for a B-side and "One God" has a pretty tune but clumsy and meaninglessly offensive lyrics.

Buy for "Have Fun" and the handful of other strong tunes.
Heaton and Rotheray prove their mettle once again as songwriters but quality control lets down the album on the whole.

The decline of The Beautiful South
I'm a massive fan of The Beautiful South. I'm not just one of these people that bought Carry On Up The Charts and then bought the rest of the CD's. I'm a true fan and I'll write a true opinion of this CD. This is by far the worst album that the band have done. PD Heaton has left most of the singing to Dave and Jackie leaving the album missing that something that the other CD's have. Don't get me wrong, Dave and Jackie are great singers but PD Heaton is the man we all buy the albums to hear. There are still sonme great tracks on the album but if you want to buy a CD buy 0898 or Welcome To.

A beautiful album.
This is the album that first really got me into The South. I'd always been aware of them, with 'Song For Whoever' being an example of something that stuck in my mind for years. But it was'nt until hearing this album that it finally clicked just how good TBS really are. More specifically, 'Blackbird On The Wire' is the key for me. Its haunting lyric about how the writer cannot, darenot, express his love for his dream woman for fear of his inadequacies really struck a chord with me. Once that barrier of regognition was broken down, I began to see other parellels in my life with the lyrics ('Have Fun' on this album, 'Worthless Lie' on Miaow) and other songs just became the soundtrack to my life that I could not do without. Paul Heaton is one of those rare people who can see the beauty in the ordinary, and the ugliness in the perfect. This album's only real weak track is 'Artificial Flowers', a misconcieved cover, that has a bigger, better cousin on 'Painting It Red's' 'The River', musically speaking. Even the radio friendly 'Rotterdam' has its darkness; 'This could be anywhere, anywhere alone...'. If you want to listen to a Beautiful South album, this is the one you should buy. Its as close to perfect as The South have come. Carry on up the charts guys.