Library Rock's Backpages

The Beautiful South: 0898

Ted Kessler, Select, May 1992

PAUL HEATON hasn't had a whiff of the much bandied about teen spirit since disbanding The Housemartins. When he ditched every thinking bank clerk's favourite band and ran off with drummer Dave Hemingway to form The Beautiful South, their mission was to abandon teen pop forever. Their first hit. 'Song For Whoever', was as near an ironic anti-pop manifesto as you could get. The South had set their sights on the ugly monster of Adult Orientated Rock.

Total word count of piece: 396

Subscribe

Becoming a member is easy. Membership gives you access to all the thousands of articles in the library.

Click here to go to Subscribe page.

Click here for academic and other group subscriptions.