Golddiggas, Headnodders & Pholk Songs

In approaching the first ever covers album from The Beautiful South, the overall question is a resounding ‘why?’ These things normally suggest writers block, fading fortunes or contractual obligation but you suspect that none would apply in this particular case – this is the first record of a new deal with Sony. So we have to conclude that, as with most things in Paul Heaton’s career, he just felt like it. The choice of songs too is particularly wilful, taking in disco, soul, pop and punk along the way. The theory tends to stay the same whatever the source material though, take the song and rearrange it completely until it sounds more like a Beautiful South tune than anything else. It’s often great fun, especially on the better known songs. ‘You’re The One That I Want’ is reinvented as a sweeping ballad, ELO’s ‘Living Thing’ as laid back funk and ‘Don’t Fear The Reaper’ as a bossa nova. Elsewhere they find obvious kinship with the likes of Rufus Wainwright and in the handful of old soul tunes, on which Heaton turns in some of the finest vocal turns of his career. Puzzling and pointless it may be but there’s no doubting that Golddiggas… is an awful lot of fun (you wouldn’t want to miss their version of S Club’s ‘Don’t Stop Moving’). Let’s just hope that we don’t have to wait too long for normal songwriting service to be resumed.