The Beautiful South - Gold

Title: Gold Artist: The Beautiful South Release Date: 4/4/2006 Label: Go! Discs Album Type(s): Greatest Hits UPC: 602498362921 Genre: Rock Styles: Alternative Pop/Rock, Contemporary Pop/Rock, Adult Alternative Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock Moods: Bittersweet, Cynical/Sarcastic, Ironic, Plaintive, Searching, Wistful, Acerbic, Eccentric, Elegant, Humorous, Irreverent, Literate, Quirky, Sophisticated, Stylish, Witty, Wry, Earnest, Indulgent, Poignant, Relaxed, Slick, Smooth, Theatrical, Autumnal, Calm/Peaceful, Intimate, Lush Total Copies: 0 Members Wishing: 0 Number of Discs/SwapaCD Credits: 2

1. Song for Whoever
2. A Little Time
3. Prettiest Eyes
4. Don't Marry Her
5. Alone
6. The Table
7. Old Red Eyes Is Back
8. Window Shopping for Blinds
9. Good as Gold (Stupid as Mud)
10. Closer Than Most
11. Baby Please Go
12. You Keep It All In
13. Dumb
14. 36D
15. From Under the Covers
16. Let Love Speak Up Itself
17. Masculine Eclipse
18. Perfect 10

1. Rotterdam
2. Let Go with the Flow
3. Bell Bottomed Tear
4. I'll Sail This Ship Alone
5. Just a Few Things That I Ain't
6. Liars Bar
7. Have You Ever Been Away
8. We Are Each Other
9. The Root of All Evil
10. Hit Parade
11. My Book
12. Losing Things
13. Everybody's Talking
14. Property Quiz
15. One Last Love Song
16. Mirror
17. One God
18. Blackbird on the Wire

Year Type Label Catalog # 2006 CD Go! Discs 3629

No other editions were found for this album.

Annotator Daryl Easlea begins his liner notes to the Beautiful South's entry in Universal Music International's discount-priced Gold series of double-CD compilations by commenting on the surprising fact that the best-selling album in the U.K. in the 1990s was the group's 1994 hits collection, Carry on Up the Charts, and it is therefore worth noting that all 14 of the tracks on that disc are repeated among the 36 on this one. (In the U.S., a 15th track was added to Carry on Up the Charts, a cover of "Dream a Little Dream of Me"; that song is not contained here.) Easlea ends his essay by describing Gold as "Packed with all their major hits and album tracks from their first decade," a statement that is only true if you don't count the missing "Pretenders to the Throne" (which reached number 18 in the U.K.), "How Long's a Tear Take to Dry?" (number 12), and "The River/Just Checkin'" (number 59); all three, not coincidentally, no doubt, are included on 2002's Solid Bronze: Great Hits. That album was criticized at the time of its release as an imperfect follow-up compilation to Carry on Up the Charts, and Gold, which in addition to being incomplete is sequenced randomly, is not ideal, either. Probably, one can no longer blame that on the group, which decamped its original label, Go! Discs, in 2003, after Universal had acquired it in 1998. Even if a few favorites are missing, however, Gold is still a good gathering of what is arguably some of the most popular British pop music of the 1990s (and given Paul Heaton's black-humored lyrics, that's saying something), presented at a reasonable price. (These statements, of course, apply primarily to Great Britain. The album was not released in the U.S., where the Beautiful South's profile, never high, was practically nonexistent in 2006.) ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide

Name Credits Daryl Easlea Essay Matt Read Design Steve Edwards Product Manager