VIA PRESS RELEASE | One of the UK’s most prolifically gifted songwriters Paul Heaton will release a career spanning album on 16 November ’18 on the Virgin EMI label.
Entitled The Last King Of Pop it will feature 23 of the finest songs from throughout Paul’s extraordinary music career, including hits from his days in the Housemartins, through his time in the multi-platinum pop co-operative The Beautiful South, his solo years, and up to the present day in his long-standing collaboration with former Beautiful South singer Jacqui Abbott.
From the Housemartins’ glorious 1985 debut single ‘Flag Day’ to the Beautiful South’s chart dominating pop standards ‘Don’t Marry Her’, ‘Rotterdam,’ and ‘Perfect 10’ through to last year’s Heaton & Abbott smash hit ‘I Gotta Praise,’ they’re all present and correct….and there’s also room for a 2018 re-record by Paul and Jacqui of the Beautiful South classic ‘A Little Time,’ and a brand new song, a deliciously infectious ska-pop paean to a lifetime of jukebox dancing and pop music obsession entitled ‘7”Singles’.
To celebrate the release of The Last King of Pop, Paul & Jacqui will play 3 very special live shows at London’s Royal Albert Hall, Sheffield City Hall, and Blackpool Empress Ballroom at the end of November where they will perform the album in full.
Paul Heaton, a hugely successful songwriter with some 10 million album sales under his belt, first came to public attention in the early ’80s as frontman of Hull-based indie poppers The Housemartins (the same group that spawned Norman ‘Fatboy Slim’ Cook), who released two albums London 0 Hull 4 (’86) and The People Who Grinned Themselves To Death (’87). In ’88 Heaton formed The Beautiful South, who released 10 hugely successful albums – Welcome To The Beautiful South (’89), Choke (’90), 0898 Beautiful South (’92), Miaow (’94), Blue Is The Colour (’96), Quench (’98), Painting It Red (2000), Gaze (’03), Golddiggas, Headnodders & Pholk Songs (’04) and Superbi (’06). In 2001 Heaton took a break from The Beautiful South and released his first solo album Fat Chance.
The Beautiful South called it a day in 2007 citing ‘musical similarities’. Jacqui Abbott was lead vocalist in the Beautiful South from ’94 to 2000. Paul Heaton went on to release two further solo albums: The Cross-Eyed Rambler (’08) and Acid Country (’10). In 2011 Heaton wrote a musical called The 8th based on the Seven Deadly Sins and asked Jacqui to sing one of the parts. Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott have since released three acclaimed Top 5 albums as a duo: What Have We Become (’14), Wisdom, Laughter and Lines (’15) and Crooked Calypso (’17).
The Last King Of Pop by Paul Heaton will be available in DL, stream, CD and LP on 16 November ’18.
The full tracklisting of The Last King Of Pop is:
1. I Gotta Praise [Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott (’17)]
2. Don’t Marry Her [The Beautiful South (’96)]
3. Poems [Paul Heaton (’01)]
4. Happy Hour [The Housemartins (’86)]
5. Moulding Of A Fool [Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott (’14)]
6. Prettiest Eyes [The Beautiful South (’94)]
7. Me & The Farmer [The Housemartins (’86)]
8. Good As Gold (Stupid As Mud) [The Beautiful South (’94)]
9. Real Hope [Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott (’14)]
10. You Keep It All In [The Beautiful South (’89)]
11. The Austerity Of Love [Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott (’15)]
12. Build [The Housemartins (’87)]
13. Rotterdam (Or Anywhere) [The Beautiful South (’96)]
14. She Got The Garden [Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott (’17)]
15. Old Red Eyes Is Back [The Beautiful South (’92)]
16. Flag Day [The Housemartins (’85)]
17. Manchester [The Beautiful South (’06)]
18. D.I.Y [Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott (’14)]
19. Perfect 10 [The Beautiful South (’98)]
20. I Don’t See Them [Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott (’15)]
21. Song For Whoever [The Beautiful South (’89)]
22. A Little Time (2018 version) [Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott (’18)]
23. 7” Singles [Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott (’18)]
