SONG OF THE DAY [#385]

'happy hour' | the housemartins

like the smiths before them, the housemartins racked up a very impressive discography over a very short career. obviously they never even came close to achieving the smiths' popularity [particularly stateside], but one could make the argument that the housemartins are one of the of old blighty's most important bands of the 80s.

simply put, they wrote amazing songs. they were generally short snippets [most songs run between two and tree minutes] jam packed with exquisite melodies and paul heaton's alternately hilarious and scathing lyrics [he's every bit the mozfather's equal, and in many cases his superior. though some would accuse heaton of being to clever for his own good]. musically the band drew heavily on 60s motown and soul music and married it with quintessentially british jangle pop. the results were unquestionable magical.

but all good things must come to an end. heaton and drummer dave hemmingway would go on to form the beautiful south a year later [one of my favorite bands...ever], bassist norman cook would become fatboy slim, and nobody knows what happened to stan cullimore. that's probably not true, but i'm too lazy to look it up.

so, we have two studio albums ['london 0 hull 2' and 'the people who grinned themselves to death'], a 'best of/rarities' album ['now that's what i call quite good'], a b-sides album ['raise the flag'], a bbc album, and a scattered assortment of gems that will forever live on my cd collection, er, itunes.

→ the housemartins: happy hour | video
→ the housemartins: build | video
→ the housemartins: me and the farmer | video