The Sixteen Trees of The Somme by Lars Mytting

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The Common People's only album is melancholy psychedelia, quirky but in a pretty forgettable way. The mood's set by the opening "Soon There'll Be Thunder," where an appealing two-chord melancholy melody is set to raindrop-falling haunting electric keyboard and sweeping, gloomy strings. It's a groove that's mined too often by the subsequent tracks, which are passably pleasing moody pop-psychedelia in limited doses, but too similar to each other when grouped so closely. The constant rain-cloud-hovering-over-a-hung-head ethos begins to turn sour rather than soothing after a few songs, even though the string arrangements used on just a few cuts have a nicely shivering, weepy quality. "They Didn't Even Go to the Funeral" is a most unfortunate departure into mock vaudeville humor, and while a couple other songs get dressed up with some peppy horns, it's hard to tell whether the embarrassing grunts in "This Life She Is Mine" are an attempt at funky soul or simulations of the moment of orgasm. The pace does get broken up by the hard but monotonous fuzz-guitar piano rock of "Go Every Way," as well as some more folk-rockish and melodically limited sullen stuff.

The Common People's only album is melancholy psychedelia, quirky but in a pretty forgettable way. The mood's set by the opening "Soon There'll Be Thunder," where an appealing two-chord melancholy melody is set to raindrop-falling haunting electric keyboard and sweeping, gloomy strings. It's a groove that's mined too often by the subsequent tracks, which are passably pleasing moody pop-psychedelia in limited doses, but too similar to each other when grouped so closely. The constant rain-cloud-hovering-over-a-hung-head ethos begins to turn sour rather than soothing after a few songs, even though the string arrangements used on just a few cuts have a nicely shivering, weepy quality. "They Didn't Even Go to the Funeral" is a most unfortunate departure into mock vaudeville humor, and while a couple other songs get dressed up with some peppy horns, it's hard to tell whether the embarrassing grunts in "This Life She Is Mine" are an attempt at funky soul or simulations of the moment of orgasm. The pace does get broken up by the hard but monotonous fuzz-guitar piano rock of "Go Every Way," as well as some more folk-rockish and melodically limited sullen stuff.

Import only digitally remastered two CD collection. 36 tracks by this British band, who announced their official break-up in early 2007. Originally formed at the tail end of the '80s by former Housemartins members Paul Heaton (vocals) and David Hemmingway (drums/vocals), The Beautiful South have become a hit-making machine in Europe, with songs that contain witty and/or thought provoking lyrics wrapped inside a lush, jazzy, semi-acoustic and soulful musical blanket.. Practically all of their hits are featured here including 'I'll Sail This Ship Alone', 'Rotterdam (Or Anywhere)', 'Song for Whoever', 'Don't Marry Her', 'Old Red Eyes Is Back', 'Good As Gold (Stupid As Mud)', 'Liar's Bar' and many others. The band may be gone, but their music lives on! Universal.