The Beautiful South's music was bubbly, catchy, lightweight pop but with a sour, savage and amusing worldview on everything and anything. The band's first album was Welcome to the Beautiful South (1989), followed by 1990's Choke album. 0898 Beautiful South followed in 1992, and Miaow in 1994. The end of that year saw the release of Carry on up the Charts, becoming the fastest-selling album in UK music history. Blue Is the Colour (1996), Quench (1998) and Painting It Red (2000) followed with varying success. After a second Greatest Hits album Solid Bronze in 2001, the band took a little time off. Regrouping in 2003, they recorded Gaze, which was followed by 2004's Golddiggas, Headnodders and Pholk Songs, which was an album of unusually arranged cover tunes.

The band's last album Superbi was released on May 15, 2006. Superbi was recorded at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios, a farm in Bakewell and at producer Ian Stanley’s studio in Enniskerry, County Wicklow. It was mixed by Bill Price (Sex Pistols, The Clash, Guns N' Roses). Paul Heaton’s hand is recognisable in quirky song titles such as 'The Rose of My Cologne', 'The Cat Loves The Mouse' and 'Never Lost A Chicken To A Fox'. First single 'Manchester' started off as a poem - "If rain makes Britain great, then Manchester is greater" – 'a sodden tribute' to the city in which he now lives, says Heaton. The tracks cover love and loss and all that happens in-between …"So many pop songs are written about 15-20 year olds. We've never really targeted them, or newly weds. We write about people who've lived together most of their lives."