Choke by The Beautiful South

Choke, the Beautiful South's second album, came out on Go! Discs in October 1990, and it's the sound of two former Housemartins, Paul Heaton and Dave Hemingway, settling into their new band's comfy armchair while keeping a razor in the cardigan pocket. Mike Hedges produced, wrapping the Heaton and Dave Rotheray songs in smooth, sweet pop-rock that lets the wry, sharp-eyed lyrics go down like a pint in a warm pub, with Sean Welch on bass and Dave Stead on drums keeping everything unflustered.

"A Little Time", the band's only number one single, hauled the album up to number 2 at home and kept it in the charts for 22 weeks. The luck ran dry after that: "My Book" stalled at 43, their first single to miss the top 40, and "Let Love Speak Up Itself" stopped at 51. The record ran to 11 tracks; a twelfth, cut late in production, surfaced only on the German release.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.