The People Who Grinned Themselves to Death by The Housemartins

The People Who Grinned Themselves to Death, the second and final studio album from Hull's Housemartins, came out on Go! Discs in 1987, and it's a record that smiles sweetly while it slips the knife in. Paul Heaton sings and blows trumpet, Stan Cullimore plays guitar, and Norman Cook, the future Fatboy Slim, holds down the bottom end, all serving bright, jangling guitar pop with a sharp political bite.

The title track takes aim at the British royal family, which earned the band the kind of tabloid heat usually reserved for the Sex Pistols or the Smiths. Elsewhere, "Five Get Over Excited", "Me and the Farmer" and "Build" all became UK hits, breezy tunes from a band whose lyrics mixed socialist politics with Christian faith. A year later the Housemartins were finished, with Heaton heading off to form the Beautiful South.

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