Product Description
Ask Paul Heaton how many songs he’s written and he’ll tell you he’s not really sure. Perhaps that’s unsurprising: this summer it’s 40 years since The Housemartins released their debut album, Hull: 0 London: 4, peaking at number 3 in Britain. Subsequently, he’s released, in various configurations – with The Housemartins and The Beautiful South, solo and with Jacqui Abbot, not to mention as Biscuit Boy –another 21 studio albums, plenty going gold, some multi-platinum, as they’ve risen to the charts’ highest reaches. For each, moreover, he’ll have written many many more songs than he’ll ever include.
Now, less than two years since The Mighty Several – itself his sixth album to go Top 5 in a dozen years – this prolific, poetic observer of human nature is back with another fifteen gems. “I've had stuff coming in and out of my brain since I was 17 or 18,” he laughs, “but I’m surprised the tunes keep popping into my head. You've got to get it out of your system, though. Writer’s block just sounds made-up. You don't get plumber's block. If your toilet's full of shit, you don't think, ‘Do you know what? I can't get my head around this.’ You either call a plumber or do it yourself. That's how I see it with songs. Don't leave it in there. Just get it out. Even if it's shit.”
Jenius, Heaton’s new album’s title, is a symptom of this unassuming style. “If anybody ever calls me a genius,” he explains, “I always say, ‘What?! With a J?!’ The spelling would obviously be wrong.” Fortunately, there’s nothing bashful about these songs, something reflected in the LP’s cover, the first to feature a photo of Heaton since the Housemartin’s debut album. Indeed, Jenius betrays the truth of his talents, and its songs – of love and loneliness, pubs and booze, community and counsel, a nod to football, the state of the nation, and the overall wisdom of kindness – are distinguished by his notably tender voice, his enchanting melodies and a meticulous, effortless craft. “If I can get a variety of people of all sorts of backgrounds to say, ‘Oh, that could be about me or you,’” he says, “then I've been successful”.
Like 2022’s N.K. Pop, Jenius was recorded in early 2026 at Manchester’s Blueprint Studios with a loyal coterie of associates. Bassist Chris Wise, who’s done a dozen years in Paul’s band and drummer Pete Marshall, a cool 17 years, returned again, though duties with Squeeze meant keyboardist Stephen Large was replaced by Toby Chapman. (“They all told him, ‘Just do the opposite of what you'd expect the song would need, and Paul would probably like that.’”) It was also produced, like The Mighty Several, by the legendary Ian Broudie.
Tracklisting:
- Can’t Get Next To You
- Favourite Kind Of Idiot
- I Want The Job
- Sad Songs And Lawsuits
- She Ain’t Pretty
- One Eye Open
- Send In The Clowns
- Do Not Ask Me
- Don’t Lean On Me
- Jet Black Sky
- The Whisky Did
- Before Before
- Good For The Bees
- Go Upstream
- A Son A Father
