If our national treasures are by and large defined by their obsessive attention to craft, then Paul Heaton should be among our most celebrated. He has been one of the country’s more astute songwriters – composer of the most joyful melodies, the most barbed lyrics – for four full decades now. Paul Heaton first found fame in the mid-1980s with The Housemartins, one of that decade’s more gleefully idiosyncratic acts. By 1989, he was fronting the Beautiful South, and set about subverting the entire concept of the radio-friendly love song with standout tracks including ‘Song For Whoever’, ‘Don’t Marry Her’ and ‘Perfect 10’. Beautiful South sold 15 million records before breaking up in 2007 due to “musical similarities”. Few of his peers could boast such sales. Heaton went solo, and later rejoined fellow bandmate Jacqui Abbott again in 2011. As a duo, they have earned a further three UK Top 5 albums in the past 5 years.

This November sees the release of Paul Heaton’s musical anthology ‘The Last King Of Pop’, a 23-track opus that celebrates his career over the past four decades. The album includes the biggest tracks from Heaton’s catalogue – with early Housemartin’s track including ‘Happy Hour’, ‘Flag Day’, sitting alongside some of the 90s most recognisable singles ‘Rotterdam’, ‘A Little Time’, to modern classics ‘D.I.Y’ and ‘Austerity Of Love’.