In 1994, when Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott first met outside a nightclub in Merseyside, few could have guessed that the pair – he a songwriter for Hull pop-rock group the Beautiful South, she a shelf-stacker in her home town of Saint Helens – would go on to form one of the most fruitful musical partnerships of the 90s. As part of the Beautiful South, Heaton and Abbott churned out hits including Rotterdam (Or Anywhere), Don’t Marry Her, and Perfect 10, the band’s defining, platinum-selling hit.
Heaton and Abbott parted ways in 2000 after Abbott decided to take time off to prioritise her family. But she and Heaton couldn’t be kept apart for too long: in 2013, nearly 20 years after they first met, the pair reunited for What Have We Become?, their first album under their own names. Since then, they’ve gone on to release three more records, the most recent of which was 2020’s Manchester Calling, their first No 1 as a duo. On 7 October, they’ll release NK-Pop, a new album recorded at Manchester’s Blueprint Studios with the pair’s longtime collaborator John Williams, which promises to be another collection of catchy, drily comic pop-rock.
