"ELO are like ourselves in that people like the songs but don't want to be associated with the band," said Paul Heaton on the release of a cover version of ELO's Livin Thing in October.

Persistently popular and defiantly uncool, Beautiful South are one of those bands you dance around jubilantly to in the privacy of your living room but never admit to hip pals you're a fan.

It is estimated their 1994 greatest hits package, Carry On Up The Charts, is owned by one in seven British households. As wisecracking Johnny Vegas has proclaimed: "They've never made a bad album. They cover every element of angst throughout your life. This for me is music about things I understand."

But the only airplay The Beautiful South can really count on is on MOR-friendly Radio Two.

"A lot of my friends who came to the gigs when I first joined the band told me beforehand that they weren't really Beautiful South fans," says singer Alison Wheeler, who joined the band a mere 18 months ago.

"They'd come out of the gig saying: 'I didn't realise how many songs I knew and could sing along to!

"People have got their albums and half the time they don't even know it.

"We're never going to be the kind of band who get papped. It's not about what club we're falling out of, it's more about the music."

After the disbanding of The Housemartins in 1989, vocalist Paul and drummer Dave Hemingway re-emerged as The Beautiful South, along with Dave Rotheray, Sean Welch and Dave Stead.

The new sound was a sophisticated, jazzy pop layered with R&B-inflected female vocals and occasional orchestration.

Catchy, luscious melodies subtly contradict quirky, sarcastic and subversive lyrics deal with such dark matter as alcoholism (Old Red Eyes), a murderous husband who hides wife's body in a wall (Woman In The Wall), and a daughter who witnesses her father strangle her mother (Should've Kept My Eyes Shut).

It was allegedly these ironically twisted lyrics which caused one of Alison's predecessors, Briana Corrigan, to leave the group in the early Nineties, apparently affronted by the way women were shown as victims in the songs.

She was replaced by the equally sweet-voiced Jacqui Abbott, a check-out girl Paul had met as an 18 year-old at a party years before. She'd so impressed him with her singing that he traced her back to the supermarket where she worked.

A few years down the line in 2000, Jacqui also walked out of the band mid-way through a tour for reasons which remain unclear. Some rumours hint she was just sick of touring, while others suggest she 'couldn't stand the autocratic system in the band any more'.

The band continued without a female singer until Alison joined. "Everyone asks me about what happened with them both, but I haven't asked," she says. Originally a member of a gospel choir, she got the job after working with Hemingway on a solo project.

"Why would I open up a can of worms when that event has given me the opportunity to join the band? I'm of the opinion that it's one of those cans best left unopened.

"I'm sure in years to come I'll broach the subject but I've just got my feet under the table now.

"It's quite weird to walk into an established band, and Jacqui's were quite big shoes to fill. But everyone's gone out of their way to make me feel comfortable, including the fans.

"The first time I toured with the band I was worried what the fans would think. Songs like Need A Little Time and Rotterdam do belong to the original singers.

"I had a nightmare once when I just blanked on stage during Don't Marry Her. There was a temporary second of lapse when I was like: 'Oh my god!'

"The words had left my head completely and the whole audience was shouting them at me - not in an aggressive way, in a helpful way - willing me to get the song back.

"I was so grateful! They could have massacred me!"

The Beautiful South's latest album, Golddiggas, Headnodders & Pholk Songs, is, rather in keeping with their so-uncool-they're-cool status, a series of covers.

Ranging from Ramones' Blitzkrieg Bop to Grease tune You're The One That I Want and Willy Nelson's bluesy Valentine to S Club 7's pop anthem Don't Stop Movin', this is a bop-tastic celebration of the pop song in all its gorgeous, goofy glory.

Each song is given the inimitable Beautiful South touch. Their approach to the delicate art of re-interpretation has an originality more in keeping with Gary Jules' version of Mad World or the Pet Shop Boys' cover of Where The Streets Have No Name than the dismal offerings of Atomic Kitten or tiring X Factor-types.

"It was a way of easing ourselves into the new record company," (the band are newly-signed to Sony Music) Alison explains.

"It was like a strange holiday. Paul is a perfectionist when it comes to his own music but doing other people's covers he is less emotionally involved, so there was less pressure. The whole point of a covers album is not to cover them as an exact blueprint of the original.

"We wanted to strip them down to what they are, which is good songs, and take them away from their original style."

"We're not always fans of the particular band but we are always fans of the song," says Paul.

"Our natural inclination is to be obscure but we also wanted to put in a few standards. So I drew up a list and we all lived with a CD for a while and then there was a whittling down process.

"We hadn't really done any of them live before so it was interesting. Some that didn't look promising turned out really well. Others just didn't happen.

"We wanted to do Rainbow's Since You Been Gone but it never sounded right. These are ones that really worked, arrived at sort of democratically."

Adding to the mix with his own suggestions of songs to cover was Paul's old bass-playing pal from The Housemartins and local Brighton star Norman Cook. Unfortunately, though his ideas never made the final cut.

"He brought in three or four suggestions but they were quite late in the day and we'd already started rehearsing so we didn't go with any of them," remembers Alison.

"There's also talk of Norman remixing a single of the next album. I hope it happens.

"I expect we will all catch up when we come down to Brighton, though I don't know how busy he is these days with his new album and little boy.

"He'll definitely be on the guest list!"