| Beautiful Thing | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Ben Vaughn |
| Cover: | Beautiful Thing (Ben Vaughn album).jpg |
| Released: | 1987 |
| Genre: | Rock |
| Label: | Restless |
| Producer: | Ben Vaughn |
| Prev Title: | The Many Moods of Ben Vaughn |
| Prev Year: | 1986 |
| Next Title: | Blows Your Mind |
| Next Year: | 1988 |
Beautiful Thing is an album by the American rock and roll musician Ben Vaughn (credited to the Ben Vaughn Combo), released in 1987.[1] [2] The album's final track, "The Apology Line", is covered on Barrence Whitfield's Ow! Ow! Ow!
The album was produced by Vaughn, who also wrote the songs.[3] Mostly acoustic, the songs were in part inspired by radio disc jockey patter and random conversations overheard by Vaughn.[4] The band used bongos, hubcaps, maracas, and accordion on many of the tracks. "Big House with a Yard" is about a man asking his girlfriend to visit him in prison.
Robert Christgau thought that, "unlike many comedians, this mild-mannered male chauvinist is funniest when he lets on how clever he is." Trouser Press wrote that "Beautiful Thing has a fresh, easygoing feel, but too much restraint can be dangerous: halfway through the first side, this mild record threatens to slide right off the turntable."[5] The New York Times concluded that "all the three-chord rock of the 1950's and 60's—rockabilly, surf-rock, Cajun, rhythm-and-blues, country—twangs and relaxes together in the Ben Vaughn Combo, as Mr. Vaughn talk-sings his way through droll, understated songs without a hint of rock's latter-day histrionics."[6] The Philadelphia Inquirer deemed the album "a marvelously eclectic collection of rock styles and romantic observations."
The Philadelphia Daily News called the tracks "clever, evocative new songs in a time honored, timeless style," writing that the band "has a slap happy simplicity and ragged enthusiasm that's anachronistic, that seems a throwback to the 1950s rockabilly era of Eddie Cochran and Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper."[7] The Washington Post determined that "sometimes Vaughn sounds like what might have happened if Lou Reed had influenced Bob Dylan rather than the other way around, but he always manages a neat wedding of lyric and melody."[8] The Chicago Tribune stated that "Vaughn brings some uncommon touches to numbers about male-female relationships." The State included Beautiful Thing on its list of the ten best albums of 1987.[9]
AllMusic wrote that "the tunes on Beautiful Thing never hit harder than they have to or take up more space than necessary, and their modesty only adds to their effectiveness."