What do you do when you've hit writer's block and need a break from writing your own material, but the record company is breathing down your neck for a new album? Well, normally you release a 'Greatest Hits' album. But if you've already done that, well, the next thing to do is release a covers album.

Luckily, The Beautiful South is not just any group, which means their latest album 'Golddiggas Headnodders & Pholk Songs' (Sony) is not just any covers album. Rather like the band itself, it's an offbeat, irreverent mix of genres and moods, which makes for a pretty unique listening experience.

The group have selected a 12 well-known and lesser-known songs from different eras and musical styles, and added their own unmistakeable dark and witty Beautiful South stamp onto them, to create a very eclectic and different collection.

Who would ever have expected Grease's 'You're the one that I want' to be worked in a mellow bluesy-country way? Or 'Don't fear the Reaper' by Blue Oyster Cult with no heavy rock sounds? Other pieces to be reinterpreted are ELO's 'Living Thing', The Ramones' 'Blitzkreig Bop' and Willie Nelson's 'Valentine'.

Part of the joy in listening to this collection is working out where you've heard some of the pieces before, and trying to identify who the original artists were, they are sometimes so far removed from the original versions. The problem however is that not all the originals were that well known. But it still took me forever to work out it was British teen group S Club 7's uptempo dance-fuelled hit 'Don't Stop Moving' which had been reworked into a slow-moving country-style ballad. Whatever next?

Which is why, to me, this album is a success. They have been brave, they have been bold, and it's taken immense creativity to completely rework these pieces, and completely reinvent them in their inimitable quirky style.

Sometimes it works wonderfully, sometimes it falls short (and for most people, a cover version never lives up to the original, no matter how good it may be), but it's certainly worth a listen — just keep an open mind...