My Beauty

My Beauty
Studio album by Kevin Rowland
Released	21 September 1999
Genre	Rock
Label	Creation
Producer	Kevin Rowland, Pete Schwier, Jim Paterson
Kevin Rowland chronology
The Wanderer (1988) My Beauty (1999) Dexys Midnight Runners chronology My Beauty (1999) One Day I'm Going to Soar (2012)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[1]
NME	[2]

My Beauty is a solo album by Kevin Rowland, lead singer of Dexys Midnight Runners. It was released in 1999, eleven years after his solo debut The Wanderer. In the interim he had experienced problems with drug addiction. My Beauty is an album of cover songs, although Rowland rewrote several of the lyrics to reflect his battles against substance abuse. The album is notorious for its cover, which shows Rowland in drag and heavy make up, an image which Rowland also used during contemporary appearances at the Glastonbury and Reading festivals. During his appearance at Reading he was pelted with bottles thrown by the audience.^[3][4]

The album was supposed to have 12 tracks, but the song "Thunder Road" (written by Bruce Springsteen) was pulled from the album at the last minute because Springsteen refused to approve the lyrical changes made by Rowland. The promo CD distributed (to radio/press) before the official album had all twelve tracks.

The album was released on Creation Records, on the initiative of label boss Alan McGee, who was a fan of Rowland's work. Upon release, the album received mixed reviews. It has been reported that the album was one of Creation's lowest selling albums, shifting only 500 copies, but in fact the album actually sold over 20,000 worldwide.^[5]

Track listing

1. "Greatest Love of All" (Linda Creed, Michael Masser)
2. "Rag Doll" (Bob Crewe, Bob Gaudio)
3. "Concrete and Clay" (Tommy Moeller, Gregg Parker)
4. "Daydream Believer" (John Stewart)
5. "This Guy's in Love with You" (Burt Bacharach, Hal David)
6. "The Long and Winding Road" (Lennon–McCartney)
7. "It's Getting Better" (Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil)
8. "I Can't Tell the Bottom from the Top" (Guy Fletcher, Doug Flett)
9. "Labelled With Love (I'll Stay With My Dreams)" (Chris Difford, Glenn Tilbrook)
10. "Reflections of My Life" (Junior Campbell, Thomas McAleese)
11. "You'll Never Walk Alone" (Oscar Hammerstein, Richard Rodgers)

References

1. Allmusic review
2. NME review
3. "I was nuts", The Guardian, 19 September 2003
4. "Somebody give me a bottle!". Independent on Sunday. 3 September 2006. Archived from the original on 26 July 2009.
5. "Alan McGee: 'If there's one thing Creation Records wasn't, it was boring'". The Guardian. 21 September 2010. Retrieved 27 February 2012.