The Raving Beauties

The Raving Beauties

The Raving Beauties are a Brighton and Hove-based collective. They form as a collaborative project involving singer/songwriter Gordon Grahame, who also records under the name Lucky Jim, and writer/musician Brian Bell.

Formation and concept

The project grows out of Bell’s Brighton-set short story, The Unsung Classic, which centres on the troubles of an unruly local group shaped by the city’s 1960s subculture. Bell develops the idea into a fictional back-story for the band, imagining an album as if it were an unreleased recording from two decades earlier.

Sound and recording

The Raving Beauties make music built around breezy vocal harmonies, melodic chord progressions and power-pop jangle. Their songs draw on 1960s-inspired sunshine pop and evoke comparisons with Teenage Fanclub, Big Star, The Byrds and other melodic guitar-pop styles. Gordon Grahame records and produces the material at his home studio.

Notable songs and album material

The group follows a single called “Oh Lover”. Their eleven-song album includes “Oh Lover”, “I Want To Know It Now” and “Where I Belong”. “Oh Lover” presents a lush, Teenage Fanclub-like guitar-pop sound, “I Want To Know It Now” has a more blissed-out feel, and “Where I Belong” is an anthemic track within the same summer-leaning style.