Introduction

Hello you. Make a cup of tea, put a record on. Welcome to The A to Z of Britpop, your introduction to the bands, music and characters that defined the most exciting genre of the 1990s.

In this article we discuss Babybird: the shambolic brilliance of Stephen Jones, where lo-fi misanthropy meets unexpected chart glory.

This, as always, is then.

Babybird – Origins & era

Formed: 1995, Sheffield
Active Years: 1995–2000, 2005–2013, 2015–present
Associated Genres: Alternative, lo-fi, indie rock, electronic
Record Labels: Baby Bird Recordings, Echo, Unison Music, RW/FF Recordings

How it started

Stephen Jones began as a solo artist, recording lo-fi home demos that later became the Babybird project.

He released five albums of demos under the name Baby Bird, starting with I Was Born a Man in 1995.

Jones formed a full band lineup in 1996 to bring the music to live audiences, officially marking the birth of Babybird.

Band members

Stephen Jones – Vocals, multi-instrumentalist
Danny Lowe – Guitar
Robert Gregory – Drums
Luke Scott – Bass

Past members:

Huw Chadbourn – Keyboards
John Pedder – Bass
Matt Hay – Drums

Definitive lyric

"He put razor blades in the ice cream"
– Bad Old Man

Signature sound & style

Lo-fi dirge meets polished pop. Jones’ early cassette-recorded demos were stitched together with cynicism and tape hiss, but the band-era material leaned into sleeker production without ever fully cleaning up.

Influences ranged from Tom Waits to Tindersticks, but with more bile and fewer waistcoats. It was pop for people who didn’t trust it.

Defining moment

You're Gorgeous went to No. 3 in the UK charts in October 1996. A song about exploitation mistaken for a love song, it got played at weddings by people who hadn’t listened to the words.

It put Jones briefly in the mainstream, much to his own discomfort.

Full album discography

Ugly Beautiful (1996)
There’s Something Going On (1998)
Bugged (2000)
Between My Ears There Is Nothing But Music (2006)
Ex-Maniac (2010)
The Pleasures of Self Destruction (2011)
The Last Album (2015)
Back to the Womb (2015)
Life After Death (2016)
Take My Air (2016)
The Wrong Words (2017)
I Miss Myself (2017)
I Miss Myself 2 (2017)
People Do Stupid Things (2017)
King of Nothing Part One (2017)
King of Nothing Part Two (2018)
Selfies Inside the Coffin (2018)
NOTPOP/Toothpaste For The Soul (2019)
Photosynthesis (2019)

Essential listening

Back Together (1998) – A beautifully bitter ballad with a bruised heart and pitch-perfect melancholy.

What the press said

“Songwriter and frontman Stephen Jones was the creative force of the group and, with hindsight, his prolific demo-like releases were reminiscent of a prototype Badly Drawn Boy: BabydrawnBird, if you will.”
– Tom Hocknell, BBC

Where are they now?

After splitting in 2000, Jones dabbled in solo projects and film scores, including Blessed (2004).

Babybird reformed in 2005, releasing Between My Ears There Is Nothing But Music and Ex-Maniac, the latter featuring Johnny Depp on Unloveable.

Jones now releases music constantly through Bandcamp, often under different monikers, with more albums than most fans can keep up with. A reformed lineup has toured since 2017, and the 2019 compilation Happy Stupid Nothing proved he still had venom left in the pen.

Babybird in a sentence

Babybird still inspire a cult of fans who prefer their pop a little more broken.

See you on down the road.

Babybird