XTC C/D S/D

Yeah, I've often felt there was a bit of humour in 'Wounded Horse', even if the song is quite a serious song about trying to get over a failed relationship. I don't think they got the best out of that one when they recorded it, though.

another entry into the "how did this not get released????" sweepstakes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEXLTYgub3E

yeah that's a good one.

I don't like Wounded Horse, too plodding

Yeah it's almost as though he's written it one night in a drunken stupor, woken up the next morning, realised how corny it is and just decided to play it up.

I'm Unbecome is great.

Listening to _Nonsuch_ for the first time in years, I think this is their weakest album. The production just does NOT suit these songs, it's so overdone and slick and the drumming is, hrm, too simple? Colin's songs have gotten worse, "Smartest Monkeys" and "Bungalow" still totally suck ass and "War Dance" is even crappier than I remembered, ughhhhh. Demos for this stuff are somewhat better, and I still like the too-clever-by-half 'Peter Pumpkinhead". Andy's writing at this stage is a bit too unsubtle and hamfisted.

War Dance and The Smartest Monkeys are two of their worst songs but I've always rated this as one of my favourite albums of theirs. Love Wrapped In Grey, Books Are Burning, My Bird Performs, Rook and many others. Their weakest album for me is Mummer or maybe Wasp Star?

wasp star was a poor way to go out

Rook is really the only song I like from Nonsuch. My appreciation for it was really enhanced by this 8-bit cover. Like I got into the cover way before the actual song and then some of my feelings transferred.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBhLmwFDW3Y

Nonsuch is one of my absolute favourite albums of theirs, although I have never liked 'War Dance'. Love both 'The Smartest Monkeys' and 'Bungalow', though!

Nonsuch is massively underrated. It pisses all over Oranges & Lemons from a great height height

heeiiiiiight

How can an XTC fan not enjoy 'Bungalow'? It's probably the best thing Colin Moulding ever did. Woo hoo!

otm, bungalow is amazing

smartest monkeys on the other hand

meh, I don't like it, but at least like the groove of smartest monkeys. It's just the phrase "smartest monkeys" that seems beyond the call of decency.

imo something happened to Colin in the later XTC era -- thinking all the years of not having big hits and still having to live super modestly (even having to take part time jobs for extra cash) caused him to not make writing songs the biggest priority. Plus, thinking that his share of XTC song royalties would be we down from Partridge's. When I hear tunes like "I remember the sun" or "grass" or "Wake Up", it's too bad to think he had to go down w/XTC's ship, because as was mentioned earlier in thread, his best stuff is up there with the most creative songwriting of the 80s.

way down, that is

I think he lost confidence after being compared unfavourably with Partridge for 15 years (last I heard he had completely moved on from writing)

ugh totally hate Bungalow

conversations like this make me think an XTC poll would be really interesting, even though it would just be the half dozen of us voting

Colin Moulding wrote about a third of XTC's singles. Even when he had 2 or 3 songs on an album in total, usually at least one would be a single

Did you guys see the "Swindon Local TV" video links I posted a little while ago?

Also, prior to their fallout, he did acknowledge his rate of producing songs just didn't compare to Partridge's

http://www.swindonviewpoint.com/video/xtc-science-friction-early-studio-recording

Search for "XTC" (obv) and "Helium Kids" (less obv)

Andy Partridge has always claimed that Colin Moulding got a higher percentage of songs that he wrote on XTC albums than Andy Partridge himself did. But that's only because Andy Partridge writes songs as frequently as most people go for pisses.

Moulding's work was stellar in the first few years (Heatwave, Instant Tunes, Set Myself on Fire, Crowded Room, The Rhythm, Ten Feet Tall, Fly on the Wall, Angry Young Men, Wake Up, Generals & Majors, Ball & Chain, Smokeless Zone, Blame the Weather)

also Sacrificial Bonfire

I think his songs for Oranges & Lemons are the best ones on that album. Are people writing them off because they're so Tears For Fears sincere?

Man, I do not get people who don't rate Wasp Star. It might not be the most consisten record, but when it's good, it's great. (In Another Life, The Man Who Murdered Love, even Playground to some extent, a few others that are slipping my mind.)

But "The Man Who Murdered Love" is the absolute wimpiest song Andy ever wrote! Ugh! "Wasp Star" has it's moments but the lows are reaaaaally low.

Wasp Star was one album too many imo (although The Wheel & the Maypole is top five of the entire catalogue)

also Sacrificial Bonfire

― that's not kewell (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, May 29, 2012 1:04 AM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Rundgren's string arrangement on that is absolutely sublime. I'd say 'Sacrificial Bonfire' was my favourite Colin song, actually!

'The Wheel & The Maypole' is excellent! The easy highlight of Wasp Star for me, and EASILY one of Andy's best-ever songs!

Have XTC been polled yet? They should be. That would be an excellent poll.

not that I'm aware, in the recent megapoll sense at least

I can only (quickly) find a poll for "The Big Express" and "Fossil Fuel", so there's lots of polling options if ye wish it.

it was brought up on the tracks/megapoll thread but I begged off doing it

I think you're right that it'd just be a quiet affair with six people saying "yes, that is also a good XTC song."

yeah, the whole thread would just end up being a difference of opinion over The Smartest Monkeys

iirc the only HUGE stan of Smartest Monkey's was the LJ.

Monkey's

i would vote - i think there used to be more xtc fans around. i like standing in for joe despite the unintentional (?) steely dan rip and also frivolous tonight - very corny and middle-aged but they are well written. i think i remember colin talking about how he was only interested in doing a sort of cole porter-style songwriting at that late point in his career. i think it suits him but yes, they don't really fit the albums they are on or andy's style.

Geir likes The Smartest Monkeys as well

I can't find my own defence of that song, so here's a renewed breakdown, Aeroboot-on-Ignition-(remix)-style, of everything I think is ace about it:

- The panned echo guitar opening
- The perfect chiming-glass keyboards
- The space in the production
- The bassline in the chorus
- The keychanges between verse and chorus
- The drum-thump into the second chorus
- The backing vocals in the second chorus
- The perfectly-placed siren in the second chorus
- The lovely guitar-solo at the start of the bridge
- The EPIC treated-guitar/keyboard solo
- The organ drone underneath the solo
- The third chorus with even cooler harmonies
- The way the whole thing BUILDS!
- The descending bass part before the 4th chorus
- The guitar slide during the 4th chorus
- The syncopated drum-part during the 4th chorus
- The fractured bass soloing in the outro
- The syncopation returning in the outro

Colin's best song might be What In The World?? though (are TDOS songs permitted in an XTC poll? I'd vote)

Anything else I'd like to say this week? I've been getting into Justin K Broadrick's various projects, although he's like the moon to Partridge's sun (both English pastoralism in some sense, but instead of summer-drenched light-social-commentary idyll we have combine harvesters chewing up the hearts of doomed picnickers). In more XTC-friendly (ish) news, the second Swirlies album is godhead and I'd like you to imagine I just posted a 900-word screed about it, even though I didn't

(are TDOS songs permitted in an XTC poll? I'd vote)

I'm not voting if they're not.

It's the lyrics in "Smartest Monkeys" that puts it in the ground for me. Appalling.

here's a renewed breakdown, Aeroboot-on-Ignition-(remix)-style, of everything I think is ace about it:

here's a breakdown of everything I think is crap about it:

- the tune
- the lyrics
- the banal horrible lyrics
- the inconsistent number of syllables jammed into at least one line
- the whole song
- the fact that it made the album and 'didn't hurt a bit' didn't
- the mystery kazoo (assuming it's a kazoo)
- 'quick!! call the guinness book of rec-rrrrds'
- having to think about it just to write this post

yeah it's awful

I've never been keen on the lyrics to 'The Smartest Monkeys', and Almanac is pretty much otm when he singles out the "quick!! call the Guinness Book Of Rec-rrrrds' line as a particularly cringeworthy moment. But I love the the echoing guitar chords, the bass work and the synth solo in the middle!

i support the XTC polling party. i plan to vote for all of the big express.

and nothing after skylarking

watch it sunshine

although I heartily support all enthusiasm for the big express