XTC C/D S/D

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

But I love the the echoing guitar chords, the bass work and the synth solo in the middle!

the bass work is really colin bass work, which tbh is always exceptional (e.g. one of the millions)

Yeah, "Apple Venus" was so wonderful, sandwiched between two sub-par albums. And inglorious end for a great band, though I like to think of the best of Fuzzy Warbles as their real finale.

definitely

one can make an excellent partridge studio album from lightheaded, wonder annual, goosey goosey, i don't want to be here, i defy you gravity, bland leading the bland etc etc

btw, anyone else find Mr. partridge's twitter musings a bit on the annoying side?

"Standing In For Joe" was Colin's last greatest song. A lot of the good songs on Wasp Star were rescued from the aborted alter-ego bubble-gum pop album that Partridge tried to pitch in 1995 to Virgin, where each song would be by a different artist -- a bit like the Dukes Of Stratosphear. Acc. to Andy, the Virgin executives were silent and horrified after Andy made his pitch.

The more I read about the history of XTC, the more it becomes really clear that, in spite of other Virgin success, that label never got XTC from the get-go. Their choices for XTC singles became terrible from Black Sea onward.

..replace Black Sea with Mummer in that last post. With that substitution in mind, it makes more sense why Virgin chose the worst songs as singles from 1983 on... the band weren't making them money at the time.

I would add this track to AA's Warbles material list, so lovely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBpV_Kf-e5U

ah yeah, his giant peach work was patchy but that song is ~art~

Killer middle eight in his best tradition too.

Rag & Bone Buffet drove me nuts (so many awesome outtakes during the English Settlement era that really should have at least made Mummer) but some of these Fuzzy Warbles releases are insane. This man's *outtakes* make up a pretty enviable career.

nuts/insane.. in a good or bad way?

In a good way; I always assumed that stuff like "Leisure" or "The Smartest Monkeys" were included because they didn't have enough good tunes to go around (before realizing that some people actually liked those songs)

ah yeah, his giant peach work was patchy but that song is ~art~

ugh I hate that song, so cheeseball. the other Peach songs are goofier but also better imho.

every XTC fan wants different things from this band, I've learned.

My college station played "Dear Madam Barnum" a fair bit, enough for me to buy the album and...stop listening it to it after a week.