XTC : Classic or Dud.

This thread will probably cause me to traverse the XTC discog yet again. I love picking away at things that give me problems.

Thread made me bust out "English Settlement." It's one of those albums that took me years to fully get into. I had the same thing with "Songs in the Key of Life" – they're both so BIG and so GOOD. Like by the time "Jason and the Argonauts" is over I'm just drained.

Looking, at the tracks after that, actually, I can't remember any of them except "Fly on the Wall." I usually have a break after "Jason" because it's so damn epic, and I guess I never pick it back up. How weird.

Snowman has always been a fav of mine, still blast it when it comes up on my iPod

"Melt the Guns" is really embarrassing.

wtf it's 6:34!!!!

english settlement is pretty amazing all the way through

i said it on a different XTC thread once, but the beginning of "melt the guns" sounds like animal collective

Andy in social commentary mode can get pretty insufferable. I can't stand stuff like Melt the Guns and Books Are Burning, etc.

why do you love guns, shakey

someone please share their thoughts on "complicated game" from drums and wires

and the genius of "meccanic dancing"

"complicated game" is the best song on d&w and it took me forever to notice it- tucked way back on what would be side two of the alblum. haven't heard it in a few months, that's all i got....

hi five!

best song on d&w besides nigel of course

"Snowman" is so, so good. One of my favorite AP lines: "People will always be tempted to wipe their feet on anything with 'welcome' written on it."

As a little kid, I loved Andy's voice because I thought all his vocal tics (the hiccups, snarls, etc.) were funny, so I guess I can see it being a turnoff for some.

the beginning of "melt the guns" sounds like animal collective Yeah, but what sounds like the end? I want a whole album of that. Rhythmic gurgling and spastic gibbering. Yet so catchy & memorable & not annoying at all. (Mrs. Staggerlee can take about 30 seconds of it before she says "Yeah, we get the point" and skips to the next track. And what's up with the bass playing on this song? It's insane. Like, Andy comes in with the chords and Colin's response is "I'm gonna play like Mike Watt." Altho there's no way he's heard The Minutemen at this point.

Funny, I adore "Melt The Guns" (just for the sound of it!) and "Books Are Burning" not to mention "Peter Pumpkinhead", "Dear God", etc. Maybe it helps that I agree with his point of view. Political songs don't have to dance around the issue.

I think I could totally dig "Melt the Guns" if it was in Portugese, and I'm as anti-gun as they come. Just the lyrics are so embarrassing. I relistened to it today and the bridge is pretty sweet. The chorus just makes me cover my face with my hands, tho.

the lyrics don't bug me because they are sorta nonsense-y and i don't pay much attention to them. dear god, on the other hand, i cannot listen to because it is anti-religion challops x infinity (plus it's boring musically)

xtc melt the guns >> the legend! melt the guns

someone please share their thoughts on "complicated game" from drums and wires

I'm not much of an XTC stan, I tried to get into Drums and Wires, Black Sea, and The Big Express as a youth but most of the songs left me meh. Complicated Game is incredible though. A bravura vocal performance of furious, frustrated, almost comically ridiculous anguish.

Oh God, 'Complicated Game' what a great song.

I actually suspect he's super humble, but awkward, and probably brainier than most of his friends

Andy Partridge? Humble? Really? I agree that he's brainy and awkward though!

last 3 songs on drums&wires just destroy

Yeah I think he's probably a humble guy! I think he's got a lot of opinions, and is compulsively "witty" about expressing them. However, he hardly strikes me as a guy who'd monopolize the dinner table w/tales of his own glory. More like, he'd monopolize the dinner table w/vaguely creepy tales of masturbating as a teen, and then having a dream wherein he was punished by giant toy robots for it. And then he'd immediately write a song about it, and send it to you the next week. And that's kinda endearing to me! I don't know, just general hyperactive dorkiness doesn't irritate me, so much as make me squirm sometimes.

Some more linkage, 4 podcasts featuring AP and John Leckie reminiscing about the making of the two Dukes records.

About 80 mins all in, scroll down.

http://apehouse.prevuz.com/

here comes presdient kiiilll agaaaiiinnn

"Wow!" @ English Settlement! Is it all this good?

drums and wires or skylarking next

this just in: Go 2 is excellent, AS excellent as White Music is underwhelming

please understand I've known about and loved the albums from D&W onwards for over 15 years now so this is a pretty momentous step

Welcome to enlightenment! "White Music" isn't so much underwhelming as an awkward coming-out album. But it still has it's moments.

all of White Music's good moments are also on The Compact XTC, whereas Go 2 is this strange and wondrous creation I'd not been aware of - it's a HUGE leap forwards

I concur, and "Compact XTC" has stuff like "Wait Til Your Boat Goes Down" that (I think) is unavailable elsewhere. But, yeah, "Go 2" is overlooked and wicked fun!

fave tracks, predictably, are Battery Brides, Beatown, Life Is Good In The Greenhouse and I Am the Audience - basically all the longer, stranger, more dementedly atonal ones

but it's all awesome (apart from "My Weapon" for fuck's sake - take that one off and the album's gonna be perceived in an ENTIRELY different light by EVERYONE)

Go 2 has always been my least favourite XTC album by a long way, I actually sold it earlier this year (along with Mummer and Wasp Star) but I'm thinking I might have to give it another chance. I really like White Music, Radios in Motion is one of my favourite opening tracks ever.

I've been listening to them a lot recently. I'd rate Skylarking as the best closely followed by Drums & Wires.

As is well-documented, I wouldn't rate Skylarking THAT highly - it's slick and flows well but even allowing for taste I think English Settlement is such an astounding monolith of brilliance that I can't imagine a persuasive argument for Skylarking.

This said, Ballet For A Rainy Day -> 10,000 Umbrellas is flat-out genius and easily the highlight of the album. Am also extremely partial to Another Satellite.

Have made an XTC Spotify playlist with the available tracks, avoiding the big singles: http://open.spotify.com/user/louisjagger/playlist/1pQrOPOIMkNQP6B7isLQHt

no wait FUCK that, Senses Working Overtime is a cornerstone of my musical imagination

thinking of songs that were unlucky to miss out on that playlist and they're all on English Settlement pretty much

"My Weapon" is fun Fun FUN! I forget what Barry says about it in the "Song Stories" book, maybe that it's about what you think it's about but entirely tongue-in-cheek.

hey - I'm giving Super-Tuff a break (it's not bad!) which is more than most people are willing to give

"My Weapon" is just a not-very-good song tbh, questionable lyrics aside

Beatown invents Cardiacs, however, and is consequently AWESOME - in fact the three longest tracks on the album are all superlative

English Settlement has some great moments but it could do with a bit of trimming, Knuckle down is probably my favourite song on there.

I listened to The Big Express recently, that has to be their most frustrating album as it has some songs I absolutely love like I Bought myself a Liarbird, Seagull Screaming kiss Her Kiss Her and You're the Wish You Are I Had then some really awful songs like Shake you Donkey up and Reign of Blows. I wish I could I could go back in time and beg them to put out Everyday Story of a Small Town as the first single instead of All You Pretty Girls, which is another one I really hate.

Would never give up Senses Working Overtime because

but to me it's very – very – beautiful

I think that line alone put four years of life back into me.

the whole song is absolutely burned onto my mind like few things

you will be pleased to hear I gave Mummer a bit of a listen-through and was completely freaking bowled over by Ladybird in an "oh my!! how have I not heard this" sort of a way

Also I can think of hardly any songs with more British-to-American lost in translations, which is great. Neither of these American things is shaped like the world:

biscuit
http://iwilcope.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/red-lobster-biscuits.jpg

foobaw
http://www.ncsucrusade.com/images/football.jpg

xp

My Mummer top 5:

1. <3 on a Farmboy's Wages (all time cosmic <3, one of the best XTC songs)
2. Deliver Us From the Elements
3. Me & the Wind
4. Human Alchemy
5. Wonderland

will give the whole album a full listen upon waking - never has there been a better time to rediscover XTC

No fucking kidding.

man an ordered XTC POX would be so very hard

Complicated Game <- this song has never not blown my mind
Senses Working Overtime <- already eulogised
No Language In Our Lungs <- there is no language in our DUH-NUH-NUH-NUH DUH-NUH-NUH WHOOOHAAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAAH
Travels In Nihilon <- the older I get, the more fucking astonished I am that XTC created something like this
English Roundabout <- Colin writes prettiest song ever, first half of one of the GREAT closing 1-2s
Wrapped In Grey <- AWAKEN YOOOOOOOOU DREAMERRRRRRRS
The Wheel And The Maypole <- this is how you go out in style, kids - STELLAR PROG SUITE ABOUT DEATH AND REGENERATION, MARRIAGE/LIFE METAPHOR, GENIUS ETC
That Wave <- All! I! Fell! In! To! Was! Looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooove!
Greenman <- if this had been written by ANYONE else it would be TRYING WAY TOO HARD. as it is, it's plain fucking heroic.

literally torn between about 9 songs (No Thugs In Our House, Battery Brides, Ladybird, Church Of Women, The Smartest Monkeys (really), Ballet For A Rainy Day, I Can't Own Her, River Of Orchids, Jason And The Argonauts) for tenth place - gonna make it a Pick 9 Only and proffer that ^ as a second 9. ok fine it's a Pick 18 Only. and I left off Snowman. damn I need to tighten this shit up

btw in 1 month I will have changed my mind probably