XTC : Classic or Dud.

there's a zing waiting to explode

Can't wait for some band to lovingly recreate "Cumbersome"

never seen this before

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xlH9eyyZ0M

Ace, thanks!

I have a bunch of these fillums, they used to do loads of bits of films for a cable channel based in Swindon, 1975 onwards.

Really wanted to go to this XTC covers night last week in Minneapolis, but was sick. Lots of heavy hitter players and a pretty cool setlist:

http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh310/yodelagogo/senses.jpg

Kudos for playing "Melt the Guns" next to last (said maybe the only guy who's going to vote for this song when the XTC poll comes round).

I'll vote for it too. Objectively it's pretty awful, but there's something about it that's always stuck with me. And Colin's bass playing on it is fabbo.

It's better than "Knuckle Down" anyhow.

It's not better than anything... ever.

We listened to XTC at record club the other day.

http://devonrecordclub.com/2014/06/25/xtc-black-sea-round-69-robs-choice/

Nice little piece!

'Poor Skeleton Steps Out' is so good.

Nice little piece!

Have we done an XTC albums poll? I kind of want to check out more of their albums after having had (and loving, especially the second disc) the Fossil Fuels greatest hits for some time. What's best from their first and second periods?

First - Black Sea/Drums & Wires/English Settlement

Second - Mummer

Incorrect!

Actually, I'm a Mummer defender myself, so that was nice to see someone else mention it.

Mummer is all right but skylarking and apple venus are much better.

Frivolous Tonight
Fruit Nut
Your Dictionary

nuh-uh

Whenever I hear the start of the verses of "My Brown Guitar" I'm reminded of the verses of an 80s Norwegian children's pop song by Knutsen og Ludvigsen called "Dum og Deilig"

(Ok, sorry, I have no idea if this is of any interest to any of you, but I think about it whenver this thread is bumped, so I might as well post it)

See MN I like all those songs (esp Your Dictionary). I've said it before but there really is no consensus about this band. Tracks poll will be interesting in that respect.

I'm a heretic in that I rep for "The Big Express" over Skylarking. And I think "Go 2" is deeply underrated.

I think most fans agree the Drums and Wires > English Settlement run is their strongest.

Big Express is excellent through and through.

I think Big Express is a fine album and that Skylarking is overrated (but still a good one).

If you wantto fall in love with their early herky-jerky period, pick up the Transistor Blast box that TVT put out. I think the BBC recordings of almost all those songs are superior to the album versions and it serves as a really nice intro to their first decade.

I'll take Big Express over Skylarking too

i say this every time xtc are mentioned on ilx but my phase 2 fave must always be nonsuch. agree on skylarking being overrated. have never listened to mummer OR the big express straight through (unlike every other xtc album); should rectify that really

XTC feels like 4 phases to me
Herky jerky (short but distinct)
Guitar pop (short but IMO apex)
Studiohead (biggest volume of recordings)
Late phase (longest phase chronologically)

With drums wires and nonsuch having one foot on either side of their particular borders

The Big Express runs out of steam on Side B (did you see what I did there), however.

No way! "Train Running Low on Soul Coal" is the bizzomb.

agree Big Express underrated! The production was a deal-breaker for me when I first heard it-- but then I first heard it immediately after hearing Skylarking. The songs themselves, collectively speaking, are as good as on most other XTC records. Hard to believe the same person who wrote "Fruit Nut" also wrote "Wake Up", and "I Bought Myself a Liarbird" and "You're the Wish You Are I Had" are some of my favorite Partridge songs.

Drums and Wires is my favorite. The middle to latter half of the album is the one that really made me like the band. Skylarking has always been really good but not as good as Drums and Wires.

Could stand to explore the rest of their discography more. Definitely love "King for a Day"

Definitely love "King for a Day"

There was a #1 vote for "International Player's Anthem" in the Outkast poll and someone called that perverse. Much as I love all the phases of XTC, I am mildly ashamed that my absolute favorite song of theirs is a Tears for Fears ripoff.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-06-15/entertainment/ct-ae-0617-twitter-backlash-partridge-20120615_1_tweet-twitter-aflac

(Needless to say, in the above context at least, Andy Partridge is kinda dud)

Oy, never heard about that. I live in my nice multicultural diverse bubble in Boston and forget that well-meaning people can still make gaffes like these. I believe his explanation and try not to hold it against him. I once offended a lesbian couple by asking them about their reproductive options, so it happens.

Eesh, not cool, Andy!

I had the biggest case of hero worship for him when I first discovered XTC, just through the lushness of his songs. I had a job of not doing very much and sat around on the internet reading every article, interview, with XTC, that I could, and by the later years I could see why they grew apart. Andy just seems like a diva – I wish I could think of a better term. He explained that Dave's diabetes "added insulin to injury" and I thought, man, I'd quit working with the guy if he said dumb shit like that, too.

N-e-way would also like to rep for Black Sea, and also to ask why the heck is Rochard Branson all over this video>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCW6Kte2o1A&feature=kp

Didn't know about that Andy twitter thing. I'm kind of baffled that he seemed to genuinely have no idea how/that what he tweeted was offensive.

It seems the world is not full of people who are cool with saying "yeah I fucked up there."

Jewish Beatles thing is ... unfortunate. But as a Jew I forgive you, Andy. A guy who clearly lets his love of puns run away with him sometimes. (I shudder to think at what Black Beatles puns would have produced)

Anyone else been getting ads for "Apple Venus" on Youtube? At first I thought it must be a targeted ad, but I don't have anything remotely resembling XTC in my viewing history. Incredibly odd that they're advertising a decade-and-a-half-old album like it's a new release.

Re, Branson, the band were filming a documentary about making 'Towers of London' at The Manor, Branson was around because megalomania,, and they did the vid for "Generals and Majors" during a break.

Re Twitter: What's funny during a laff session with pals at a club with beer and that, is not usually funny if you then go up to a mic at a comedy club and say 'hey listen to these we're crying down here..'

and obviously if its not as funny as You think it is, what's left? Whatever undertow the 'material' has...

I've been wracking my brain all week trying to remember where I read a great piece on XTC lately. I think I found it:

http://backseatmafia.com/2014/06/28/a-buyers-guide-to-xtc/

"Big Express" is allright but it feels like a second-tier, transitional work. It's clearly a throwback attempt to their earlier approach with the clattering, convulsive rhythms (inc their final dub rhythm on "This World Over", if I'm not mistaken), the shouty yelping, and the all-electric clangor, and that stuff is welded onto their no-touring/all-studio band approach of more complex, multilayered arrangements and textures and the result is not terrible but it's cluttered and just kind of oppressive in a way that I don't really enjoy revisiting all that often. All of their pastoral, gentler impulses have been excised and replaced with this grimy, industrial focus (that goes for the lyrics as well as the music) and it's a bit relentless - I feel like I'm covered in sweat and soot after listening to the whole thing. It's kind of retrograde in that it's the last gasp of their earliest stylistic impulses, it feels like a middle aged man squeezing into his teenage clothes and bursting at the seams, not the most attractive picture. That said, there are plenty of good tunes on it and loads of interesting details but as a whole it's by no means my favorite.

From above article:

After the slightly limp offering that was the disappointing Mummer, XTC took a long hard look at themselves and decided to make the most of their Britishness and particularly their Swindonian origins. Swindon is an industrial town, therefore their next album had to reflect this and as such The Big Express is the most mechanical sounding of all XTC’s albums.

The Big Express is a considerably louder and more potent album than Mummer and saw XTC taking risks with stuff like Linn drum machines and backing singers. Once again the singles are the best tracks on it, with “Wake Up” being a jumpy call-to-arms and “This World Over” being the softest and most comfortable listen on the album. In addition to these two strong additions to XTC’s catalogue of near-miss singles, there’s also “All You Pretty Girls”, one of my all time favourite XTC songs and the highpoint of the album. That’s not to say that the rest of the album is filler, as there are some gloriously rhythmic moments to be found when you ride The Big Express, such as the oddly upbeat “Shake Your Donkey Up” and the description defying “Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her”.

The things is that the use of the Linn drum machine created a rigid and occasionally unforgiving sound, which is slightly at odds with the organic and fresh sounds that XTC usually produce. The tracks that are easiest on the ears are those that Pete Phipps drummed on while Dave Gregory spent hours screaming in frustration at the drum machine he had been left to programme. That said XTC made a better job of assimilating this knew technology into their music than many other acts.

At the end of the day The Big Express is a curio in XTC’s history. It wasn’t an artistic failure as such and a lot of the songs work very well, however after this album their music improved immeasurably, leaving The Big Express sitting rather glumly with Mummer as the XTC albums in my collection that don’t get played very often.

Through the early 80s, it was obvious that XTC were on the cusp of something unique and really rather special. At a time when horrible synthetic sounds and empty gestures held sway, they provided something that was emotionally genuine and grounded in human nature. 1986 saw the band at a crossroads though. Commercially they’d just about fallen off the map and they were about as far away from critics darlings The Smiths and commercial behemoths U2 as it was possible to get within a guitar band format. They needed something significant to reverse their fortunes.

Didn't the Dukes of the Stratosphear stuff sell way better than Mummer?

yeah

btw random question - is there anywhere that collects all of the various non-album B-sides from Skylarking on? I'm realizing there's a bunch of random tracks I don't have (and that weren't on Fuzzy Warbles) which kinda bugs me, completist that I am