XTC : Classic or Dud.

I love that Terry plays on "Beating of Hearts," where he's essentially just playing a drum loop. Did he play on Love on a Farmboy's Wages and then quit, or was the song introduced and he threw his sticks up in the air and walked out?

They attempted to run through 'Love On A Farmboy's Wages' with Chambers, but he quit before they could get a decent take, iirc. If Partridge is to be believed there was no throwing up of sticks in the air - it wasn't that kind of departure.

This is interesting, local public access TV show from 1981 in Lawrence KS featuring XTC playing live and some awesome localised TV ads.

https://archive.org/details/BTABHXTC

Gave a listen to English Settlement for the first time in forever the other day -- first time I'd listened to any XTC album in a long time -- and I was reminded what an engaging success it was. Also how I was listening to it -- it was less the tunes-as-such, more the sheer variety in arrangements, rhythms and so forth.

That's the next one on my list. I'm finding it a little impenetrable so far, but I love Drums and Wires and Black Sea

ES is just so verdant, it and and BS are perfect siblings.

Mummer remains my favourite so far. The first half alone is also so varied in terms of scope. It's stunningly ambitious

Partridge called ES a 'big friendly giant of a record' which is a good descrip

Just seen this from AP's twitter :(

Due to a deep personal loss suffered by my APE label manager, (ie:the man who does it all), BLACK SEA 5.1 will not be released until next year.

Ah, that sucks, but condolences indeed to him.

Black Sea is one of XTC's absolute best records (if not their best) whereas English Settlement is let down by side three.

for years I'd slotted The Big Express ahead of Mummer. At this thread's suggestion, I bought the remastered Mummer and am impressed. The keyboard integration is less frantic than on the later album, perhaps because TBE sounds as if Partridge and Moulding wrote half of the songs for the sake of experimenting with the new technology (a similar thing happened with that year's Hall & Oates album).

Mummer is enhanced by the bonus tracks, but The Big Express is the superior album, IMO. There's more live drumming on The Big Express than people think. All those powerful drum fills on 'Train Running Low on Soul Coal' are live, as is all of 'Wake Up' etc. etc.

Yes, I like "Jump" and "Toys."

'Jump', 'Toys' and 'Gold' should have been on the album proper, IMO... with 'Human Alchemy' removed.

"Human Alchemy" and "Funk Pop a Roll" stink.

I like 'Funk Pop a Roll' - gorgeous 12-string sound!

no one ever agrees about anything re: this band

the Coen brothers of bands

No one ever agrees and everyone just accepts the differences and lack of consensus!

Funk Pop a Roll is such a strange way to end Mummer. great song, a precursor to the even more sly & vicious I Bought Myself a Liarbird

lyrically it's fairly lazy and uninteresting imo, musically it's fine

While you could say that almost every track on Mummer was in some way building on where XTC had been with the previous record, 'Funk Pop a Roll' strikes me as being the track that would most fit snugly on English Settlement.

Black Sea is one of XTC's absolute best records (if not their best) whereas English Settlement is let down by side three.

No-one ever agrees about this band yet here I am agreeing with Turrican.

Let down by side three, who are you people.

We Are The Majority, Ned.

I do think there is some consensus that side 3 is pretty dire (exception being Knuckle Down imo)

You are all high. When I did my relisten the other day "Leisure" was the only one I didn't immediately remember beforehand, and I've been running "It's Nearly Africa" through my head semiconstantly since.

i'll stan for side 3 all day, Melt the Guns into Leisure rules

and yeah It's Nearly Africa is an earworm

English Settlement for me is the butchered tracklist on my import cassette c. 1985 so I just kind of pretend most of side 3 doesn't exist

Black Sea rules because "No Language in Our Lungs" is my favorite XTC song.

I'm not a fan of either 'Leisure' or 'It's Nearly Africa'

Anyway, disagreements from you crazy people aside: the album had come back to mind a few weeks ago when I was thinking about "No Thugs In Our House," which strikes me as relevant to a lot of the present moment -- just add the Internet to Graeme dreaming of a world.

Probably because I'm over-familiar with the shortened US English Settlement, when I listen to unedited whole (as I'm doing today) I'm never all that into the 5 other songs. "Leisure," "Knuckle Down" etc. are okay, but they've never much grown on me.

Black Sea is still my favorite, completely devoid of duds. The bass/guitar interplay is stellar and my favorite song on the album changes every time I listen (it's Towers of London today...that bridge...)

Anyway, disagreements from you crazy people aside: the album had come back to mind a few weeks ago when I was thinking about "No Thugs In Our House," which strikes me as relevant to a lot of the present moment -- just add the Internet to Graeme dreaming of a world.

not to go off topic but I've been thinking about "Divide and Conquer" by Hüsker Dü for the same reasons. Global village, who's gonna stop that burglar from breaking into my house if he lives a million miles away, API Reuters NEWS NEWS!

I finally attempted the full XTC discography the past couple weeks. Some albums dont have me excited when I go back and listen a second time. However, Black Sea is the show steeler of the bunch. I've played it at least 4 times now.

Gotta say, I think at this point of 30+ years of XTC fandom I've become completely unobjective and love basically everything they stamped their name on through "Apple Venus". I adore stuff like "Melt The Guns" and "Human Alchemy" precisely for the wtf aspect of them - they're FUN! And WEIRD! Barry Andrews songs on "Go 2" stick out like a sore thumb, but I love "My Weapon", it's so stoopid! All their b-sides and outtakes are full of little bits that stick in my head. Even the pedestrian stuff like "Senses Working Overtime" hasn't lost it's charm, and the heart-on-sleeve stuff like "Peter Pumpkinhead" and "Dear God" still works for me. Oh, and the dub experiments are great too!

I'm drowning here in XTC's cauldron...

Good lord senses working overtime pedestrian???

Yeah, u crazy - listen to the bass line in the verses, holy shit, that's some from-Mars pop right there.

Compared to the rest of their catalog - pedestrian.

Popular, certainly, but to call it pedestrian! even compared to their other songs, it's not a very normal pop song, with the loopy verses and the long bridge. In fact, I'm surprised it was ever a hit. Now some of the Wasp Star songs, sure...

To chime in on the ES side 3 debate, "Leisure" and "Knuckle Down" are my two least favorite songs on the album, "Melt the Guns" was #26 on my XTC poll ballot, "It's Nearly Africa" was #3.

Been listening to English Settlement recently and the thing that grabs me is the harsh steeliness of the production, which in many ways is reflected by some of the lyrics. It has a gritty, industrialised quality which isn't immediately appealing to my ears but might grow on me, who knows? Songs like 'No Thugs In our House' are amazing, lyric-wise, but without a lyric sheet I'd be at a loss to explain what the song was about, which is a shame. It's almost like the music was arranged around the lyric, and that makes it sound awkward and fascinating at the same time

Hot take on ES Side 3: defo a weak side, blame Andy's lyrics.

Currently looking out for a more reasonably-priced copy of Transistor Blast, can't really justify spending ~£30 on it right now, no matter how nice a set it looks.

xpost:

It's the weakest side of vinyl they ever put out!

lol I also don't really care about "Senses"! English Settlement is a hard album for me to *love*, even tho I know it's a great, ambitious, very unique record. "Senses" is maybe one of the most "normal" sounding songs on it, and one that wouldn't sound out of place even on something as late as O&L (albeit '89-isized). Maybe too normal for me?

IMO if "Snowman" is the towering monolith of odd and magical greatness on that record, then "Senses" is the concession to someone's idea of a hit pop single.

Partridge's vocal choices on the verses doesn't strike me as a pop concession; they foil the conventional chime of the chorus. I love "Snowman" too.