XTC fans (or non-): possible explanations of their appeal???

Finally!

I picked up Drums and Wires a few days ago, and I'm glad I made one more attempt with XTC. I don't know what happened in the 3 years between Drums and Wires and English Settlement, but if "Complicated Game" were to get into a schoolyard fight with a song like "Senses Working Overtime" (which I like, even), the latter would get bloodied and then have to watch his girlfriend make out with "Complicated Game".

Great song, great album. I also bought Black Sea, but I think I'm going to listen to Drums and Wires again first.

'Complicated Game' is one of my favourite XTC songs, and one of their most underrated, period. Does the quiet to loud thing better than just about anything else, has great lyrics, and sports some truly unhinged guitar work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9GIxfbfob0

the bonus tracks on the Black Sea CD are seriously incredible. "Smokeless Zone" sounds not just weird but utterly unique, unlike anything else I've ever heard, while remaining effortless and extremely fun; "Don't Lose Your Temper" has a guitar line that puts a smile on my face every time I hear it and is possibly better than anything on the album proper. especially after the rather dour "Travels in Nihilon", those tracks are like perfect little blobs of sunshine-flavored jello (wait, what the fuck?).

Actually, the best thing about the song is Partridge's delivery of the final, climactic 'God asked me...' verse. It's perfect, and I don't think vocal echo/multi-track has ever worked more splendidly. Repeat after me: RightRaRightRaRightRaRightRaRightRightRight!

OMG bryson strikes! "Smokeless Zone" is my favourite track off Black Sea (with the possible exception, and here's where you LOSE, of "Travels In Nihilon")! You forgot "The Somnambulist", btw, which still scares the living crap outta me.

I wasn't counting "The Somnambulist" because I'm still not sure what to make out of it. it's sort of like those bonus tracks at the end of the notwist's Neon Golden, in that it's good, but so distinct in sound and mood from the rest of the album that it almost feels more like commentary than music.

an old friend asked on fb which album his friends had owned the most copies of (in various formats), and my answer was XTC's Oranges & Lemons. i hadn't listened to it in a long time, so i pulled it out and listened to it in the car today.

to explain the appeal of XTC the first time they appealed to me is pretty easy: i was 12, they were weirder than anything i had heard before, they sang about politics and how horrible people are, they welcomed me into the garden of earthly delight, funny songs about love and genitals, their songs were catchy and not all the same, they weren't scary, and nobody else i knew had any idea who they were.

i vividly remember seeing them perform on MTV, which is what made me want to buy the album the first time. now that it's 2017, i remembered that i can see if that performance is on youtube and it is! i also found my 8th grade yearbook last week at my parents' house and i think XTC saved me from developing into a boring conformist.

all that from this performance of "scarecrow people", the song i remember liking when i saw this, probably sitting at home by myself bored and watching mtv
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI8MalyCCGU

i calculated incorrectly -- i was 13 but the sentiment remains true

They're radio promo tour for O & L boots are pretty dope. Fun banter and slick guitar inter-play ...

Their - duh

man, wish I had a cool story like that. mine is I heard "Generals and Majors" on internet radio and then had to play it 10 more times, and eventually wondered what their other music was like

I honestly can't remember what my first exposure to them was. "Skylarking" was the first album I bought, but prior to that I was def familiar with Senses Working Overtime and a few other singles thanks to 91X airplay.

For me, it was just a case of knowing their two most well known tracks well ('Making Plans For Nigel' and 'Senses Working Overtime') and then checking out the albums to see if the rest of the stuff was any good. It was.

my memory of seeing that performance always made me doubt my sanity -- did it even happen? did i dream it up? i'm glad to realize i wasn't imagining it. such a great album all the way through.

at the time i was into INXS, REM, etc (lol) but also had one Cure album -- as a littler kid I loved The Beatles and XTC was the most appealing combo of modern humor and topical subject matter + well-crafted Beatley songs. i also hated Reagan and nuclear bombs so the political songs resonated a lot. i feel fortunate to have had nothing better to do that evening than watch tv by myself.

eventually i found Skylarking at the library.

Was 15, had seen them on Urgh! and then noticed cheap cassette of English Settlement at rockheads in downtown St. Paul (the version without Africa, cockpit, leisure etc on it-- I still don't like those songs being there). Loved it right away. The year after, Skylarking came out and became the huge album of my circle of high school friends.

I doubt I'm the only one that discovered them this way, but They Might Be Giants have a song called "XTC vs Adam Ant" and I was at the age where I was just starting to learn about music not on the radio and would check out literally any band I heard about. Also got into Adam Ant that way, but he is not as much a fave

about a year and a half ago a good friend of mine made a very passionate and long post on FB explaining why, "after 20 years of near constant music consumption," he'd concluded XTC was his favorite band ever, for all the reasons we know... i was in new york and about to go to Other Music so i picked up Mummer and The Big Express there. ended up being my last visit there before it closed.

the O&L radio tour is sweet. the way their guitars blend on Love on a Farmboy's Wages - oh man

https://youtu.be/cTtFTHI7Or0?t=20m13s

I doubt I'm sure I'm the only one that discovered them this way, but it was on the 1982 WOMAD benefit double album Music and Rhythm, which had a bunch of artists who played the first WOMAD festival and which I bought for the unreleased Peter Gabriel, Pete Townshend and Jon Hassell tracks. It also had "It's Nearly Africa," which I completely flipped out over.

Bought English Settlement a few weeks later and flipped out 14 more times (see, 'cause there's a total of 15 tracks). By the time Mummer came out a year later, I had bought every album and most of the singles, EPs and side projects (with a big thank you to the late lamented Venus Records on 8th St. in NYC).