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

And 'funk' isn't really something I've ever associated with them, in any phase.

uh, yes somebody did. and i just quoted them in my previous post. (and again, sasha frere jones has defended xtc to me as a funky band as well. i don't really care whether you think funk has nothing to do with xtc; some people clearly disagree with you. and i answered them.) and ALL of the bands relate to the music being discussed, or I would not have mentioned them. (and my memory IS crappy sometimes. though apparently not as crappy as your reading comprehension.)

But hey, go nuts. You tell those people (all one of them on this thread) that XTC is NOT funky! YEAH!

Two of which I mentioned on this thread before anybody else had, but since I was obviously just picking random bands out my ass who have NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH XTC (even though ALL of the bands I named have a fairly similar aesthetic to XTC, i.e.: jagged or ornate artiste pop songs with wacky lyrics, more or less -- plus almost all of them are British, as I recall, oops fuck you), I guess that's just a coincidence. (Hell, if saying XTC isn't funky offends people 'cause nobody would ever think to call XTC funky in the first place, I'll just say XTC never seemed very SMART to me, either. But now I guess people will tell me nobody ever thought XTC were smart! I can't win.)

yeah, that's totally what I think of when I hear the names Molly Hatchet, SuperTramp, and Dead or Alive. (clue: this is sarcasm) Carry on...

I think this gets at a lot of what I like about the XTC songs I like. I love the brief guitar "solos," if you can call them that, on a song like "Ten Feet Tall." Actually, it kind of reminds me of the solos you get on the first side of the Velvet Underground's The Velvet Underground.

Much of the time I like them in spite of their quirkiness, which probably makes me less than a true XTC fan. I like them primarily for narrowly musical reasons (and because the fun things they do musically also move me), and because I do like many of the lyrics, at least in bits and pieces. The lyrics usually make plenty of sense to me, and on English Settlement, I like the way, for instance, "Yacht Dance" picks up the same themes as "Sense Working Overtime."

I don't know if I'd called them funky (and I am less and less sure I even know what funky means--I think I go for a different type of rhythm than what funk is about), but I think they are very strong rhythmically at times. It's not just a matter of melody.

spill it. Oh, Chuck, fwiw, Colin Moulding is a huge Free fan.

Smart? I don't know. I would like to see you argue your way out of saying "XTC aren't anal enough".

x-post

Speaking of relevant bands: Stump! I feel a grand convergence between A Fierce Pancake and like Black Sea / bits of Drums and Wires.

I think we can grant Chuck's point that XTC were never particularly funky, let it die, and instead focus on this: the words don't make sense? Whuh? If anything this band's main word-problem has been making a little too much sense.

I'm with Nitsuh, I couldn't disagree more - Partridge is a fan-fucking-tastic lyricist, and even their psyched-out imagery at least fits the music.

It *should* be what you think of when you hear Supertramp, since it's exactly what Supertramp (as influenced by late '60s Beatles as XTC, and with their best album the same year as *Drums and Wires*) did. Dead Or Alive and the other '80s MTV Brit dance bands I named (ABC, A Flock of Seagulls, Frankie Goes to Hollywood) evolved out of the dance oriented Brit new wave XTC were part of circa 1979, and all made it dancier and more propulsive. Molly Hatchet were mentioned as a parenthetical aside in the post expressly to suggest that artsy British pop was hardly the funkiest white pop music around during the time XTC were doing their most rhythmic work. So yeah, again, they all had something to do with the subject at hand. Sorry if I didn't lead you by the hand explaining that step by step the first time.

That's weird, I heard the same thing (on Skylarking) (while stoned) (the first song is called "Grass!"). Skylarking still feels like a big terrific musical to me, not least because the songs clearly describe a life cycle. (I've always wondered about the notes crediting Rundgren with the "sequencing concept" or something of that sort; clearly it went from the lyrics up!) (This is also why the substitution of "Dear God" bothers me --- not just because "Mermaid Smiled" is way way better but because that it completely alters the mood of the life cycle to put a moment of religious crisis in there instead.)

Another interesting reference point: Partridge vs. Costello. (Up through "10,000 Umbrellas" vs. The Juliet Letters!)

In fact, you could almost say their sense was working overtime! (But I couldn't.) (I do think dleone's "not anal enough" comment was pretty funny, though. And no, I can't make that argument, either.)

cavalcade of x-posts

re: robyn

A thousand pardons on Summer's Cauldron, yo. And I certainly don't forget "Sacrificial Bonfire"; I just always get distracted by "Dying" first. Colin's songs have an especially Muppetty quality that's sometimes just wrong (by the Apple Venuses he was turning into the High Llamas in a really bad way) and sometimes sweet -- Bonfire's on the way-good side.

...And PLEASE, don't let's start that old "Bob Seger, funky or not?" farce again! There's no convincing anyone who hasn't heard his old stuff, it's a futile argument.

Oh yeah, wait, wasn't XTC's second album a dub record? I'd totally forgotten about that. Did they ever pick up on that, or did they just abandon it? I guess I think of them as getting way LESS fun over the years, just like the Police (whose first three albums hit me as even more fun than the first three XTCs, which it may surprise people to hear that I actually DO like regardless.) Anyway, their career progressions seem very similar to me. As they got older and more pretentious, they retreated from energy and rhythm and boucing around... Either way, why did both bands decide as they got older that their experimentation would involve melodies more than rhythm, and would have more in common with, say, Yes (or, I dunno, Gershwin or somebody -- you tell me) than with Lee Perry? Or is that only my imagination? And if not, am I the only person here bugged by it??

* Runs for cover *

* Adds disclaimer that he is not an XTC expert *

there are "vague jamaicanisms" spread throughout all their early work.

Don't make me start writing lists!!!

Is the first one? (Oddly, for a long time the main commercial new wave radio show in Detroit was called "Radios in Motion"!) I haven't listened to the first or second one for ages, and now I kinda want to (maybe even the fourth; I liked "Generals and Majors" okay.) Anyway, I could have sworn that one of those early records had a bunch of dub versions on it. But, though I'm sure Shakey will think I'm just being falsely modest and shticky again (hey, it's FUN shtick! and hardly my only one!!), maybe my memory's just wrong. It's been a while.

Scott, I think I frequently *equate* "whimsy" with "pretension." (I have really never been a huge whimsy fan, I have to admit.)

It did. You're thinking of this:

http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=UIDMISS70406171620380159&sql=A2ju67ub070jk

Yeah, I actually remember that album having fairly pretty melodies when it came out, but then I forgot about it. I should play it back to back with the first Stackridge album sometime and see what happens. (But first I have to track down a copy of Stackridge!) (Plus, obviously I don't think "pretentious" equals "bad" per se'. And I LIKE Yes and lots of prog rock. Maybe even more than Lee Perry, when you get down to it. But Yes had a better rhythm section and a better singer than XTC, I think.)