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

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".

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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.)

Well, it seems to me that, on Synchronicity and Ghost in the Machine, Sting was really doing the former at least as much as the latter. But of course there's no way to know anybody's intentions.

there's a whole cult thing
built around partridge bad luck,
battles with stage fright--

I just like the songs,
some are funny some are not,
too many lyrics

You're related to Emperor Joseph, aren't you.

I think they could sound sorta fat. There is some stuff I remember from Mummer that is kinda big and fat.