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

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (313 of them)

View Previous Page...

Damn, man. It's not like we're talking about Marshall Crenshaw. Did Fuzzy Warbles make you that bitter?

Dude, where do you think they recorded Apple Venus? ;)

― dleone (dleone), Monday, 28 June 2004 22:09 (twenty years ago) link

"Blatant homages" =/ "sound much like the Kinks"

― chuck, Monday, 28 June 2004 22:10 (twenty years ago) link

I'm just sayin. I know how much you like to argue semantics.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 28 June 2004 22:11 (twenty years ago) link

"Respectable Street" is super-Kinks

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 28 June 2004 22:21 (twenty years ago) link

Chuck, here's your chance to list a bunch of bands you can insist "sound like" the Kinks. I'll get you started by suggesting Grand Funk Railroad, Kix, Big 'n' Rich, the Television Personalities, and Guns n Roses....

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 28 June 2004 22:23 (twenty years ago) link

"respectable street" doesn't touch the kinks. though it shows a clear influence in the lyrical ideas and in the oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo backing vocal part. which is to say it sounds like a record made by a band that admired the kinks, nothing more, nothing less. i like "respectable street" quite a bit. i like the kinks quite a bit more.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Monday, 28 June 2004 22:25 (twenty years ago) link

With regard to Marshall Crenshaw, I would say that I like "Some Day, Some Way" more than any XTC song that I have heard to date.

* still remaining open-minded! *

― Tim Ellison, Monday, 28 June 2004 22:30 (twenty years ago) link

I don't hear it (though I can see why somebody would say that about its song title) (though in my head it sounds more like the Jam, for some reason!) Is it supposed to sound like "Well Respected Man"?

xpost

The Kingsmen sounded like the Kinks sometimes. So did Slade. Even AC/DC. But I don't think anybody sounds like them very often. I think they're an easy crutch used by people who want to describe so-called "pop" bands who sound "British" and "vaguely '60s" and, um, "ornate." (So are the Beatles.) I've never heard an XTC song as pretty as "Waterloo Sunset." (I guess part of it is, it seems bizarre to me to act like the Kinks or Beatles sounded just ONE way.)

― chuck, Monday, 28 June 2004 22:32 (twenty years ago) link

> not to mention Americans ranging from, say, Pavement to Flaming Lips to Polyphonic Fucking Spree. It's been the standard indie way of
doing things for ages<

Actually, Guided By Voices and Elephant 6 bands might be even better examples. {And honestly, I don't believe any of this music (including
XTC) really sounds much like the Kinks --who I often love -- at all.}

-- chuck (cedd...), June 28th, 2004.

Yeah, but a lot of these bands weren't very good at it. I think XTC were pretty good at it. That's the difference for me.

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 28 June 2004 22:33 (twenty years ago) link

There are lots of XTC songs that would sound a lot like Kinks songs if Ray Davies sang them! hahahaha! But it's true kinda.

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 28 June 2004 22:37 (twenty years ago) link

>it sounds like a record made by a band that admired the kinks, nothing more, nothing less. i like "respectable street" quite a bit. i like the kinks quite a bit more. <

xtc:kinks::whitesnake:led zeppelin, maybe

― chuck, Monday, 28 June 2004 22:41 (twenty years ago) link

None of these auxiliary artists come anywhere near the consistency of Partridge's output. Can anyone think of a bad Partridge song? I can't, but I'm trying.

― (I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and) Whittle Away My Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 28 June 2004 22:45 (twenty years ago) link

Oh god Partridge has let off some fart bombs. "All You Pretty Girls"?

I just realized that REM is totally XTC now in that no-drummer-lets-get-crazy-with-the-Sgt.-Pepper-bullshit way.

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 28 June 2004 22:46 (twenty years ago) link

Are Modest Mouse big XTC fans? Don't ask me why I thought of that. Although their singer did sport Partridge's Amish farmer look for a while.

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 28 June 2004 22:47 (twenty years ago) link

plus hairlines and all

(x-post!)

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 28 June 2004 22:47 (twenty years ago) link

(though in my head it sounds more like the Jam, for some reason!)

well, they were two late '70s, early '80s bands who were very enamored of the kinks and wished they could be just like them. so it makes total sense that those two bands would end up having more in common with each other than either one had with the kinks.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Monday, 28 June 2004 22:48 (twenty years ago) link

And at least Slade and (Bon era) AC/DC (and possibly the Jam, early on, though I never listen to them) kept plenty of the Kinks' hard rock in their music hall, which is more than you can say about just about any of the '80s/'90s art-pop bands who allegedly do the Kinks thing.

xpost

― chuck, Monday, 28 June 2004 22:50 (twenty years ago) link

I would love to hear ray davies sing some jam songs like "english rose" or "thick as thieves". don't ask me why.

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 28 June 2004 22:55 (twenty years ago) link

Dude, REM's current drummer is the hardest rocking drummer they have ever had. He wasn't in the band yet when they recorded the last album.

― Tim Ellison, Monday, 28 June 2004 22:55 (twenty years ago) link

That was a ton of X-posts to Anthony, obv.

― Tim Ellison, Monday, 28 June 2004 22:57 (twenty years ago) link

(x-post)

i like the jam quite a bit, but paul weller couldn't hold a candle to ray davies as a lyricist. paul weller was one of the clunkiest lyricists britain ever produced as far as i can tell. he sort of got away with it because the lyrics sort of matched his clunky cockney singing voice, but i think they might sound truly awful coming out of the mouth of a good singer like ray davies.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Monday, 28 June 2004 22:59 (twenty years ago) link

I actually kinda hated the Jam back in new wave days, to be honest. There were hundreds of journeymen new wave rock bands way more catchy in 1978 or 1979 (and Weller wasn't half the singer Noddy Holder or Bon Scott was, obviously, and their rock wasn't as hard and their Brit wasn't as music hall.) So if they were as half-assed as you say, that's a relief, really. I've just been giving them the benefit of the doubt today for, um, singing about tube stations or whatever.

― chuck, Monday, 28 June 2004 23:10 (twenty years ago) link

I like The Jam! I like their songs! Yeah, the lyrics were clunky. But I'm a Crass fan, so.......

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 28 June 2004 23:15 (twenty years ago) link

best jam song of all time: "start," which is the one where they ripped off "taxman" pretty much note for note. in other words, the one where they went beyond pretend flattery to actual flattery. "tube station" was more of a pretend flattery kind of thing, though its heart was in the right place.

(and i repeat: i actually like the jam.)

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Monday, 28 June 2004 23:18 (twenty years ago) link

I just put on "In the City" and I'm surprised to hear how much he had the early Townshend guitar sound down. He had the Rickenbacher and Vox amp, obv, but he played the style well (well-er than some?), too--rhythm and lead.

― Tim Ellison, Monday, 28 June 2004 23:25 (twenty years ago) link

He was a good singer, too!

― Tim Ellison, Monday, 28 June 2004 23:27 (twenty years ago) link

I could just never figure out how come the bomb was "in" waldour street instead of "on" it. (plus, sham 69 seemed a lot more fun.)

― chuck, Monday, 28 June 2004 23:35 (twenty years ago) link

I like their kinks cover too.

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 28 June 2004 23:37 (twenty years ago) link

Oddly, though, I remember having a small soft spot at the time (c. 1982) for the otherwise probably terrible "Town Called Malice," probably for its Supremes "You Can't Hurry Love" bassline (that the Smiths stole a couple years later in "This Charming Man" I think.)

― chuck, Monday, 28 June 2004 23:38 (twenty years ago) link

For me, The Jam was a childhood fave. So my opinions on their music is colored by that.

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 28 June 2004 23:38 (twenty years ago) link

The canned phil collins horns that Weller took with him to the style council could be hard on the ears. (on the later jam stuff)

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 28 June 2004 23:39 (twenty years ago) link

i got the Jam dvd and I was highly entertained by all the videos that i could never see cuz i lived in america. There are a lot of brit ILMers who hate the Jam. I'm wondering if this is partly cuz they were so popular in the U.K. and they got sick of wellermania.

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 28 June 2004 23:41 (twenty years ago) link

"Town Called Malice" is fab-yoo-lous.

― Tim Ellison, Monday, 28 June 2004 23:44 (twenty years ago) link

Chuck is correct, I think, to say that post-XTC Brit indie bands seemed to go for the pop at the expense of good rhythm, but XTC has something that many of these bands do not: incredible rhythmic integrity. How could you overlook that about them? The drum tracks on English Settlement (for instance, and since it began the thread) are unorthodox, driving, multilayered, very syncopated at times, and fun (yes even fun to dance to!). Partridge *always* plays with a keen feel for rhythm, even when the melodies are so up-front as to make rhythm easy to overlook. That's the thing: XTC are *so* melodic that people tend to overlook or ignore their amazing sense of rhythm. Maybe it's because even their rhythms are played melodically, if that makes any sense -- that is to say, their rhythms seemed as thorough-composed and well-thought-out as their melodies. That makes them unfunky I suppose, but it sure as hell doesn't mean they don't have rhythmic vitality.

― Clarke B. (Clarke B.), Monday, 28 June 2004 23:56 (twenty years ago) link

(I guess part of it is, it seems bizarre to me to act like the Kinks or Beatles sounded just ONE way.)

I think this same statement applies completely and thoroughly to XTC, too, and is one reason for their appeal.

― Clarke B. (Clarke B.), Monday, 28 June 2004 23:59 (twenty years ago) link

Clarke B otm about XTC's sense of rhythm. I think Partridge was probably a drummer in another life (actually, I heard him play drums on the album he produced for Martin Newell, and he wasn't so unfunky!). Furthermore, Moulding is about as solid, in the pocket bassist as you'll find.

― dleone (dleone), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 00:20 (twenty years ago) link

Thanks, D.

Less funky than ABC or Dead or Alive or A Flock of Seagulls or Frankie Goes to Hollywood or any of those guys, obviously.

XTC's is a different, more organic, more submerged, subverted funk -- the groups you mention use driving drum-machine four-to-the-floor rhythms, which yeah obviously are "danceable," but does that automatically make them funky? XTC make you feel the offbeats; how is that not funk?

― Clarke B. (Clarke B.), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 00:35 (twenty years ago) link

I would think "Statue Of Liberty" is funkier than anything by those groups.

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 00:37 (twenty years ago) link

two of whom have made albums I prefer to any XTC full-length

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 00:37 (twenty years ago) link

scratch that, no flock of seagulls album beats Black Sea (though a hits comp would)

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 00:38 (twenty years ago) link

and scratch that again, ABC could get their little sashay funk on

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 00:41 (twenty years ago) link

Ah, I was just about to ask if the first Flock of Seagulls album one of them.

― Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 29 June 2004 00:41 (twenty years ago) link

WAS one of them...

― Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 29 June 2004 00:41 (twenty years ago) link

oh man if the best half of each of the first two FoS albums were put together I'd demand everybody stop talking about XTC this very second.

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 00:42 (twenty years ago) link

and we would all stop
and then sneak round the corner
and all laugh at YOU

― Begs2Differ (Begs2Differ), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 00:53 (twenty years ago) link

anthony, there is a great FOS best-of.

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 00:55 (twenty years ago) link

which I'd totally buy if I didn't already own the first three LPs.

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 00:56 (twenty years ago) link

Who would be with Anthony on his side of the street?

A Flock of Seagulls: A-
Listen: B+

Black Sea: B+
English Settlement: B+
Mummer: B-

Why, it's Robert Christgau!

― Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 29 June 2004 00:57 (twenty years ago) link

switch the grades for A Flock Of Seagulls and Black Sea for me though.

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 00:58 (twenty years ago) link

however, the A Flock Of Seagulls/Listen amalgam would get a solid A.

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 00:59 (twenty years ago) link

Skipping 213 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.