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

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

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

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 (nineteen 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 (nineteen 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 (nineteen 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 (nineteen 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 (nineteen 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 (nineteen 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 (nineteen years ago) link

WAS one of them...

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

anthony, there is a great FOS best-of.

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

why bless my lil stars,
I'm just shocked as shocked can be!
mike score, ant, and bob!

― Begs2Differ (Begs2Differ), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 00:59 (nineteen years ago) link

Hey so Chuck: the difference between XTC's latter-day wide-eyed baroque-pop experiments and the wide-eyed baroque-pop experiments of yr average present-day indie band is that yr average present-day "we love Pet Sounds" "collective" is either totally faking it or at least getting a little bit of dress-up mileage out of the fact that they think they're doing something unusual; these are groups that load on the toy-instrument arrangements and make big arm-waving gestures at all their highly-composed key changes and and essentially make a big production out of it all. Whereas XTC, even when they genuinely are making a big theatrical dress-up production of it all ("Ballet for a Rainy Day" sounds like someone asked Patridge to score a puppet show or children's animation), never have that quality; better yet, all of their "sophisticated" songwriting and arrangement is genuine honest-to-God good songwriting and arrangement, not just an exercise in capturing the mood and trappings of lush/complex pop. Just as an example: you'd have a hard time picking any band out of the circle you just drew that actually does songs as through-composed as a lot of the latter-day XTC stuff -- at best you'll find people just cramming a whole bunch of different parts into one song and cheekily calling it a "symphony." More importantly, you probably won't find any who do things that actually read as straight-ahead pop songs but are as subtly weird as a lot of the XTC stuff is (see, once again, that first song on the first Apple Venus, which sounds like any old pop song but when it comes down to it has an almost Meridith-Monky element in the organization). The only baroque-indie-psych band I've ever heard to come anywhere close to the feel of something like Skylarking is maybe the Ladybug Transistor on The Albemarle Sound, and that's still a good way off.

Listen = A+

― nabiscothingy, Tuesday, 29 June 2004 01:00 (nineteen years ago) link

I first bought Listen as a total joke in high school and wound up repeatedly spinning "Wishing." While crying.

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 01:01 (nineteen years ago) link

I believe there's a thread where I note I would like to live inside the big keyboard overdub finale.

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 01:01 (nineteen years ago) link

...with a girl.

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 01:02 (nineteen years ago) link

/dork from heaters>

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 01:03 (nineteen years ago) link

see, I was gonna say what Nabisco said but i didn't cuz I don't like to show off. Oh wait, its really just cuz I'm a little slow. But I did say something similar when I said that all those bands that Chuck mentioned were nowhere near as GOOD at it as XTC. And I was almost gonna write, but I didn't, that all those Elephant 6 bands and the like SHOULD have been studying XTC records instead of Pet Sounds cuz they might have learned something that they could actually use.

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 01:06 (nineteen years ago) link

Actually I'd add to that whole thing that the "we love Pet sounds" indiedom stuff tends to shoot for childlike or even childish vibes, or even occasionally makes a big show of being saccharine, whereas XTC combined the lavish-musicianship with sounds and themes that were both pretty often very adult. The whole life-cycle conceit of Skylarking has a lot of the beginning sporting that cheeky child-wonder/nostalgia thing, but by the back end it's gone somber and serious and adult ("Dying," for God's sake people, "Dying"), and apart from the Dukes material that really did seem to be their dominant mood.

― nabiscothingy, Tuesday, 29 June 2004 01:23 (nineteen years ago) link

Anyway, even their cheeky shit seems serious -- even "Sgt. Rock" sounds to me like a song for a 50-year-old man to sing.

― nabiscothingy, Tuesday, 29 June 2004 01:24 (nineteen years ago) link

They just had more depth. A lot of those indie-kids were trying to make Pet Sounds right out of the gate and that's not a really good idea. (Then again I can't stand The Soft Bulletin so sometimes the with-age-brings-experience theory doesn't really fly either.)

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 01:26 (nineteen years ago) link

(and Robert Pollard never seemed that deep to me either. As far as music-making goes. So, maybe it's less depth and more talent.)

Moderator-don't let GBV and F.L. fans see these posts.

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 01:28 (nineteen years ago) link

XTC never really did concept albums. Skylarking is the obvious exception, and Oranges and Lemons is clearly a baby boy's introduction to the world, but ultimately each album's just a mash of songs.

― The Ghost at Number Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 01:42 (nineteen years ago) link

To sum up thread: They are good.

― Sansai, Tuesday, 29 June 2004 03:15 (nineteen years ago) link

Teh best evar, in fact.

― The Ghost at Number Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 05:11 (nineteen years ago) link

yeah what Nabisco said, took the words right of my mouth (it must have been while you were kissing me).

My favourite XTC moment is the first 4 songs from English Settlement. You'd be hard pressed to find an album which starts off with 4 better and more appropriately programmed songs.

― mentalist (mentalist), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 05:24 (nineteen years ago) link

Terry Chambers's departure perhaps had a subconscious (?) origin in the band's near co-option by the early 80s Steve Lillywhite sound.

Although he recorded "Drums and Wires" perfectly nicely, you can hear Lillywhite's increasingly bad sonic habits (cf. "War", "Steeltown") coming to the fore on "Black Sea".

Although "English Settlement" documents the band's recovery from drums-far-too-loud syndrome, full recuperation (or abreaction) resulted in the genius Chambers losing his essential place within the XTC gestalt.

Which is a bit less gestalty than it used to be. Obviously.

― Neil Willett (Neil Willett), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 05:59 (nineteen years ago) link

This thread could serve as a band obituary.

― The Ghost at Number Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 06:09 (nineteen years ago) link

seven months pass...

Heard Peter Gabriel's "Games Without Frontiers" on the radio today AND IT SOUNDS EXACTLY LIKE XTC.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Saturday, 5 February 2005 04:10 (nineteen years ago) link

Oh Pshaw!

― Bimble... (Bimble...), Saturday, 5 February 2005 04:50 (nineteen years ago) link

I get the feeling that if I read this thread it its entirety (or at least since my one paltry post) that it's going to make me very mad indeed, so I am not going to.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 5 February 2005 05:40 (nineteen years ago) link

Hahaha I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, really.

― Bimble... (Bimble...), Saturday, 5 February 2005 05:57 (nineteen years ago) link

"XTC non-fans watch sports.

XTC fans go shopping!

*lift hands in confusion*

Guys! What's up with THAT?"

= summary of this thread.

― donut christ (donut), Saturday, 5 February 2005 08:19 (nineteen years ago) link

I once loved them; I still think "Drums and Wires" is pretty great, and I still love "Jason and the Argonauts." At the time, seemed like a good way out of prog-rock with their use of watered-down Captain Beefheart guitar moves, and Terry Chambers was a great drummer. But now, when I think about it (not often) it all seems like that typical prog-rock progression, from stuff that was complex, just complex and "heightened" enough (considering their sources, just like you'd say Yes derives from the Byrds) to stuff that was all dependent on overstatement, just like Yes on "Close to the Edge" and "Topographic Oceans." Just that XTC were "new wave" therefore "more grounded in reality and cool music like the Magic Band" than Yes. I find "Mummer" and "Big Express" quite annoying records; I like "Skylarking" but never listen to it. The "Wasp Star" records aren't bad. But viewed as pure how-they-play, they were pretty great, it's just for me that generally ain't enough no more.

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Saturday, 5 February 2005 22:29 (nineteen years ago) link

one year passes...

I've had drums and wires for a while and liked it okay. Then today I bought Skylarking on vinyl and was struck repeatedly on its inaugural spin that it could possibly be the most beautiful album I've ever heard. I want to play it again, but have to wait until tomorrow, and I fear it won't live up to the HYPE I've decided it deserves. I'm particularly digging the very subtly wrought tempo shifts and theme changes, which are often an about-face mid-song, yet don't necessarily disturb the flow or the mood of the song. Even the album as a whole seems to maintain some coherent mood (which I somehow associate with a cold summer day after rain) despite the restless invention that occurs. I can hear the beach boys, but it's as though they've been bottled and left to mature. To pursue that metaphor: I can't wait to pour shiraz in my ear tomorrow.

Anyways, it was one of those rare first listens that vindicates the time and money that is put towards finding and buying dozens (hundreds?) of lesser musiks in the hopes that there is something like this somewhere out there. Any suggestions as to where to turn next? I suppose more 80's xtc would be a good place to start, but other bands/albums?

Merci.

― thrwice (The Giant Mechanical Ant), Wednesday, 17 May 2006 03:51 (eighteen years ago) link

ten months pass...

Results 1 - 10 of about 23,100 for Mummer pastoral. (0.21 seconds)

I've been relistening to [i] Mummer[i] lately. It's the first XTC album I actively anticipated at the time, after falling in love with [i]EnglishSettlement, and I still love it, but why "pastoral?" Yeah, there's the rural setting of "Farmboy's Wages" and a few more acoustic guitars here and there, and "Wonderland" is a more conventionally pretty song than they've written previously, but are "Great Fire" or "Deliver Us From The Elements" really that different-sounding than anything on the previous two records?

Did the "pastoral" descriptor originate with some record company press release and get taken as gospel by writers 'round the world? Trouser Press Record Guide even says "music for picnics" -- which I find ludicrous applied to "Human Alchemy."

― Dan Peterson, Monday, 26 March 2007 15:10 (seventeen years ago) link

oo great fire--must listen to that right now

― cutty, Monday, 26 March 2007 15:14 (seventeen years ago) link

_Mummer_ was my least favorite album before _Wasp Star_ (which I feel is half-baked, "I'm The Man Who Murdered Love_ is particularly dire). But the demos found on the Fuzzy Warbles series, particularly of the two aforementioned "Great Fire" and "Human Alchemy" are revelatory. Too much production sheen has consistently been a problem for the lads since _Mummer_ and the demos are more fun to listen to.

― Mr. Odd, Monday, 26 March 2007 15:18 (seventeen years ago) link

they are my favorite band that is not al green or prince

― strongohulkington, Monday, 26 March 2007 15:20 (seventeen years ago) link

I guess that's another question: does "too much production sheen" not negate "pastoral?" Mummer wasn't exactly recorded in a barn direct to 2-track.

― Dan Peterson, Monday, 26 March 2007 15:21 (seventeen years ago) link

I would like to hear XTC covering Whitesnake's rock anthem "Here I Go Again."

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 26 March 2007 15:24 (seventeen years ago) link

3.2/10

― strongohulkington, Monday, 26 March 2007 15:26 (seventeen years ago) link

I wouldn't mark Coverdale's piteous pharynx quite that highly.

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 26 March 2007 15:30 (seventeen years ago) link

dull.

― strongohulkington, Monday, 26 March 2007 15:32 (seventeen years ago) link

null.

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 26 March 2007 15:33 (seventeen years ago) link

Since this thread is resurrected, there was a few comments circa 2004 about XTC being prog, which was pretty much dismissed, at least until the later albums.

I first heard them doing the 3D ep (pre first album) tracks on a kids TV show called Magpie right at the start and immediately thought of the non-intrumental tracks from the mid 70s King Crimson albums, compare the flurry of falling over themseleves notes in Dance Band with Crimosn's 'Great Deciever' as an example. Though they toned this down a wee bit with the Beatlesish pop of White Music, it was back by Go2 and Drums and Wires did even better by seamlessly adding it to the beatles ish pop. By which time King Crimson had reformed and were also adding that herky jerky sound to their 80s recordings. (to quote Craw above)

Incidentally on that Magpie slot, Barry Andrews had 'All human life is here' spray painted on his keyboards, but I thought for some reason he had written 'All human life is hole' and wrote that on the back of my jacket.

― Sandy Blair, Monday, 26 March 2007 15:45 (seventeen 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.