Senses Working Poll-vertime: The XTC Poll Nominations and Discussions thread

Is "Funk Pop a Roll" their lamest major period single?

Is it too late to tack on a worst tracks poll? It would be pretty interesting, even if it might be harder to reach consensus. Though it sounds like a lot of you hate Ballad of PP, so that would probably win, so screw y'all

yeah people have already turned in ballots I'm not gonna change the rules at this point

Is "Funk Pop a Roll" their lamest major period single?

Not a single.

I'm wondering how people feel about GO2?

I was waiting for this. It's an very good record that seems to be misunderstood by many. It's shares a certain frantic nature with White Music but it also was a bridge to the more poppier XTC that was evident in Drums and Wires, which follows it.

"OH WE GO dmm dmm dmmm dm!"

Not a single.

― Mark G,

Weird. It's included on Upsy Daisy Assortment.

It is perhaps their first compilation to be considered a Best of as it includes album tracks "Funk Pop a Roll", "Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her", "Earn Enough for Us" and "Chalkhills and Children" in addition to their better-known singles.

Not being smartie, went to the Wiki to see about this album, didn't know it.

Go 2 has "Battery Brides" which would be my #1 if I vote in this; I've just engaged so shallowly with the xtc oeuvre that I don't know if I will vote

the more the merrier sez I

IMO, a poll benefits from a broad range of engagements.

In the spirit of advocacy, I'd suggest everyone who hasn't done so check out the "Transistor Blast" boxed set, which frees a lot of the early material from the shackles of its production and releases Muh-Muh-Muh-MAGIC.

The brits who engage in the early stuff will balance the yanks that engage with the 'dear pumpkinhead' era

zero ballots received today get on it people

I'm listening.

I'm trying to put a ballot together, but finding it superfuckingdifficult!

afraid to vote coz I like Peter Pumpkinhead

peter pumpkinhead was too good

hooray for Peter Pumpkinhead

For what it's worth, I like 'The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead' a fair amount... unsure at this stage as to whether it'll appear in my ballot, though.

did Partridge ever write a more literal set of lyrics -- ick.

when i found out you'd been riding another man

PP was high on my ballot, questionable lyrics notwithstanding

I can't believe how evenly spread my votes are across the albums. I love these guys:
WM: 1
GO2: 1
D&W: 6
BS: 6
ES: 5
M: 1
BE: 1
S: 4
O&L: 6
N: 2
AV: 4
WS: 1
Other: 2

I feel sort of bad that most of what I've posted to this thread is about XTC songs I don't like when they makes up such a tiny proportion of the bands catalogue, I guess I'm saving my paeans for the results thread though? There really are very few XTC songs I dislike, there is a type of mid-tempo rockin' mode some of Partridge's songs on the later albums slip into which is probably my least favourite side of the group (Merely a Man, Peter Pumpkinhead, quite a few songs on Wasp Star etc)

though I first heard Merely a Man on Fuzzy Warbles and the Oranges and Lemons version was a pleasant surprise, I wonder if I'd like Wasp Star more if it had received the full The Seeds of Love style production overload

so does "No Language in Our Lungs" into a skank-y variant on The Beatles' "I Want You"?

Haha I admit I never noticed that before. The guitar tone and fingerpicking pattern are p similar. Different chord progression tho.

Re: "No Language in Our Lungs" from the Song Stories book:

"The guitars remind me of 'Rain'-period Beatles," says Andy, who now admits the similarity of the slow arpeggio guitar sound to the Beatles' "I Want You (She's So Heavy)." "I didn't realize it at the time, but is sounds just like it."

http://cdn4.pitchfork.com/albums/9997/homepage_large.fc58f240.jpg

I'm curious what other people think of Monstrance, especially people who listen to a lot of improvised music? I like it, but this is not a genre I'm that familiar with

Curious but was never able to hear it

how do you guys rate Partridge as guitarist vs Gregory? It's hard to distinguish their lines.

I always attributed the crunchiness I love so much on Black Sea to Gregory but I guess I have no basis for that

Gregory is missed a lot on Wasp Star - it sounds a lot thinner without him adding instruments, keyboards as well.

I cant distinguish their guitar playing with any certainty. Would have to look at some credits.

Partridge has a few solo credits on Nonsuch iirc

Gregory is definitely the technically superior guitarist of the two... a lot of the flashier solos and stuff are his, stuff like the solo in 'Real by Reel', 'That's Really Super, Supergirl', 'Pink Thing', 'That Wave', his parts of the 'Books Are Burning' outro etc. His guitar playing is more studied. Partridge comes at playing the guitar from a much less studied angle, but an angle that's led him to blunder upon weird chord inversions and odd tunings that have people attempting to transcribe their songs scratching their heads. Don't get me wrong, though, he can turn out a lead guitar solo when he wants to, as his parts of 'Books Are Burning' and 'Easter Theatre' show. There's a video on Youtube of Partridge talking about his playing as well, and demonstrating a few licks.

Which one plays the wonderful ascending skronky sweep on the chorus of burning with optimism's flame?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-ips-W3p7I

Partridge has said that, back when they were touring, he enjoyed playing Colin's songs because he could play more creative things when he wasn't worried about singing lead too.

This poll has made me realize I have no love whatsoever for The Big Express, and I'm not too high on Mummer either (aside from Procession Towards Learning Land, which I love for some inexplicable reason). Someone above was saying the mid-tempo rockers from XTC are their least favorite-personally I adore the Earn Enough for Us-types, and I think that's my problem with those records.

Also, it's tough to listen to the original Making Plans For Nigel after hearing the Transistor Blast version.

A friend of mine used to assist in their demo studio in Swindon, back in the day.

When the original original version of "Nigel" was issued (it's on "Coat of Many Colours"), I rang him up and said "Hey you can tell people "Hey, you hear that version of that? I rewound that!" "

(he laughed and said that that was about right)

xpost "Procession" wasn't even on the original album!

sorry if I missed this, but is Fuzzy Warbles stuff eligible for this?

yes

2 more ballots in over the weekend

Sent, stopped myself at 40, still nearly had an embolism doing it tho'

how do you guys rate Partridge as guitarist vs Gregory? It's hard to distinguish their lines.

Disagree. I think Partidge is a good guitarist, but only in frame of "for a guy who really isn't a lead guitarist". He's like John Lennon with more chops, but still doesn't play like a lead guitarist to my ears (despite that he does play lead lines, esp on later XTC songs). Gregory on the other hand is much more fluid with lead lines and solos -- he's coming from a more technical place, as I recall is huge John McLaughlin fan, etc. Not to mention, Gregory is a lot more informed about music theory, notation -- he plays a lot more "learned" than Partridge.

will send in ballot today!

You know more about the band than I, so this is clarifying. My assumption with singers is their instrumental skills are limited, at least at the beginning.

yeah, I don't know if I would classify it like that exactly -- but I would say one generalization could be that "composers" aren't usually also instrumental (or vocal) virtuosos. As I view it, you can't spend all your time and talent on both creating the entire vision for a song, and also being the best soloist for it. There are exceptions of course, but it seems like it usually skews to one or the other. An example is one of Partidge's heroes, Charlie Parker. He obviously wrote lots of tunes, but imo is primarily known as a genius for his playing, and the way it influenced countless jazz musicians afterwards.

I had assumed that difference as well/read about it I'm sure - but when I listened to Fuzzy Warbles I was kind of struck by how much some of those guitar parts were already fully formed on the demos. But maybe Gregory was playing them there as well, I dunno. Gregory does, in all other respects, appear to have functioned as the stylist/arranger/crafstman of the band in contrast to the two songwriters

Well, it's not out of the question Partridge (or Moulding) would come up with melody lines for Gregory to play -- I'm thinking more along the lines of improvised solos (or at least solos where Gregory was given space to fill, and he came up with whatever ended up on the record). For example, to me it's fairly easy to hear the differences in their playing at the end of "Books Are Burning". Andy tries his hand at a couple of choruses, but Gregory takes the song out during the fade, and it's clear to me which of these guys is a lead guitarist -- who likely spends hours just playing over old records, or practicing scales/licks/solos -- and who is the guy who wrote the song and fancies taking a solo every once and a while. And full disclosure, Partridge's rather dismissive attitude about letting Gregory go has always bugged me, as if even he didn't appreciate what DG brought to XTC.

(All this got me thinking about actual guitar virtuosos who also happen to be really good songwriters/composers, and I thought about Brian May, Eddie Van Halen. Even someone like Jimi Hendrix, I think will go down with more influence as a player than a songwriter. Conversely, I think Frank Zappa will go down more as a composer, though he certainly liked playing solos. haha thank goodness for ILM music nerdery!)