XTC : Classic or Dud.

here comes presdient kiiilll agaaaiiinnn

"Wow!" @ English Settlement! Is it all this good?

drums and wires or skylarking next

this just in: Go 2 is excellent, AS excellent as White Music is underwhelming

please understand I've known about and loved the albums from D&W onwards for over 15 years now so this is a pretty momentous step

Welcome to enlightenment! "White Music" isn't so much underwhelming as an awkward coming-out album. But it still has it's moments.

all of White Music's good moments are also on The Compact XTC, whereas Go 2 is this strange and wondrous creation I'd not been aware of - it's a HUGE leap forwards

I concur, and "Compact XTC" has stuff like "Wait Til Your Boat Goes Down" that (I think) is unavailable elsewhere. But, yeah, "Go 2" is overlooked and wicked fun!

fave tracks, predictably, are Battery Brides, Beatown, Life Is Good In The Greenhouse and I Am the Audience - basically all the longer, stranger, more dementedly atonal ones

but it's all awesome (apart from "My Weapon" for fuck's sake - take that one off and the album's gonna be perceived in an ENTIRELY different light by EVERYONE)

Go 2 has always been my least favourite XTC album by a long way, I actually sold it earlier this year (along with Mummer and Wasp Star) but I'm thinking I might have to give it another chance. I really like White Music, Radios in Motion is one of my favourite opening tracks ever.

I've been listening to them a lot recently. I'd rate Skylarking as the best closely followed by Drums & Wires.

As is well-documented, I wouldn't rate Skylarking THAT highly - it's slick and flows well but even allowing for taste I think English Settlement is such an astounding monolith of brilliance that I can't imagine a persuasive argument for Skylarking.

This said, Ballet For A Rainy Day -> 10,000 Umbrellas is flat-out genius and easily the highlight of the album. Am also extremely partial to Another Satellite.

Have made an XTC Spotify playlist with the available tracks, avoiding the big singles: http://open.spotify.com/user/louisjagger/playlist/1pQrOPOIMkNQP6B7isLQHt

no wait FUCK that, Senses Working Overtime is a cornerstone of my musical imagination

thinking of songs that were unlucky to miss out on that playlist and they're all on English Settlement pretty much

"My Weapon" is fun Fun FUN! I forget what Barry says about it in the "Song Stories" book, maybe that it's about what you think it's about but entirely tongue-in-cheek.

hey - I'm giving Super-Tuff a break (it's not bad!) which is more than most people are willing to give

"My Weapon" is just a not-very-good song tbh, questionable lyrics aside

Beatown invents Cardiacs, however, and is consequently AWESOME - in fact the three longest tracks on the album are all superlative

English Settlement has some great moments but it could do with a bit of trimming, Knuckle down is probably my favourite song on there.

I listened to The Big Express recently, that has to be their most frustrating album as it has some songs I absolutely love like I Bought myself a Liarbird, Seagull Screaming kiss Her Kiss Her and You're the Wish You Are I Had then some really awful songs like Shake you Donkey up and Reign of Blows. I wish I could I could go back in time and beg them to put out Everyday Story of a Small Town as the first single instead of All You Pretty Girls, which is another one I really hate.

Would never give up Senses Working Overtime because

but to me it's very – very – beautiful

I think that line alone put four years of life back into me.

the whole song is absolutely burned onto my mind like few things

you will be pleased to hear I gave Mummer a bit of a listen-through and was completely freaking bowled over by Ladybird in an "oh my!! how have I not heard this" sort of a way

Also I can think of hardly any songs with more British-to-American lost in translations, which is great. Neither of these American things is shaped like the world:

biscuit
http://iwilcope.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/red-lobster-biscuits.jpg

foobaw
http://www.ncsucrusade.com/images/football.jpg

xp

My Mummer top 5:

1. <3 on a Farmboy's Wages (all time cosmic <3, one of the best XTC songs)
2. Deliver Us From the Elements
3. Me & the Wind
4. Human Alchemy
5. Wonderland

will give the whole album a full listen upon waking - never has there been a better time to rediscover XTC

No fucking kidding.

man an ordered XTC POX would be so very hard

Complicated Game <- this song has never not blown my mind
Senses Working Overtime <- already eulogised
No Language In Our Lungs <- there is no language in our DUH-NUH-NUH-NUH DUH-NUH-NUH WHOOOHAAAAAAA AAAAAAA AAAAAAAH
Travels In Nihilon <- the older I get, the more fucking astonished I am that XTC created something like this
English Roundabout <- Colin writes prettiest song ever, first half of one of the GREAT closing 1-2s
Wrapped In Grey <- AWAKEN YOOOOOOOOU DREAMERRRRRRRS
The Wheel And The Maypole <- this is how you go out in style, kids - STELLAR PROG SUITE ABOUT DEATH AND REGENERATION, MARRIAGE/LIFE METAPHOR, GENIUS ETC
That Wave <- All! I! Fell! In! To! Was! Looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooove!
Greenman <- if this had been written by ANYONE else it would be TRYING WAY TOO HARD. as it is, it's plain fucking heroic.

literally torn between about 9 songs (No Thugs In Our House, Battery Brides, Ladybird, Church Of Women, The Smartest Monkeys (really), Ballet For A Rainy Day, I Can't Own Her, River Of Orchids, Jason And The Argonauts) for tenth place - gonna make it a Pick 9 Only and proffer that ^ as a second 9. ok fine it's a Pick 18 Only. and I left off Snowman. damn I need to tighten this shit up

btw in 1 month I will have changed my mind probably

ok I also forgot Humble Daisy which I was meaning to include, fuck doing this

also there are 2 XTC POX threads, both of which I only found in a search for 'complicated game'

maybe bedtime?

Someday I have to give Nonsuch another chance. I find it to be too slick and dainty. Coming from me, this is really saying something. I think "Big Express" was their best tho, so lord knows I love my lonely XTC 'challops.'

Hey...while I'm thinking about it, as a U.S. type person, I am not up on much but the broadest strokes of Britishes history. Would anyone care to help explain the line in "Towers of London" about "a bridge that doesn't go in the direction of Dublin"?

big express is *way* underrated. one of the best produced albums I own, and some of those tunes (wake up, liarbird, you're the wish you are) are imo among the best xtc did. and what the heck about I remember the sun?

as far as a POX, I could go the easy route and just pick the time honored faves: no language in our lungs, farmboy's wages, liarbird, ballet for a rainy day, 1000 umbrellas, season cycle, humble daisy, snowman, harvest festival, wake up...but I should revist the entire catalog sometime soon. I think I've gone longer than I ever have since finding xtc w/out a major listening phase.

related aside: dinner party tonight where host is apparently good friend of prairie prince. will do all I can to pick his brain about recording skylarking and apple venus should I ever happen into the chance!

Ab:

The navvies that 'pound' were usually irish, and would often sing of their homeland in songs while working on the bridge. Often the songs would be about returning home to Ireland/Dublin, "over the seaaa"

So, it kinda conflates that.

Shaun Keaveny played "Are You Receiving Me?" on his 6music breakfast show yesterday morning & I've *still* got it rattling round my brain. It was a great moment to start the day with, and I've never really rated that number (or Shaun Keaveny) before.

Louis better watch out that gangsta andy partridge and tha easside swindon krew dont pop a cap in his cracka ass.

Second the love for Big Express and especially Mummer *and and* especially Ladybird

Go 2 is this strange and wondrous creation I'd not been aware of - it's a HUGE leap forwards.

Absolutely. I took a very circuitous route to XTC fandom: the first one I owned was Drums & Wires, which I liked but didn't love at the time and thus didn't pick up Black Sea. First one I loved was English Settlement, whereupon I went back and bought the rest. Was blown away by Black Sea, reappreciated Drums & Wires, and then discovered Go 2 as a "strange and wondrous creation" (which presages a lot of what happens on D&W.)

Listening chronologically they were progressing by leaps and bounds on those first five records.

hahahaha yeah every record is an amazing forward-leap into the barely-known (although I'd argue Drums & Wires, while great, is SLIGHTLY overrated in comparison to the others - it has classics like MPFN, Helicopter, Reel By Reel, Scissor Man and the almighty Complicated Game, but it also has WAY more filler than the albums around it IMO)

Always liked "Roads Girdle the Globe" a lot. Is that "Drums and Wires"?

yeah that one's good too. HAIL MOTHER MOTOR HAIL PISTON ROTOR HAIL WHEEL

it's like a slightly rickety predecessor to the plain-fucking-incredible No Language In Our Lungs

I prefer the silliness of "Roads", "Language" is slightly wanky, dare I say it

TBF haven't listened to XTC in yonks

still dumbfounded at prior post

I wish I could I could go back in time and beg them to put out Everyday Story of a Small Town as the first single instead of All You Pretty Girls, which is another one I really hate.

― Kitchen Person, Thursday, 12 August 2010 04:03 (10 hours ago) Bookmark

man i heard that for the first time recently and played it like five times

also lj i have spent a crapload of time listening to xtc since you put that playlist on the other thread

althooooooooooough! i feel like none of the album-listening options really get into what i want to get out of xtc, except maybe skylarking, which i kind of killed by listening to it ~8,000 times in my late teens

i mean what i like about them is about them as songwriters and as studio experimenters in search of sounds which make those songs work -- whenever i listen to a whole album their sounds sort of register more as sets of textures created for the sake of an album's particular, er, aesthetic

not that that's a bad thing, obviously

have you noticed that playlist doubling in size over the past day or so? I've been busy :D

would argue English Settlement delivers whole-album joy and Nonsuch, for me at least, never drops below 'good'.

your point is interesting though - I don't THINK that on their very best work they homogenise their sound around 'variations on a theme', but it's a criticism that can be fairly aimed at, say, Oranges And Lemons or White Music

Skylarking is one of their more homogenous albums*, but it gets away with it on the strength of the songwriting

*great curveball that is Another Satellite notwithstanding

Should listen to some XTC again. (All my albums are in my mum's house)

I don't think I've heard "English Settlement" in about 20 years!

I've just remembered, I used to be able to play all the basslines on "English Settlement" (probably skipped the more difficult ones tho), same with "Black Sea", remember being able to do a mean "Rocket From a Bottle"

I like that XTC album "White Music" also.

Disturbing lack of of the astonishing Big Express on your POX Louis.

Not mentioned yet: I'd Like That, one of the romantic songs I've ever heard.

Wake Up wasn't far off inclusion, and it's in my Spotify playlist

I need to give TBE more of a listen though