XTC : Classic or Dud.

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

The problem is that I grew up with all the albums EXCEPT for the first two, Mummer and TBE, so have really had to work to jam those ones into my consciousness

I grew up with The Beatles, so discovering XTC when I was about 18 was like revisiting blissful musical-first love.

They're easy to compare to Cardiacs I guess, but I get a completely different vibe from each band. Like Cardiacs kind of frighten me.

OTM on Complicated Game (the 'darkest" XTC song?) and English Roundabout which is totally Fragile-era Yes.

english roundabout is one of those rare songs in a non-standard time signature (5/4) that sounds completely natural and not forced

Travels In Nihilon is darker than Complicated Game but the latter is more savage

XTC are excellent Muppet music, which is why I can't listen to them for more than 25 minutes: all that hiccuping and bleating.

Black Sea is my favorite, actually.

XTC and Cardiacs aren't very similar at all - there's different things at stake, different vibes for both bands, different levels of intensity - different TYPES of intensity. The key's in the lyrics - both ingenious but in different ways that get to the core of the respective pop titans' psyches (XTC = very literate, verse-chorus, ornate, snarky - Cardiacs = scattergun, often barely-comprehensible, edge-of-mind, sublime frenzy)

Seen that promo photo of the new Swans lineup LJ? Gira a deadringer for Tim on the cover of STG.

link?

http://new.assets.thequietus.com/images/articles/4724/swans_headshots_large_1280489291_crop_550x532.jpeg

Any love here for the song Red Brick Dream? A BE era b-side, the odd way they sequenced the pre-remaster CDs (smack in the middle of the record, after 'side 1') has rendered lots of odd stuff forever as part of the official tracklisting in my brain. Sometimes a bad thing (Desert Island/Procession Towards Learning Land) and sometimes a good thing (Red Brick Dream, Blue Overall, Jump, Limelight)

Oops, neglected to mention that I was talking about B-Sides being sequenced. Brain fried from Gym.

I only found out the other day that Limelight, Chain Of Command and Life Begins At The Hop aren't meant to be on D&W :/

that's FIFTEEN YEARS OF MISUNDERSTANDING

All three of the tracks they bunged in the middle of Black Sea are great, IMO, especially Smokeless Zone which is one of Colin's best

Really? Smokeless Zone always seemed a little slight to me.

nah I love how it sounds, and how it careens to a wheezy halt

Tissue Tigers tho' right?

you've lost me

English Settlement b-side, you've never heard it?

It's a crappy rip, from a flexidisc but I can't find better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ut5xh6ZGfA

Life Begins at the Hop is on my OG 80's LP, which contained a 7" of Chain of Command and Limelight, but looking online there were a few different configurations of Drums & Wires around the world.

Smokeless Zone, Tissue Tigers and the rest of the B-sides that comprise the Beeswax LP make that a very interesting compilation imo.

XTC are one of those "wish I liked them more" bands. Love the singles/well known tracks, love some of the out there stuff (Complicated Game ftw) but everything in between leaves me almost completely cold.