XTC : Classic or Dud.

Mummer would have been 10 times better had the same tracks been sequenced differently. It's chock full of top tunes, but the running order is just woeful.

O&L's high production really works in favour of the music, I reckon. Apart from King for a Day, which is agony to my ears. The raw power behind Antheap et al really pronounces the strengths in the songwriting. I agree on the relatively weak lyrics though; I think there were a few hassles with Virgin around that time, with the label wanting Partridge to produce hit singles and such.

Anyone heard the Fuzzy Warbles stuff? It's some of the best Partridge has ever done, and it's not overproduced. :)

"Black Sea": well, I do think, just to attempt to take down a peg an album I've always liked, that XTC did progress a bit like Yes. Thus, "Drums and Wires" is their undeniable "breakthrough" album much like "Fragile," and "Black Sea" is their undeniably "accomplished" yet overstated "improvement" upon their breakthrough, just as "Close to to the Edge" is similar for Yes. And to borrow a Meltzerian trope, it's their overstatement that is the point, on both LPs, overstatement as understatement as overstatement or something silly like that. I do like "Black Sea" much better than I do "Close to the Edge" (I have been somewhat obsessed, though, with "Siberian Khatru" lately, and find it very XTC-like). I never liked "Sgt. Rock" from "Black Sea" either, nor do I find the "Kinks-esque" "Respectable Street" all that great. But love "Towers of London," sure.

A Mate of mine used to live in Swindon, and worked in a small recording/rehearsal studio there, that XTC used to use, back in the day. One fateful day, he was assistant producer when they worked on their first attempt to do "Making plans for Nigel". This was one of the tracks on the "cupboard/wardrobe/whatever it was called" rarities/anthology thing, which I managed to get via Kazaa. So, I added it to a compil CD for him, and said "Now you can play it to friends and say "Hey, this track, I rewound the original tape!"

BLASPHEMY.. Oh hahahahahahaha. irony.

I heard "Respectable Street" on my CD walkman Friday morning, totally by accident, I was only trying to re-experience the whole of the Rag & Bone Buffet CD and I was surprised that suddenly reality was shapeshifting underneath my feet while "Respectable Street" played and I teleported to another heavenly post-punk planet and couldn't stop toe tapping and singing and god, what a mess. Surely that song could keep pace with Gang of Four as far as clasic post-punk goes.

Which reminds me, anyone want to join a band? I could bloody use a drummer, me.

Living Through Another CUE
BAH!

I listened to English Settlement all the way through again the other day, and as I get older, the more it becomes apparent to me that the last two tracks are 1) by a fair margin the best things on there and 2) utterly, utterly superb.

I bet you're probably right. English Settlement was always their most difficult album for me (as opposed to Go2, which frankly goes in one ear and out the other for the most part). It has its place in their catalogue, though, and I respect it.

I really need to hear The Big Express.

From some years back:

Anyone heard the Fuzzy Warbles stuff? It's some of the best Partridge has ever done, and it's not overproduced. :)

Hell yeah. The Fuzzy Warbles stuff can be broken down into the following categories:

1) Demos of stuff already released. And often these demos are VERY different (cf "Great Fire", "Me And The Wind") and better (cf anything from _Oranges & Lemons_ and _Nonesuch_)

2) Noodly bits and throw-away gags. Andy laughing uncontrollably, Andy doing imitations, Andy doing an answering machine message. These aren't even for diehards like me. Well, after the first few listens at least.

3) Instrumentals. I always liked XTC's instrumentals - the Homo Safari series is particularly cool. But these are inessential for the most part.

4) Complete, new, unreleased songs. This is the MEAT! And it's soooo tasty. "Sonic Boom" is amazing, "When We Get To England" is gorgeous, "My Land Is Burning" is powerful and politically relevant today, "End Of The Pier" is evocative of an England I never knew in a palpable way. That these songs were in Andy's shoebox for years is a crime, but at least they've seen the light of day.

Classic to the nth degree. XTC is one of the very few bands whose demos are worth hearing.

Thanks for helping me understand it better. I played the first Fuzzy Warbles CD and quit, so I will have go back and try to experience some more of it.

I've muddled my way through volumes 1-7 over the past year and Mr. Odds summation is pretty much OTM - the best stuff is the fully formed, unreleased songs, the rest ranges from interesting to completely unnecessary.

Thread here: S/D: Fuzzy Warbles (an XTC thread)

4) Complete, new, unreleased songs. This is the MEAT! And it's soooo tasty. "Sonic Boom" is amazing

Isn't it though?

I've created an iPod playlist of this MEAT of which you speak. It's 46 tracks and it's bliss.

see also "Wonder Annual", "Ship Trapped In Ice". If you took off the worst two songs on Wasp Star, and replaced them w/these, that album goes from C+ to A-.

I dunno, I totally love the Dukes of the Stratosphear stuff, but I can't stand XTC. In fact I kinda hate them. Am I a hypocrite for digging "Chips from the Chocolate Fireball" when I just cannot abide the "real" band?
It just seems like the Dukes are openly derivative so that changes the valence completely.

I think you'd like "Fuzzy Warbles" then, it's closer to the Dukes spirit than XTC, I'd say.

DD, so you're saying XTC's more (imo still pretty thinly) veiled references to 60s pop is the deciding factor in your hatred?

It's hard to put into words. I suppose it is that the sheer anachronism of the Dukes becomes kind of critical, like a gesture of defiance against what is current. Whereas the mixture of "classic" moves and au courant stuff in XTC feels kind of reactionary in a bad way; a kind of after punk return to Real Musical Values that is just reactionary enough to be annoying to me, but isn't so reactionary that it goes over the edge and becomes camp, like the Dukes. Does that make sense?

Yes. Also many of the DoS songs are just really really good with less opportunity for "cleverness" and fannying about

ic -- tho I fear for my own reception in the Drew house based on that criteria...:/

also wonder if there are particular albums/songs that rub you the wrong way. I definitely see A.Partridge in particular as having a pretty unique hangup of being obsessed w/both pop forms of Beatles/Beach Boys/Kinks and (basically modernist) notions of progress and tech in pop, via bands like Can, Capt Beefheart -- seems like this would easily end in many trainwrecks for songs, tho for me anyway, also ends in songs that no one else has ever written (+ I like em!)

Dominique, you know yer always gettin' a warm reception in my house . . .

I honestly must also confess that my childhood friend's annoying older brother *loved* XTC (and Wings!) in a smug way that really bummed me out, and so perhaps I am simply prejudiced and it's not really rational or worth sharing with ILM.

There is a lot in XTC that is fairly forward-thinking. 'Black Sea' is probably the album to listen to if it's pure innovation you want. Most of it I regard as pretty timeless, mind.

No, "Drums and Wires" is the one

Well, it was a close-run thing, but although D&W has 'Complicated Game' and 'Millions' in the weirdness stakes, 'Living Through Another Cuba' and 'Travels In Nihilon' are genuinely out-there.

Yes, but it's the first album where the Beatles/60s influences and "classic moves" that Drew mentioned begin to appear

Hmm, maybe. I don't like to think of that music as more reactionary, though. More ornate, certainly, but it has, I believe, a timeless charm.

white music is funky.

it makes me sad that dd doesn't like xtc

some days they may be my favorite rock band. which occasionally makes me go O_o when i think on it

see also "Wonder Annual"

^^^ x 283764923876548923

As (I think) I mentioned upthread somewhere, XTC takes effort. You can't just chuck on an album and expect to be all over it in 32 minutes. Each one requires at least 15 plays. Without that perseverence you won't get anywhere.

I was all over Black Sea on my first listen when I was 8 years old. Sure I didn't understand all the meanings of the lyrics then and all that.

see also "Wonder Annual", "Ship Trapped In Ice". If you took off the worst two songs on Wasp Star, and replaced them w/these, that album goes from C+ to A-.

I'm not sure it'd go up to A- but certainly a solid B. _Wasp Star_ is the only XTC album I ever was utterly disappointed with, especially after the great _Apple Venus_. It does have a great Colin song for the first time in a decade ("Boarded Up").

Which two tracks would you replace? "I'm The Man Who Murdered Love" for sure, god that's such a wimpy song. What else?

"You And The Clouds Will Still Be Beautiful", for the reason that it is SO, SO, SO CLOSE to being absolutely superb, but somehow falls short, with the consequence that I am terrifically disappointed every time I hear it.

Oh, and Drew, if it helps, the album that got me into XTC was Nonsuch, which actually gets some flak on these boards.

otm

according to Wikipedia, most of these songs were originally written between 1994-1996. they indeed are pretty close to the demos but there are certain touches - the vocal distortion on "Stupidly Happy", the drum fills on "We're All Light" - that sound very late-90s altrock.

The glasses guy from BNL imagine very much so. It's All Been Done sounds like his take on it

yes! always thought this song sounded like something on Nonsuch. a bit more obnoxious though.

wonder if not having Dave Gregory on board caused them to farm out more of the process which made it sound more modern. I'm really curious what a follow up album would've sounded like.

also I kinda forgot about the 2005 tunes, they're not bad. the band didnt really make a big deal out of them so I still consider Wheel and the Maypole their 'last' song