XTC : Classic or Dud.

'The Wheel and the Maypole' is really the only reason to own Wasp Star, but my god what a song to end XTC's final album with.

I never got over how much "Wasp Star" paled compared to "Apple Venus". And then when the Fuzzy Warbles came out, how much better it could've been!

some words on White Music too wherein I attempt to explain my weird affinity towards it:
https://critterjams.wordpress.com/2014/02/11/xtc-white-music-1978/

I pulled out Wasp Star last week at a small gathering. A very non-music-geek friend (but who has ears) said it sounded like a bad ripoff of XTC. When I told him it was, actually, XTC, he was still convinced that the songs weren't written by 'the "Mayor of Simpleton" guy' - said they sounded too boring and one-dimensional. In 2001 I was so happy to have XTC back that I hardly noticed at first what a dud Wasp Star was, and I still like, if not love, most of the songs on it, or at least there are moments and details in each song that give me pleasure - but I thought that was interesting, that someone with no investment in the band would notice and comment on its dudness (when I would almost have expected its simplicity and directness to have been perceived a virtue by casual listeners).

new Skylarking edition

wtf does "corrected polarity" mean?

it's been reversed iirc

what is polarity in this context?

Polarity means phase inversion. Maybe they fixed some phase cancellation issues with the recordings?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9P1mhEWezaU

I'm gonna get the SW remix of Nonsuch but I really wish Andy Partridge would spend some time writing new music rather than just endlessly reissue his back catalogue

^fat chance at this point.

The 'corrected polarity edition' is the same edition as the 2010 vinyl remaster. When that was being put together, the person doing the remaster discovered that the original mixes had reversed sound polarity, and had in fact been released this way since 1986. The reason it's took so long for this edition to reach a digital format is originally Virgin only gave Partridge the rights to reissue Skylarking on vinyl through his own imprint.

Chances are that Partridge won't spend any time releasing new songs, because according to what I've read, he has hundreds of pieces of songs lying around, but doesn't feel he can write anything as good as what he's already put out.

I think Virgin were right to dismiss Partridge's original "cover concept", to be honest. It's awful.

I dunno, I think it's rather pretty.

http://chalkhills.org/images/fanart/Mikrob-xtc1.jpg

http://chalkhills.org/images/fanart/Mikrob-xtc3.jpg

http://chalkhills.org/images/fanart/Mikrob-xtc4.jpg

it's like Keith Haring by way of a 6 year old girl on mushrooms

so regular old keith haring then

it was made by this guy

http://www.cincplug.com/mikrob/english.php

he has done covers for some other xtc albums as well, I like them!

I wonder if the polarity issue is just a convenient way of framing a reason for the reissue (other than that icky cover) Unless the polarity of certain separate instruments/tracks within the mix were at odds - and would therefore mean a total remix - I'm not sure the difference in sound would be significant.

Polarity means phase inversion.

Could you elaborate on this? I just read the wiki entry for phase inversion, and not exactly sure what this means in an audio context. How is polarity different than just the L-R panning of channels?

Per the notes from the press release:

"Somewhere, possibly in the transfer from the multi-channel tape to the stereo master, a polarity had been reversed. This is not the same thing as a reversed left/right channel which puts a stereo picture out of phase & makes the sound unlistenable, but a much more difficult to pin down event that can be triggered by something as simple as a badly wired plug in the overall system which, nonetheless, removes some of the punch & presence from a finished recording."

I can make a vague guess as to what this means, but still unsure as to how a) exactly it will be different, or b) someone would have picked up on this error.

also, not sure if it's a joke, but that isn't the original cover art above...?

https://www.burningshed.com/covers/large4309.jpg

iirc accidentally reversed phasing is not good, it can mess with the stereo imaging. but it's been years since my audio tech classes.

I just searched wiki for a better explanation to no avail

The human ear cannot hear phase distortion, except that it may affect the stereo imaging.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distortion#Phase_distortion

I too was wondering where the shitty haring-esque thing came from

pubes are always good on an album cover iirc

Was gonna say..

That's no original artwork, "Dear God" was added later

Could you elaborate on this?

I'm a little confused what they mean as well. Polarity is where you take some signal and invert the sound wave, so it's separate from panning, but as far as I knew the only time inverted polarity makes a difference on how sound is perceived is if it creates phase cancellation (like what happens when you put a sine wave in two channels, invert polarity on one side, and collapse to mono). I thought maybe they had a stereo recording of some instrument, and they accidentally inverted one channel, causing some unintended phase cancellation. But based on what you posted from the press release, it might have been the entire recording that was inverted? I didn't think that had any noticeable impact on the sound, but this article seems to think it makes a difference: http://www.audiodirectionltd.com/absolute-polarity.html

Or rather, polarity is just the orientation of the sound wave. Inverting the sound wave means changing the polarity.

not sure if it's a joke, but that isn't the original cover art above...?

Yeah, just so we're clear, it's the muff I was expressing approbation for, not the cod-primitivism.

Just had the sobering realization that the Dukes' approximation of 1967 would be the equivalent of a modern band lovingly recreating, say, 1996.

there's a zing waiting to explode

Can't wait for some band to lovingly recreate "Cumbersome"

never seen this before

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xlH9eyyZ0M

Ace, thanks!

I have a bunch of these fillums, they used to do loads of bits of films for a cable channel based in Swindon, 1975 onwards.

Really wanted to go to this XTC covers night last week in Minneapolis, but was sick. Lots of heavy hitter players and a pretty cool setlist:

http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh310/yodelagogo/senses.jpg

Kudos for playing "Melt the Guns" next to last (said maybe the only guy who's going to vote for this song when the XTC poll comes round).

I'll vote for it too. Objectively it's pretty awful, but there's something about it that's always stuck with me. And Colin's bass playing on it is fabbo.

It's better than "Knuckle Down" anyhow.

It's not better than anything... ever.

We listened to XTC at record club the other day.

http://devonrecordclub.com/2014/06/25/xtc-black-sea-round-69-robs-choice/

Nice little piece!

'Poor Skeleton Steps Out' is so good.

Nice little piece!

Have we done an XTC albums poll? I kind of want to check out more of their albums after having had (and loving, especially the second disc) the Fossil Fuels greatest hits for some time. What's best from their first and second periods?

First - Black Sea/Drums & Wires/English Settlement

Second - Mummer

Incorrect!

Actually, I'm a Mummer defender myself, so that was nice to see someone else mention it.

Mummer is all right but skylarking and apple venus are much better.

Frivolous Tonight
Fruit Nut
Your Dictionary

nuh-uh