TS: XTC's Black Sea vs. English Settlement

So the "Black Sea" demos on the new deluxe release are mostly uninteresting and sound more like rough mixes. The 'early version' of "Towers Of London" is a couple of minutes longer and the 'unused single remix' of "Rocket From A Bottle" sound almost the same.

The most interesting stuff is the unreleased material: Pearl, Holding The Baby, Monkeys In Human Skin Suits, Spy In Space, Walking To Work, Jumping The Gap, and Ban The Bomb. They're fun to hear though nothing as crucial as stuff found on the Fuzzy Warbles series. With the release of these there's very few tracks I know about that haven't shown up officially or online.

Pearl has always been a favourite, I enjoyed the new mix too. But yeah, I think most everything is out there now between bootlegs, the old cassette releases, fuzzy warbles and the reissues, all that remains are the 3295642015986 songs that AP has left unfinished on a hard drive in his shed.

I'm guessing that it would be such a shame if he didn't finish some of those.

Doesn't his shed have its own thread?

Holy shit, I think this is the only live recording of "Melt the Guns" out there. Uploaded 5 months ago. Incredible set

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv9dXo9-zrA

XTC
Paradiso
Amsterdam, Netherlands
March 8, 1982

Soundboard pre-fm version

Andy Partridge was only 10 days away from his stage fright breakdown in Paris.

01. Runaways
02. Jason And The Argonauts
03. Melt The Guns
04. Snowman
05. Ball And Chain
06. No Thugs In Our House
07. Senses Working Overtime
08. All Along The Watchtower
09. No Language In Our Lungs
10. Towers Of London
11. Making Plans For Nigel
12. Living Through Another Cuba
13. Generals And Majors
14. Real By Reel
15. Sgt. Rock (Is going To Help Me)
16. Life Begins At The Hop (With Hans Devente on Backing Vocals)

Not recorded / missing are the first three songs, played that evening: Bushman President (tape); Respectable Street, Burning With Optimism's Flames.

The Quietus: 'English Settlement' turns 40

good excuse to listen

Great article

It's a very good article, but

Certainly, nobody talks about what a good single album English Settlement might have made.

I'd say the only good song left off the 10 track single LP version is "Yacht Dance", and some of the excluded tracks ("Leisure", "Down in the Cockpit") are terrible, good riddance.

yeah that bit made me raise an eyebrow too, people in fact talk about that all the time. though tbf it's more of a "had enough material for 3 sides" sort of double

had they replaced Leisure and Cockpit with Tissue Tigers & Blame the Weather it would be just about perfect

Drop some of the more irritating finger-pointing Andy Partridge material and we're talking.

I love "Leisure", "Down in the Cockpit", and "Knuckle Down", which I often see people single out as a weak track. It's such a good album, hard for me to cut anything, though the b-sides frogbs mentioned would have been great additions too. Even "Fly on the Wall", a track I used to skip, has grown on me

Some of the irritating finger-pointing Andy material (Melt The Guns, No Thugs) is my favourite, and I wouldn’t have them off the album for anything.

Very good article. A quibble: the writer’s characterization of Generals & Majors as “a goofy disco rewrite of Paperback Writer” is way off the mark in about 3 dimensions, and moderately accurate in only one.

Leisure is great you fools

None of the b-sides have ever sounded like they belong on there. Leave it alooone

“no thugs” is either the second or third best song on the album. i think “cockpit” is fine and “leisure” is good, but “melt the guns” is too much for even me, a guy who genuinely loves “living through another cuba”

Good article, though I often struggle to figure out where the line is between pop and underground. One of the article's assertions, and has been asserted by many others, is that XTC would be more broadly popular if they had just been heard. I don't know if that's true, it seems like plenty of people heard them and liked them well enough, and that their appeal grew after they became a studio-only band. This implies that a bigger marketing budget = increased popularity, and that's not true though it certainly helps! Is XTC's work too literate, too political or too musically challenging for mass appeal? Did Andy ever make any concessions to writing "pop"? One of XTC's charms is that their songs sound really straightforward but under the hood there are oddities that make them more than a 4/4 top 40 ballad or whatever. XTC have over 875,000 monthly listeners on Spotify which is a decent amount though pales compared to the punk elite.

yeah XTC, much like Sparks, seem to repeatedly get that narrative assigned to them. when I talk to older people I meet at record shops & my cool family members I get the impression that both bands were fairly well-known in their day but too off-center and weird/cynical/annoying to be as big as they deserved to be. when I asked my uncle about them and he said "Generals and Majors" was played all the time when he was in college and that a lot of people found the tune obnoxious. and "Senses Working Overtime" was a significant hit, though idk how it was received at the time. I've played it for friends and they found it to be fairly "annoying" as well. Andy losing his marbles shortly thereafter and retreating to release the fairly unmarketable Mummer ain't really the record company's fault.

today the idea that XTC are still underrated is kind of absurd, I mean if you look on RYM they have five bolded albums and a ton of ratings. and yet whenever people write about them it always seems to start with a statement that the band never got its due and are still some kind of hidden gem.

"dear god" was frequently played on the radio (WHFS) in the early/mid 90s, i heard it once a week at least. i had never thought of them as further under the radar than their peers til i read this article.

XTC are a hidden gem. And it’s unlikely they would have been much more popular in their day if they’d had more exposure. Too quirky, too brainy, too awkward, and just not good-looking enough (sorry, lads). There’s no louche legend to attach to them, no cool image; it’s all about the music, which is most definitely “music for music nerds.”

However, their profile with the generations younger than Gen X - even music nerds - is abysmal. My kids know them, but that’s because I played them nonstop at home and in the car in the post-Apple Venus years. And my kids don’t love them the way they love, say, Sparks. A producer friend says any mention of them draws blanks with the bands he records. I think their POV is maybe too naive to catch on with kids who grew up with the certain knowledge that humanity is doomed? (Probably a flawed theory, not least because XTC have way more Spotify listeners than Sparks do.) they’re probably one of those bands destined to be eternally overrated by their fans and underrated by everyone else.

Yeah, XTC defined the "college band" stereotype in the 1980s and early '90s. I know English Settlement did quite well on CMA pollings.

They were as popular as they got in the U.S. in 1982 and again between 1987-1992. I can't imagine much more.

er CMJ

my uncle about them and he said "Generals and Majors" was played all the time when he was in college and that a lot of people found the tune obnoxious. and "Senses Working Overtime" was a significant hit, though idk how it was received at the time. I've played it for friends and they found it to be fairly "annoying" as well.

heh yeah love em and never really consider it when i'm listening alone, but if someone else is there i'm immediately conscious of how a lot of it could be annoying

They retired from playing live, which is fine if you're the Beatles, they weren't though.

The comparison to Sparks is an excellent one, I think. Two of my alltime favorite bands. Trouser Press' adjectives and descriptors used to describe XTC:

Dissonance, unresolved melodic lines... hiccupping vocals... equally nervous music... hyperactive material
...alternately herky-jerky and menacing. ... funhouse world... more accessible, but still booby- trapped... undanceable rhythms, intricate interplay and gloriously literate lyrics... preachy, wordy... precious, overwrought pop IQ tests...

And that's in a record guide aimed at music nerds likely to actually enjoy them. None of those sound like a band destined for much commercial success. Quirky smart-assery seldom is.

Thinking about my criticism of "Leisure" etc.:

On certain songs on their first three albums, they got aggressive, unmelodic and rhythmically disjunctive (as well as singing in silly voices), there was enough power in the music to put it over. When they try to do pursue that same mode on Black Sea or English Settlement, there's been a loss of energy and an increase in production gloss, and those songs are irritating instead of bracing. They were better off at that point in their career in going for Beatles instead of Beefheart.

...and they would, to diminishing returns, starting in 1986.

Sense is a fascinating song to have as their highest-charting hit, even it's Nigel that has remained their most-remembered. The chorus is one of the most succinct, easy-to-swallow hooks they ever came up with, but the rest of the song is closer to prog if anything, and the verses a strange medieval dirge. I'm surprised the public ate it up so much, and that radio folks made it as far as the end of the pre-chorus

Re: Sparks and XTC, years ago I would tell people that while Sparks were my favorite band of all time, I thought XTC were probably the *best* band of all time, and I think part of the reason I made that distinction was because I could easily understand finding Sparks irritating, but XTC seemed like something most everyone should be able to enjoy. Took me a while to realize they're a lot closer to Sparks in that regard than I'd thought.

same, it's only with some distance that I started to hear why people didn't like them. kind of the same with They Might be Giants, another band whose academic style of songwriting and forced quirkiness irks a lot of people

I'm surprised the public ate it up so much

It was a different time; the masses still had an occasional ear for arty sui generis pop. My go-to example is that Laurie Anderson made it to no. 2 in the British charts in 1981.

as opposed to XTC's later era where their music sounded out of step with nearly everything on the radio - Skylarking sure as hell doesn't sound like a pop record from 1986

Thinking about my criticism of "Leisure" etc.:

On certain songs on their first three albums, they got aggressive, unmelodic and rhythmically disjunctive (as well as singing in silly voices), there was enough power in the music to put it over. When they try to do pursue that same mode on Black Sea or English Settlement, there's been a loss of energy and an increase in production gloss, and those songs are irritating instead of bracing. They were better off at that point in their career in going for Beatles instead of Beefheart.

― Halfway there but for you, Monday, February 14, 2022 6:33 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is a good point, definitely a big part of the problem with Leisure for me is that sort of waddling gait it has, it just sounds so bumptious.

The Sparks comparison is interesting – obv. both bands were produced by Todd Rundgren.

relistening to English Settlement now and noticing some things

1) there are a lot of awesome bass lines on this thing
2) Partridge is a total weirdo, I can see why he puts people off. he doesn't really have the voice to do all those sing-songy bits and his phrasing is so bizarre sometimes. he does the Zappa thing a bunch where he writes these rapid melodies and tries to sing every note of them
3) regardless, dude spins some great tunes. Yacht Dance is so damn beautiful. as is All of the Sudden. he's a brilliant lyricist...sometimes
4) No Thugs riff is immense
5) this album sounds dated in a way I never really noticed before. I think Hugh Padgham has a pretty signature style. where he puts the reverb and such.
6) album's theme seems to be anti-progress, sorta like Village Green Preservation Society. feel like Andy saw the world hurtling towards something bad and felt like we'd gone too far. well, can't imagine you'd like how things are now buddy
7) Leisure is the worst track I've always felt, but lately it kinda wins me over until the sax part...what the fuck!!!! Dont do that!!
8) English Roundabout = one of Colin's best tracks? his singing on it is incredible.
9) Fly on the Wall is almost like a throwback to their first two albums. were they trying to replicate Barry's sound or something?
10) bridge on Senses is amazing: "And birds might fall from black skies/And bullies might give you black eyes/And buses might skid on black ice"...brilliant
11) also really love that "we will skid across the surface of the ocean as though we're really seabirds" line on Yacht Dance
12) can't think of anything else

I think it's "wheeling seabirds," isn't it?

1) there are a lot of awesome bass lines on this thing

OTM

Terry Chambers is a hero and i think people who came to xtc in the post TC era don't really understand how massive the guy's sound was in the context of the time. he was also a prog fan and was totally blown away at learning the Bill Bruford had name checked him as a drummer to listen to i guess in the early 80s

TB: I think every drummer is a soup of all their influences -- I mean, that's the whole point, you put all that stuff in, mix it up, and you come up with something that tastes a little different. But you can still taste all the ingredients. I mean, it was good for me to play along with you, to hear those holes and the discipline, because I grew up listening to prog drummers -- Bill Bruford, Carl Palmer, early Phil Collins...

TC: Yeah. In the end, I stopped listening to them. I thought, "Well, I'm never going to be this fucking good, so I'm just going to go me own way now." "I've learned all I can learn off of these guys," I could just never kind of catch up with them, because every time I'd think, "Well, I'm sort of getting on top of this," they'd bring another album out and take it to a new level. So I could never win!

TB: Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Well, if it's any consolation, I remember seeing an interview with Bruford back in 1980 -- it was right when King Crimson had gotten back together and put out Discipline, and they had asked him for the five albums he was listening to at the time. One of them was Drums and Wires.

TC: You're kidding.

TB: Nope.

TC: Well mate, that really is a jug handle, if I may use such a term! I mean, that's unbelievable!

TB: Yeah, so, a bit of a turnaround there, huh?

TC: Well, I mean ... I'm not even worthy to talk of the man! The man is a living god! I mean, if he was a Greek, he would be a god for sure!

Awww

Now I'm obsessing over the phrase 'that really is a jug handle', I wonder what it means exactly?

It was a different time; the masses still had an occasional ear for arty sui generis pop. My go-to example is that Laurie Anderson made it to no. 2 in the British charts in 1981.

That is the big one... but funny then how XTC had so few proper hits. Towers Of London at the very least should have been done better.

When they were getting in the charts and on the radio in the UK I was between 7-10 years old.

At the age of 15 I bought a second-hand copy of Waxworks and soon realised that I knew all the songs from 'Life Begins...' onwards - and later found out that I knew 'Ten Feet Tall' very well but didn't know it was XTC -

So, hits or otherwise, they definitely penetrated our little household from casual kitchen-radio listening at the time.

"Making Plans For Nigel" was a hit, as was "Sgt. Rock". "Life Begins At the Hop" wasn't but they got on Top of the Pops!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHTMlOtiLSo

a cool thing about the bridge on “senses” is that it secretly changes the key, and then when the pre-chorus comes back it’s a half step higher. cool effect, costello’s “oliver’s army” does a similar thing

My copy of ES (a beige cassette c. 1985 purchased at Rockhead’s in downtown St. Paul) had the aforementioned US tracklisting except with “Yacht Dance” replacing “It’s Nearly Africa”, resulting in an almost perfect album IMO. The only spare track I’d eagerly restore would be “Fly On The Wall”.

1. "Runaways"
2. "Ball and Chain"
3. "Senses Working Overtime"
4. "Jason and the Argonauts"
5. "Snowman"

1. "Melt the Guns"
2. "No Thugs in Our House"
3. "Yacht Dance"
4. "English Roundabout"
5. "All of a Sudden (It's Too Late)"

Wow, weird. That's on wiki: Some versions of the following track listing replace "It's Nearly Africa" with "Yacht Dance", resulting in a nearly identical runtime. Wonder what the reasoning for that was?

Stray thoughts:

- Is "Yacht Dance" XTC's version of acoustic Jethro Tull?
- I always liked Christgau's suggestion that "English Roundabout" is about the convoluted language, not just U.K. traffic.
- "All of a Sudden" sounds like cheery later McCartney mixed with the melancholy world-view of "Eleanor Rigby" or "For No One".

Too quirky, too brainy, too awkward, and just not good-looking enough (sorry, lads). There’s no louche legend to attach to them, no cool image; it’s all about the music, which is most definitely “music for music nerds.”

I've been thinking about this and it's definitely otm. in fact this is what deterred me from getting into the band in the first place. I remember seeing their CDs at the library and researching them online and they just came off so boring. the album covers, their photoshoots in pilgrim outfits, song titles like "Wrapped in Grey". everyone I know who's into them is a huge music dork. in that sense maybe they are more like They Might be Giants? yes, smart, profound, brilliant, all that...but they write music for music's sake and the people behind it are just sorta...normal dudes

moulding seems like a normal guy, idk if partridge fits by any stretch of the definition