What a great band they were.
Andy Partridge is now 70.
XTC – I assume we have discussed them before. Just rediscovered them…wow!
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Musings on the byways of popular culture
My favourite track here
It’s my favourite XTC track too.
Thirded
It’s my favourite XTC bass line.
Its so great. Just a wonderful fluid bass
Yes, yes it is! As a root note plodder i marvel at the ability to , firstly, come up with it and then be able to play it so adroitly
XTC is one of those bands whose singles I really like (the Fossil Fuel singles collection is great IMO), but I need to spend more time with their albums. I have a fair few of them, but always seem to gravitate back to the singles.
I will make an effort!
Just as a sidebar here, I once said that Blur’s sound is heavily influenced by XTC but I had an aggressive ticking off by I forget who. I’m right though, eh?
I ought to like them, and a few tracks I like a lot, but I find I got bored quite quickly.
I’m with you Twang. Just sold a couple of their records that I don’t even know how they ended up in my collection.
Yours for about £25 per two-disc set, Steven Wilson’s stunning 5.1 mixes of
their albums set the gold standard for how to curate a back catalogue.
If only they could find and allow SW to work his magic on the long-lost
Master tapes for English Settlement
It’s new wave with psychedelic, sixties stylings as I see it but there’s something irritating in that reality. Mannered or something. Making Plans For Nigel is a brilliant pop single but I think it annoys the fans if you say that.
Psychedelia to the fore with The Dukes of Stratosphear
I’m a ‘first flusher’ really.
Post-punk lightning bolts yes.
Pastoral pastiches of English psychedelia not so much.
Ditto
I’m almost completely the opposite. Quite like the spiky pop spurtings of their early days but, for me, they became something quite special when they mixed classic pop structures with elements of folk and psychedelia as on English Settlement and Mummer. My favourite XTC album is Wasp Star. Sold nothing of course.
English Settlement is where all these elements are in perfect balance. From then on too much folk and psychedelia pastiche for me.
I’m with you, they almost lost me completely with Mummer but I was firmly back on board with Oranges & Lemons and Nonesuch.
I once had the pleasure of interviewing Partridge and I told him that my favourite XTC album (up to that point) was Mummer. He looked overjoyed, patted me on the back rather forcefully and declared me to be a good man. I still think it’s one of their finest. ‘Ladybird’ alone is worth the price of admission in my book…
They are a great concept and, on their track record, should be amazing. But, give or take, usually, the singles, they pall. I want to love them but indifference is the most they actually inspire.
Fossil Fuel is perhaps the best album (granted it is the singles).
Each album has moments of greatness, but I believe their best and most complete albums are The Dukes of Stratosphear.
There was a great documentary on Sky Arts a couple of years ago which re-ignited my interest.
Please tell me I’m not alone here. On first hearing, I was sure that The Kaiser Chiefs Everyday I Love You Less And Less was XTC in disguise
You are not alone, you are in a vast crowded stadium
Very early XTC, but XTC nonetheless
Skylarking (1986)
Nonsuch (1992)
Apple Venus Volume 1 (1999)
are very good indeed
I think they are generally brilliant, but I can’t get on with Andy Partridge’s voice
Black Sea closely followed by English Settlement are my favourite albums. They are one of those bands whose tracks I mostly love but the ones I don’t I really don’t.
Just 100% fanboi love from here.
The very definition of a compilation band. It’s a good compilation though.
Not keen on the early albums as Partridges voice is far too yelpy
Better when he sings
Some great albums but never has a band needed some quality control than XTC. Nonesuch a prime example, if you removed the filler would be a magnificent 10 track album. No coincidence the one album ceded control to Todd Rundgren, Skylarking, is the best as there was a bit of editing, even if Andy Partridge hated it
On the subject of bands that need editing, I have always put the Manic Street Preachers in that category. I reckon that a lot of Nicky Wire’s lyrics would benefit from a good editor and, as for albums, This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours, for example, could do with losing a few tracks, especially from the second half.
Too many songs or too many lyrics? I think James Dean Bradfield often does an initial edit of the lyric that Wire gives him
@dai Both, but the lyrics especially. It seems to me that lines fail to scan/fit within the melody line because there are too many words crammed in.
I am a fan of “dum-de-dum de-dum”, so maybe it’s my issue, not the MSP’s.
I thought that was more a fault of Richey lyrics. Nearly all 90s albums were too long, CD era.
I take your point completely but not on that album, second half of This is my truth is superb IMO
Albums should be 12 tracks tops. There has NEVER been an album improved by having more. Always some filler
They were one of my fave bands in my teens but I only got to see them live once at Hammersmith Odeon on the Black Sea tour. They stopped touring soon afterwards but that night was very memorable and they did a lot of then yet to be released English Settlement album that night too.
I bought these bird – mast – moon badges on the night – here in their place on the album sleeve.
I wore them on my jacket when I saw TC&I (Terry Chambers & Colin Moulding) live in Swindon a few years ago, I could have sold them a hundred times over, haha
I like them in small doses and can see the appeal. I think their aversion to just writing a simple song and letting their talent for melodies, arrangements and lyrics shine is what wears thin. Having said that, their best stuff is also sometimes “complicated” and all the better for it. Mentally I have them filed under “English Eccentrics”, alongside the likes of Robyn Hitchcock and Kate Bush.
I can see their influence on Blur as mentioned earlier but I think the current band most like them in their output and musical approach would be Field Music who I much prefer.
I bloody love XTC. After discovering them through Fossil Fuel, I’ve spent more time and money on them than most bands. Not so much a fan of the earlier yelps stuff, I agree with Andy Partridge’s pronouncement in the documentary that they got better as they went on. Favourite album is a toss-up between Nonsuch and Skylarking but, really, I love great swathes of their music. When cover band Fossil Fools (RIP) played Wrapped in Grey at their Dublin Castle show, I cried like a baby. I never thought I’d see it performed, the way it should. It’s in my will that the Nonsuch version be played at my funeral.
Another fan here. I enjoy all their albums , Black Sea probably my favourite. Andy Partridge described the disco style drums on this record as sounding like ‘pea soup, pea soup’ which is a great description.
I like English Settlement and assorted songs, but for some reason they haven’t lodged in my music collection. Time to investigate perhaps.They were sort of out of fashion in the 90s/2000s weren’t they? Not cited enough as an influence on Brit indie for some reason. And didn’t Damon Albarn have an unhappy encounter with Andy Partridge at one point?
I think it was more a case of legal wranglings than out of fashion.
Anything that’s ‘out of fashion’ is fine by me.
I went on a bit of a CD shopping spree back in the 90’s as there was a great 2nd hand shop in Watford. Picked up Fossil Fuel for a few quid. I’d always liked the singles. This was the first time though that I’d listened to a more substantial amount of their output. Fell instantly in love with ‘Dear God’ (it really spoke to me, man). Bought Apple Venus when it came out and it’s probably my favourite. I haven’t explored the other studio albums as much.
I’ve told this before, but when I met my now wife (American) we had around 500 CD’s between us. Apple Venus was the only one we had in common.
In March of this year I saw EX-TC,a 3 piece group featuring Terry Chambers on drums.
They mainly concentrate on the years that Terry was in the band (nearly all “Black Sea” got an airing on the night I saw them) but they do do songs after he’d left (“Grass”,”Mayor Of Simpleton” and “Love On A Farmboys Wages” to name but 3)
Well worth checking out if they’re playing near you
I’ve always fancied seeing an XTC tribute/heritage band, but somehow have never seen a listing.
Last Christmas I went from just being a great admirer of Apple Venus and the hits to being fully obsessed.
It was streaming that gave me this opportunity to explore their extraordinary discography
Love XTC, from the spiky punk-pop to the pastoral splendour.
Saw this lot a couple of years ago, what a fine job they do
Major XTC fan here – probably one of my favourite bands of all time.
Whilst Skylarking is undoubtably their masterpiece (and the album I always recommend to first time listeners), I probably listen to and enjoy Nonsuch more – the tracks “My Bird Performs” and “Rook” are up there with my all time favourite tracks full stop.
A band I think got better with every album with only a slight dip at the end with Wasp Star, which did not quite match the wonderful Apple Venus. Here is my favourite XTC track and one of my Desert Island Discs.
Yes.
Yes yes.
This – and “Chalkhills and Children”.
I flippin love Wasp Star. For me they ended on a high right there.
But I’m usually wrong on these things.
@eddie-g
With you on WS, E.
Interestingly, like every album from Skylarking onwards (Oranges and Lemons is mentioned in Ballet for a Rainy Day), the title of WS is taken from (inspired by?) the lyrics of a song on their previous album