XTC fans (or non-): possible explanations of their appeal???

Try buying the greatest hits, it makes most sense.

Judging from interviews I've heard, the two main songwriters (and now two remaining original members) draw generally on musical references from their own youth, namely Sixties psychedelia (mostly UK), bubblegum pop and elements of easy listening. If a chronological map of their own sound could be drawn it would look very generally like this.

Glam Pop w/ whizzy Sci Fi keyboards.

Herky Jerky New Wave.

As above, but trying less hard to be overtly dissonant and becoming better composed.

Acoustic elements creep in.

Tempos slow a little, pastoral elements creep in.

Broader songwriting, sixties, world music and folk/early music elements appear. (circa English Settlement).

Big drum sounds generally out, more keyboards, acoustic guitars, quirky production tricks and a sniff of Psychedelia.

Mildly distressing diversion into Eighties production style with rip-roaring drum machines and Fairlight samplers etc:

Above offset by side project consisting of Psychedelia/Power Pop/Sixties pastiches.

Lingering Sixties elements. Pastoral/folk touches back in bolder strokes, strings sections and Todd Rundgren kitchen sink production.

As above but with Billy-Big-Bollocks L.A. production values.

Less obvious sixties pastiche elements, more mature songwriting, kinda reaching a grown up amalgam of previous influences.

Xtc where they are today, Andy Partridge still willing to write music that is big, brash, heartfelt and sometimes a little over the top.

Moulding relaxes into old age by writing, often dodgy, easy listening ditties.

Their best song (granted I've only heard a few albums plus the singles) is clearly and absolutely "I'd Like That"

English Settlement I wouldn't include with some of their strongest albums.

only longtime fans
will get E.S. properly
(that's its problem/strength)

i agee with this

English Settlement I wouldn't include with some of their strongest albums.

i do NOT agree with this. every song on english settlement is amazing. even DOWN IN THE COCKPIT.

I could maybe settle for 'over earnest' instead of cute.

That's interesting because I didn't start liking XTC until I bought a used of ES. Granted, the only album I heard before that was Skylarking (and I thought that absolutely sucked until a couple weeks ago).

Haha Nina Blackwood just played "Balloon Man" on New Wave Nation!

Rockist, WTF with you today?

actually Smashmouth can be pretty pretentious too, just these guys got pretentious in a more baroque way. I guess the equasion is XTC - "Sgt. Peppers is the best album ever" + rasp = Smashmouth

I would never consider XTC alongside Gabriel or Bush -- completely different aesthetics going on there. I can never imagine XTC giving off the same air of gravity, seriousness, artiness, or self-importance (note: I love Gabriel and Bush, too) as these two. If you're going to say that Gabriel and Bush are better at being prog (which in your definition seems only to mean being complex and intricate), then there are surely a WHOLE SHITLOAD of artists better than G and B! Same argument defeats your second point about eccentricity, too.

I realize that you're just trying to work out why you don't like them and I respect that, but you're pigeonholing them somewhere they just don't belong. I'd say your second characterization of them (as UK psych-pop/etc.) is much more on-point, but as far as them not being especially energetic or hooky... I can't reach into your ears and take the cotton out from over here! Seriously, though, you should get Black Sea if you want to give them a second chance. That was the album that completely and totally sold me on them, and their other records are easier to understand once you have a basis from which to appreciate their sound and approach.

Basically, what I'm asking is whether or not a part of what XTC fans like about their music is some sense of a perceived prog-ness. By this, I'm referring specifically to complexity in the songwriting, playing, studio arrangements and production, etc. (plus a general sense of eccentricity), as opposed to the prog elements that you bring up (gravity, seriousness, artiness, or self-importance).

No, really...my guess is that it's not the complexity that people like about XTC, but rather their melodicism and sound. The complexity is some sort of icing on the cake?

Explanations of their appeal? Incredible songwriting, gorgeous lyricism, unmatched consistency.

I don't think they're prog (and I like Yes and Floyd, and I don't see any common ground). I like Andy Partridge because he's a fantastic lyricist and writes direct, extremely effective pop songs.

In reference to "Senses Working Overtime" sounding cute: I see your point, and some people I've played XTC for hear an "oompa-loompa" quality in it. I attribute that to a willingness to be totally innocent, even naive, about their subject matter - spring, family, hallucinations, destroying civilization and reverting back to nature - and then giving themselves to it with total exuberance. Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush don't seem like good points of reference for XTC, and even next to a lot of post-punk they're a lot more giddy/innocent sounding.

I'd start with Drums and Wires ('specially "Helicopter," "Real by Reel" and "Scissor Man") or, as mentioned above, Black Sea. English Settlement took a while to settle in with me - now it's about my favorite record ever.

Again, I'm only familiar with XTC from their songs that have been played on alternative rock/cutting edge radio since the beginning of the format (early-'80s, where I live--they've had a decent amount of songs on there, obvioulsy), plus hearing ES now and, I don't know...I remember hearing 25 O'Clock once and I heard part of Apple Venus a few years ago. I understand the impulse to call them Beatle-esque, but how accurate is that, ultimately? How much is a given XTC album really and truly equivalent to Sgt. Pepper or Magical Mystery Tour? Or how much is it equivalent to, say, the Kinks' Something Else (from the Kinks era that I am presuming you're talking about)?

Where does the XTC-Yes comparison come from? I've seen the parallel drawn loads of times, but the two bands are utterly mutually exclusive.

Also, a lot of prog fans happen to like XTC.

Best thing about XTC that people tend not to talk about: the performances tend to be amazing. Particularly around Drums and Wires: not only is Partridge a distinctive and engaging vocalist (the stutters and snorts on like “Scissor Man” and “Outside World” come out so well you almost don’t notice how odd they are), but as a band they just tear and swing, all casual, through some pretty acrobatic shifts (again, “Scissor Man”). (If they’d been playing something dark and heavy, my guess is that rock fans would look back at them as gods; but when you play giddy pop, people tend to read skill as just a given, or even a detriment.) The instrumental hot-performances faded away when they went into their pastoral studio-pop phase, obviously, but Partridge’s vox stayed as keen as ever.

Liking them around “Skylarking,” like everyone says, is just about enjoying mildly “sophisticated” pop songwriting and arrangement, something they do quite well and quite interestingly. (On that level there’s maybe a lean toward the kind of English “adult” pop songwriting that Bush and Gabriel are maybe part of --- I could imagine later-era Bush singing, say, “Another Satellite” --- but it’s so less theatrical and much more just “pop.”) And yes, it helps if you like the sort of giddy imaginary-pop vibe they’ve picked up from psychedelia. Just like lots of bands, from the Beatles to the Ladybug Transistor: this is sort of stage-musical dreamyland pop, a very knowing Apollonian construction of pop conventionals, not some real-world Dionysian thing. Which is why the Dukes of Stratosphear make a good shortcut to what the band’s all about: these are three guys who happily made up a corny alter-ego just to do really superb and only occasionally goofy pastiches of psychedelic pop.

For what it’s worth, I like XTC quite a lot, and I wouldn’t recommend English Settlement as a starting point. I’d recommend Drums and Wires and Skylarking.

And 'funk' isn't really something I've ever associated with them, in any phase.

uh, yes somebody did. and i just quoted them in my previous post. (and again, sasha frere jones has defended xtc to me as a funky band as well. i don't really care whether you think funk has nothing to do with xtc; some people clearly disagree with you. and i answered them.) and ALL of the bands relate to the music being discussed, or I would not have mentioned them. (and my memory IS crappy sometimes. though apparently not as crappy as your reading comprehension.)

But hey, go nuts. You tell those people (all one of them on this thread) that XTC is NOT funky! YEAH!

Two of which I mentioned on this thread before anybody else had, but since I was obviously just picking random bands out my ass who have NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH XTC (even though ALL of the bands I named have a fairly similar aesthetic to XTC, i.e.: jagged or ornate artiste pop songs with wacky lyrics, more or less -- plus almost all of them are British, as I recall, oops fuck you), I guess that's just a coincidence. (Hell, if saying XTC isn't funky offends people 'cause nobody would ever think to call XTC funky in the first place, I'll just say XTC never seemed very SMART to me, either. But now I guess people will tell me nobody ever thought XTC were smart! I can't win.)

yeah, that's totally what I think of when I hear the names Molly Hatchet, SuperTramp, and Dead or Alive. (clue: this is sarcasm) Carry on...

I think this gets at a lot of what I like about the XTC songs I like. I love the brief guitar "solos," if you can call them that, on a song like "Ten Feet Tall." Actually, it kind of reminds me of the solos you get on the first side of the Velvet Underground's The Velvet Underground.

Much of the time I like them in spite of their quirkiness, which probably makes me less than a true XTC fan. I like them primarily for narrowly musical reasons (and because the fun things they do musically also move me), and because I do like many of the lyrics, at least in bits and pieces. The lyrics usually make plenty of sense to me, and on English Settlement, I like the way, for instance, "Yacht Dance" picks up the same themes as "Sense Working Overtime."

I don't know if I'd called them funky (and I am less and less sure I even know what funky means--I think I go for a different type of rhythm than what funk is about), but I think they are very strong rhythmically at times. It's not just a matter of melody.

spill it. Oh, Chuck, fwiw, Colin Moulding is a huge Free fan.

Smart? I don't know. I would like to see you argue your way out of saying "XTC aren't anal enough".

x-post

Speaking of relevant bands: Stump! I feel a grand convergence between A Fierce Pancake and like Black Sea / bits of Drums and Wires.

I think we can grant Chuck's point that XTC were never particularly funky, let it die, and instead focus on this: the words don't make sense? Whuh? If anything this band's main word-problem has been making a little too much sense.

I'm with Nitsuh, I couldn't disagree more - Partridge is a fan-fucking-tastic lyricist, and even their psyched-out imagery at least fits the music.

It *should* be what you think of when you hear Supertramp, since it's exactly what Supertramp (as influenced by late '60s Beatles as XTC, and with their best album the same year as *Drums and Wires*) did. Dead Or Alive and the other '80s MTV Brit dance bands I named (ABC, A Flock of Seagulls, Frankie Goes to Hollywood) evolved out of the dance oriented Brit new wave XTC were part of circa 1979, and all made it dancier and more propulsive. Molly Hatchet were mentioned as a parenthetical aside in the post expressly to suggest that artsy British pop was hardly the funkiest white pop music around during the time XTC were doing their most rhythmic work. So yeah, again, they all had something to do with the subject at hand. Sorry if I didn't lead you by the hand explaining that step by step the first time.

That's weird, I heard the same thing (on Skylarking) (while stoned) (the first song is called "Grass!"). Skylarking still feels like a big terrific musical to me, not least because the songs clearly describe a life cycle. (I've always wondered about the notes crediting Rundgren with the "sequencing concept" or something of that sort; clearly it went from the lyrics up!) (This is also why the substitution of "Dear God" bothers me --- not just because "Mermaid Smiled" is way way better but because that it completely alters the mood of the life cycle to put a moment of religious crisis in there instead.)

Another interesting reference point: Partridge vs. Costello. (Up through "10,000 Umbrellas" vs. The Juliet Letters!)

In fact, you could almost say their sense was working overtime! (But I couldn't.) (I do think dleone's "not anal enough" comment was pretty funny, though. And no, I can't make that argument, either.)

cavalcade of x-posts

re: robyn

A thousand pardons on Summer's Cauldron, yo. And I certainly don't forget "Sacrificial Bonfire"; I just always get distracted by "Dying" first. Colin's songs have an especially Muppetty quality that's sometimes just wrong (by the Apple Venuses he was turning into the High Llamas in a really bad way) and sometimes sweet -- Bonfire's on the way-good side.

...And PLEASE, don't let's start that old "Bob Seger, funky or not?" farce again! There's no convincing anyone who hasn't heard his old stuff, it's a futile argument.

Oh yeah, wait, wasn't XTC's second album a dub record? I'd totally forgotten about that. Did they ever pick up on that, or did they just abandon it? I guess I think of them as getting way LESS fun over the years, just like the Police (whose first three albums hit me as even more fun than the first three XTCs, which it may surprise people to hear that I actually DO like regardless.) Anyway, their career progressions seem very similar to me. As they got older and more pretentious, they retreated from energy and rhythm and boucing around... Either way, why did both bands decide as they got older that their experimentation would involve melodies more than rhythm, and would have more in common with, say, Yes (or, I dunno, Gershwin or somebody -- you tell me) than with Lee Perry? Or is that only my imagination? And if not, am I the only person here bugged by it??

* Runs for cover *

* Adds disclaimer that he is not an XTC expert *

there are "vague jamaicanisms" spread throughout all their early work.

Don't make me start writing lists!!!

Is the first one? (Oddly, for a long time the main commercial new wave radio show in Detroit was called "Radios in Motion"!) I haven't listened to the first or second one for ages, and now I kinda want to (maybe even the fourth; I liked "Generals and Majors" okay.) Anyway, I could have sworn that one of those early records had a bunch of dub versions on it. But, though I'm sure Shakey will think I'm just being falsely modest and shticky again (hey, it's FUN shtick! and hardly my only one!!), maybe my memory's just wrong. It's been a while.

Scott, I think I frequently *equate* "whimsy" with "pretension." (I have really never been a huge whimsy fan, I have to admit.)

It did. You're thinking of this:

http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=UIDMISS70406171620380159&sql=A2ju67ub070jk

Yeah, I actually remember that album having fairly pretty melodies when it came out, but then I forgot about it. I should play it back to back with the first Stackridge album sometime and see what happens. (But first I have to track down a copy of Stackridge!) (Plus, obviously I don't think "pretentious" equals "bad" per se'. And I LIKE Yes and lots of prog rock. Maybe even more than Lee Perry, when you get down to it. But Yes had a better rhythm section and a better singer than XTC, I think.)

Well, it seems to me that, on Synchronicity and Ghost in the Machine, Sting was really doing the former at least as much as the latter. But of course there's no way to know anybody's intentions.

there's a whole cult thing
built around partridge bad luck,
battles with stage fright--

I just like the songs,
some are funny some are not,
too many lyrics

You're related to Emperor Joseph, aren't you.

I think they could sound sorta fat. There is some stuff I remember from Mummer that is kinda big and fat.

2. Being eccentric--Are they as enjoyably and interestingly eccentric as either Kate Bush or Peter Gabriel?

Peter Gabriel = interestingly eccentric?

If by "interestingly eccentric" you mean "dull as dishwater," then perhaps I see what you're saying. On the other hand I'd be just as confused since Kate Bush is called the same thing in that statement.

I [heart] XTC, though I don't think there's much I could say that hasn't already been said on this thread.

Right, IMO the Police achieved a very tricky balance of eclecticism and well-crafted pop songwriting on GitM, but from there the band (and later, Sting solo) got progressively middlebrow and "tasteful". Sting also got progressively more popular, at least for a while. XTC on the other hand, at about the same time, somewhere between Black Sea and English Settlement, got near the same balance, but ended up getting progressively less popular, emphasizing their idiosyncrasies and eventually settling into some kind of insular, baroque anglo-pop. Personally, I like latter day XTC, but there was a fork in the road circa 1981, and they took the path less traveled (and consequently, less followed).

all people with a soft spot for the Beatles and the Kinks type of music will migrate to XTC with little pain.

Many things can be said about XTC, but for me to simplify it as much as is humanly possible: well-written, hoppy-boppy, finger-snappin', sing-along, quality, tap-your-foot POP SONGS, which 99 times out of a 100 are written by British artists. XTC fall well in line with this. Tim, have you heard "Life Begins at The Hop"? If you tell me you can sit still to that, then you might as well forget about XTC altogether.

In another XTC thread, I said Skylarking is the best Beatles-influenced album that has ever or will ever be made. Period.

English Settlement was honestly THE most difficult XTC album for me. I bought it a long time ago, sold it, and only tried to get into it again years later after I'd already gotten into ALL their other albums, and I still found it difficult. It frankly pains me to think an XTC novice would be using it as a starting point.

Ned, thanks so very much for clearing up the 'dub experiments' confusion without me having to explain it. I came across that CD quite innocently while on my XTC fanatic phase and was totally floored by that CD. I do NOT think it sounds "dub" in the sense of "reggae", nor do I believe it was even meant to imply as such. I also think this CD ["Explode Together: The Dub Experiments 78-80"] should NOT even be thought of next to the rest of XTC's stuff. For me it was a totally different thing, nearly a different band, but as I said, my jaw dropped nonetheless. Anyone who likes obscure weird post-punk stuff like me should check this CD out regardless of what you might think of XTC. It's a whole different ballgame!

arrgh ILMers sending me on a mini-XTC trip when I've got so much other new music to listen to...arrggghhh do you people never quit?

Actually, Guided By Voices and Elephant 6 bands might be even better examples. {And honestly, I don't believe any of this music (including XTC) really sounds much like the Kinks --who I often love -- at all.}

or XTC and Peter Gabriel

or XTC and Kate Bush.

Though I love Gabriel and Bush in their own ways.

Damn, man. It's not like we're talking about Marshall Crenshaw. Did Fuzzy Warbles make you that bitter?

Fruit Nut
the Affiliated (Dukes of Stratosphear)
Earn Enough For Us
Respectable Street
Love on a Farmboys Wages

Dude, where do you think they recorded Apple Venus? ;)

* still remaining open-minded! *

xpost

The Kingsmen sounded like the Kinks sometimes. So did Slade. Even AC/DC. But I don't think anybody sounds like them very often. I think they're an easy crutch used by people who want to describe so-called "pop" bands who sound "British" and "vaguely '60s" and, um, "ornate." (So are the Beatles.) I've never heard an XTC song as pretty as "Waterloo Sunset." (I guess part of it is, it seems bizarre to me to act like the Kinks or Beatles sounded just ONE way.)

Actually, Guided By Voices and Elephant 6 bands might be even better examples. {And honestly, I don't believe any of this music (including
XTC) really sounds much like the Kinks --who I often love -- at all.}

-- chuck (cedd...), June 28th, 2004.

Yeah, but a lot of these bands weren't very good at it. I think XTC were pretty good at it. That's the difference for me.

xtc:kinks::whitesnake:led zeppelin, maybe

I just realized that REM is totally XTC now in that no-drummer-lets-get-crazy-with-the-Sgt.-Pepper-bullshit way.

(x-post!)

well, they were two late '70s, early '80s bands who were very enamored of the kinks and wished they could be just like them. so it makes total sense that those two bands would end up having more in common with each other than either one had with the kinks.

xpost

i like the jam quite a bit, but paul weller couldn't hold a candle to ray davies as a lyricist. paul weller was one of the clunkiest lyricists britain ever produced as far as i can tell. he sort of got away with it because the lyrics sort of matched his clunky cockney singing voice, but i think they might sound truly awful coming out of the mouth of a good singer like ray davies.

(and i repeat: i actually like the jam.)

I think this same statement applies completely and thoroughly to XTC, too, and is one reason for their appeal.

Less funky than ABC or Dead or Alive or A Flock of Seagulls or Frankie Goes to Hollywood or any of those guys, obviously.

XTC's is a different, more organic, more submerged, subverted funk -- the groups you mention use driving drum-machine four-to-the-floor rhythms, which yeah obviously are "danceable," but does that automatically make them funky? XTC make you feel the offbeats; how is that not funk?

A Flock of Seagulls: A-
Listen: B+

Black Sea: B+
English Settlement: B+
Mummer: B-

Why, it's Robert Christgau!

Listen = A+

Moderator-don't let GBV and F.L. fans see these posts.

My favourite XTC moment is the first 4 songs from English Settlement. You'd be hard pressed to find an album which starts off with 4 better and more appropriately programmed songs.

Although he recorded "Drums and Wires" perfectly nicely, you can hear Lillywhite's increasingly bad sonic habits (cf. "War", "Steeltown") coming to the fore on "Black Sea".

Although "English Settlement" documents the band's recovery from drums-far-too-loud syndrome, full recuperation (or abreaction) resulted in the genius Chambers losing his essential place within the XTC gestalt.

Which is a bit less gestalty than it used to be. Obviously.

XTC fans go shopping!

*lift hands in confusion*

Guys! What's up with THAT?"

= summary of this thread.

Anyways, it was one of those rare first listens that vindicates the time and money that is put towards finding and buying dozens (hundreds?) of lesser musiks in the hopes that there is something like this somewhere out there. Any suggestions as to where to turn next? I suppose more 80's xtc would be a good place to start, but other bands/albums?

Merci.

Finally!

I picked up Drums and Wires a few days ago, and I'm glad I made one more attempt with XTC. I don't know what happened in the 3 years between Drums and Wires and English Settlement, but if "Complicated Game" were to get into a schoolyard fight with a song like "Senses Working Overtime" (which I like, even), the latter would get bloodied and then have to watch his girlfriend make out with "Complicated Game".

Great song, great album. I also bought Black Sea, but I think I'm going to listen to Drums and Wires again first.

'Complicated Game' is one of my favourite XTC songs, and one of their most underrated, period. Does the quiet to loud thing better than just about anything else, has great lyrics, and sports some truly unhinged guitar work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9GIxfbfob0

the bonus tracks on the Black Sea CD are seriously incredible. "Smokeless Zone" sounds not just weird but utterly unique, unlike anything else I've ever heard, while remaining effortless and extremely fun; "Don't Lose Your Temper" has a guitar line that puts a smile on my face every time I hear it and is possibly better than anything on the album proper. especially after the rather dour "Travels in Nihilon", those tracks are like perfect little blobs of sunshine-flavored jello (wait, what the fuck?).

Actually, the best thing about the song is Partridge's delivery of the final, climactic 'God asked me...' verse. It's perfect, and I don't think vocal echo/multi-track has ever worked more splendidly. Repeat after me: RightRaRightRaRightRaRightRaRightRightRight!

OMG bryson strikes! "Smokeless Zone" is my favourite track off Black Sea (with the possible exception, and here's where you LOSE, of "Travels In Nihilon")! You forgot "The Somnambulist", btw, which still scares the living crap outta me.

I wasn't counting "The Somnambulist" because I'm still not sure what to make out of it. it's sort of like those bonus tracks at the end of the notwist's Neon Golden, in that it's good, but so distinct in sound and mood from the rest of the album that it almost feels more like commentary than music.

an old friend asked on fb which album his friends had owned the most copies of (in various formats), and my answer was XTC's Oranges & Lemons. i hadn't listened to it in a long time, so i pulled it out and listened to it in the car today.

to explain the appeal of XTC the first time they appealed to me is pretty easy: i was 12, they were weirder than anything i had heard before, they sang about politics and how horrible people are, they welcomed me into the garden of earthly delight, funny songs about love and genitals, their songs were catchy and not all the same, they weren't scary, and nobody else i knew had any idea who they were.

i vividly remember seeing them perform on MTV, which is what made me want to buy the album the first time. now that it's 2017, i remembered that i can see if that performance is on youtube and it is! i also found my 8th grade yearbook last week at my parents' house and i think XTC saved me from developing into a boring conformist.

all that from this performance of "scarecrow people", the song i remember liking when i saw this, probably sitting at home by myself bored and watching mtv
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI8MalyCCGU

i calculated incorrectly -- i was 13 but the sentiment remains true

They're radio promo tour for O & L boots are pretty dope. Fun banter and slick guitar inter-play ...

Their - duh

man, wish I had a cool story like that. mine is I heard "Generals and Majors" on internet radio and then had to play it 10 more times, and eventually wondered what their other music was like

I honestly can't remember what my first exposure to them was. "Skylarking" was the first album I bought, but prior to that I was def familiar with Senses Working Overtime and a few other singles thanks to 91X airplay.

For me, it was just a case of knowing their two most well known tracks well ('Making Plans For Nigel' and 'Senses Working Overtime') and then checking out the albums to see if the rest of the stuff was any good. It was.

my memory of seeing that performance always made me doubt my sanity -- did it even happen? did i dream it up? i'm glad to realize i wasn't imagining it. such a great album all the way through.

at the time i was into INXS, REM, etc (lol) but also had one Cure album -- as a littler kid I loved The Beatles and XTC was the most appealing combo of modern humor and topical subject matter + well-crafted Beatley songs. i also hated Reagan and nuclear bombs so the political songs resonated a lot. i feel fortunate to have had nothing better to do that evening than watch tv by myself.

eventually i found Skylarking at the library.

Was 15, had seen them on Urgh! and then noticed cheap cassette of English Settlement at rockheads in downtown St. Paul (the version without Africa, cockpit, leisure etc on it-- I still don't like those songs being there). Loved it right away. The year after, Skylarking came out and became the huge album of my circle of high school friends.

I doubt I'm the only one that discovered them this way, but They Might Be Giants have a song called "XTC vs Adam Ant" and I was at the age where I was just starting to learn about music not on the radio and would check out literally any band I heard about. Also got into Adam Ant that way, but he is not as much a fave

about a year and a half ago a good friend of mine made a very passionate and long post on FB explaining why, "after 20 years of near constant music consumption," he'd concluded XTC was his favorite band ever, for all the reasons we know... i was in new york and about to go to Other Music so i picked up Mummer and The Big Express there. ended up being my last visit there before it closed.

the O&L radio tour is sweet. the way their guitars blend on Love on a Farmboy's Wages - oh man

https://youtu.be/cTtFTHI7Or0?t=20m13s

I doubt I'm sure I'm the only one that discovered them this way, but it was on the 1982 WOMAD benefit double album Music and Rhythm, which had a bunch of artists who played the first WOMAD festival and which I bought for the unreleased Peter Gabriel, Pete Townshend and Jon Hassell tracks. It also had "It's Nearly Africa," which I completely flipped out over.

Bought English Settlement a few weeks later and flipped out 14 more times (see, 'cause there's a total of 15 tracks). By the time Mummer came out a year later, I had bought every album and most of the singles, EPs and side projects (with a big thank you to the late lamented Venus Records on 8th St. in NYC).