XTC - Mummer Poll

It absolutely is their best, *vigorous nodding*

"love on the farmboy's wages" is the only one in my personal xtc canon, but i haven't listened to this album in a long while

This is a good record, but I find it kind of "effortful" to listen to. Partridge's attention to detail was on its way to occasional fussiness, and Moulding's offerings aren't the best this time. "Toys" from the b-sides would have been a good addition, more straightforward pop than most of the tracks.
I think I'm voting "Great Fire" because of the way that the song somehow manages to combine a life-and-death situation with psychedelic and historical whimsy without being tacky. In fact it combines both of those facets wonderfully. I wonder if the Elements suite from Smile was on their mind (more than usual).

Haven't heard this album in years but remember there being several especially annoying Andy Partridge songs on it. Going to listen to it tonight.

"Funk Pop a Roll" sounds like the stuff he criticizes.

He had already been poisoned by this industry.

XP - Yeah, I think he hoped that would be some sort of trojan horse.

https://i.imgur.com/iovQ77p.jpg
50. Beating Of Hearts (644 points, 9 votes, 1 No. 1 vote))

That was my #1 vote in the XTC poll.

Oh boo

https://i.imgur.com/iovQ77p.jpg

Phenomenal and essentially flawless album by basically my favourite band - picking a favourite isn't easy. And yes the B-sides are excellent too, including the two funny electronic ones.

Early new wavey XTC is my XTC, so a lot of this stuff tends to get lost to me. But listening again just now, I am reminded how much I've always liked "Love on a Farm Boy's Wages" (the, yes, fussiness of the rest of the album tried my patience by the end).

"Wonderland" is a dress rehearsal for Skylarking.

I love "Great Fire," "Love on a Farmboy's Wages," "Ladybird," and "...Elements."

I don't get the fussiness remarks but I will say that side one is better than side two, marginal though the gap is imo. Beating of Hearts-Wonderland-Wages-Great Fire is a great 1-2-3-4 punch and those are probably my favourite tracks, before (if you will) the weightier slower mid-section (Elements and Alchemy might not be near their strongest lyrically but I love the lopsided rhythms and weird arrangements; from one angle they're as close to Tin Drum as it gets).

I was at Fossil Fool's final ever gig a few years ago and they did more than half of Mummer. I was amazed especially at how they nailed Beating of Hearts, it really was cough ahem 'just like the record'.

Fools* even

"Wonderland" doesn't sound like Skylarking IMO, except maybe "Another Satellite"

The clutter starts on the next album.

"Wonderland" doesn't sound like Skylarking IMO,

I meant its electro-pastoral overtones.

Ladybird is the one that sounds like it ought to be on Skylarking really

The opening four tracks really are hard to beat. On revisiting today I let out an audible "Yesssss!" when Great Fire came on, so i think that's the one.

After that things get abstract and atmospheric for the most part, but it's a nice diversion

"Human Alchemy" is wonderfully strange.

"Human Alchemy" sounds like a Rude Goldberg machine, every tumbling drum hit or weird vocal sample or shaker sound seeming to set off something else. And I love the low-lead-vocal even-lower-backing-vocal effect.

Rube* even

Track from this era that's secretly a bit proto-Big Express is "Procession Towards Listening Land" which has something in common with the screeching harmonica on "Reign of Blows". I don't know if it's merely dissonant or approaching something like microtonality (I have a tin ear to picking that apart) but it is very beautiful and odd. There wasn't much more of this kind of thing from them.

Learning* even (idk if I'm tired or what. more awake later perhaps)

I'm going to give this a listen tonight. My long-held opinion on it is that the first side is near perfect and that side two is largely forgettable
We'll see if that changes

despite being a big fan of the band, i've never come around on this or Big Express being as good as what came before or after them. they're fine, the songs are all pretty good, i know them, but i don't really love any of them. i haven't revisited in quite a few years though, so i will do so. "deliver us from the elements" plays best here from my mind jukebox

I remember listening to the album one time when I was in bed with the flu, and the final swirling minute of "Deliver Us" felt like it went on for half an hour.

The album that escapes me most is English Settlement

now that one's busy

English Settlement, which is still a top 5 XTC for me, is also the only one between 79 and 86 where I think 'okay yeah you could lose a song here no harm' (that song being Leisure).

Seems to be especially highly regarded in the US that one.

"Senses Working Overtime" a big college radio hit iirc

I love "Funk Pop a Roll", but what a weird song to close THIS album. I thought the label made them put it on, but Andy describes it more as a foreshadow of the next album. Voted "Love on a Farmboy's Wages", seems more in line with the mood they were going for

they should've worked with Bill Laswell and Nile Rodgers like everyone else

Funk Pop a Roll is in the tradition of dissonant noisy album closers where Andy vexes about the record biz and/or getting older

voted wonderland

Love that track.

I have this Japanese copy of English Settlement that is just a single disc: it ditches Leisure, It's Nearly Africa, Knuckle Down, Fly On The Wall, and Down In The Cockpit. Works okay.

Unfortunately "Melt the Guns" is still on it then.

All of those except Leisure and maybe Knuckle Down are among the most fun XTC songs to sing

The split between the first and second halves of English Settlement came into their own at the (oh yes) XTC convention 2022 when the album was playing to and from the energetic coachride to Uffington White Horse. Second half just has amazing energy for that sort of sojourn. "English Roundabout" happened to be playing as we passed through the Magic Roundabout, perfect synchronicity.

As recounted in various XTC threads English Settlement (American version) is where I got on board. Played the cassette to death in my car. Backtracked and bought Black Sea and was possibly even more smitten.

So I was very eagerly awaiting Mummer, got it on the day of release from the record store I worked at. Proceeded to play that one repeatedly as I had the others. And… it never reached the heights for me that those others did. Some great tracks though. Side 1 >>>>> Side 2.

I have not listened to this in 20 years or more. Will revisit.

After giving it another listen I still think it’s very front loaded. Good record though. Ended up voting for Wonderland

"Love on a Farmboy's Wages" is a moment of Partridge absolutely peaking in terms of subject and mood and structure all just locking together, architecturally perfect, it's constructed so well. For some reason I voted for "Wonderland" anyway, but as soon as I started typing a post I half-regretted it. (I think Moulding songs turn out well when the sound of them really leans into the oddly slow and spacey way he writes melodies, and apart from "Dying" I'd say "Wonderland" might be a prime example of that. His melodies are genuinely strange, they'll often move in these big simple Fisher-Price steps, which in the right context feels stately or psychedelic, but in the wrong one feels almost dopey.)

LOAFBW wouldn't be half as good were it not for the "And it's breaking my back..." middle eighth

I listened to the whole of English Settlement and it is half amazing, half a bit on the silly side like Blur B-sides or something

The two pop songs on this album are unimpeachable: Wonderland and LoaFW, however I'm voting for Ladybird.

first three songs on this are some of the band's best work ever, rest is pretty good too I guess. this album really grew on me. will also say this has the best bonus tracks of any XTC album - "Toys", "Jump", Gold", some interesting instrumental stuff...all lumped into the middle of the CD for some reason?

yeah agree those three bonus tracks are some of their best, up there with the ones on Drums and Wires. in Mummer's case, better than a few of the proper tracks imo

Bit of an awkward middle child of an album. Never understood the love for Great Fire — quite obviously an attempt to write Senses Working Overtime Part Deux, with predictably diminishing returns. Ladybird suffers from Andy’s fault of over-straining for rhymes and stretching a conceit til it breaks. Funk Pop is ruinous. Most of the other songs are alright. But, by XTC standards, not much more than that. BoH and Farmboy are the standouts for me. Love Colin’s attempt at a Complicated Game/Travels in Nihilon in DUFtE.

Voted Beating of Hearts. Wonderful album opener.

Great Fire took a long time to click for me but it's what I voted for. "What if George Harrison wrote a song for the second side of Remain In Light?" almost nails the concept.

For one it's the sheer drama of the thing, especially knowing a bit of background Partridge's life at the time.

Second off, the structure is so unusual and the way it works with the instrumentation. So many interlocking parts. The strings are really impressive - everything from Eastern-inspired bowed sounds to plucked pizzicato violins. I don't know how they figured it out but it DOES sound like a barn that's on fire (echoes of the Beach Boys' "Mrs Oh Leary's Cow?"). The lumbering drums, the scratch-slide on the guitar, the key shift towards the end "Great fire burning---GREAT FIRE BURNING THROUGHHHH!". From a little spark to structural timber falling over.

I don't know how they figured it out but it DOES sound like a barn that's on fire

To me this is the band's secret sauce; they make songs that sound like things, not just other songs. I loved reading that book where Andy goes song by song and details why he made the decisions he did - he's a true believer in the idea that songs ought to sound somewhat like their title. Skylarking is a masterclass in this obviously.

OTM. Yes im sure I've heard him speak on this one too. It's so obviously what music should be about but few are able to nail it

Like, yes, if there is a rock band whose lyrics and music sync well enough for me to have a clear image in my head of how the scene looks, it's XTC.

I know exactly what the cauldron in Summer's Cauldron looks like.
I can see the many umbrellas opening and pirouetting around each other when I hear 1000 Umbrellas
Love On A Farmboy's wages is a vividly pre-industrial scene of haybales and frolicking. It all works so well together

"What if George Harrison wrote a song for the second side of Remain In Light?" almost nails the concept.

wow, sure does

amusingly Big Express takes this a little too far, with all the donkey & seagull noises and the final track sounding like a train rambling along and then screeching to a halt - all that stuff is kinda cool of course but a little heavy handed. while Ballet for a Rainy Day just has that subtle melancholy to it, nails the feeling of staring out the window completely

I think one reason XTC songs sound like things because, at least where Andy's concerned, those are the evocations he gets when fiddling around chords and something locks into place and then the song often builds from that.

One demonstration is there in his 'How Easter Theatre Came to Be'. He talks about how moving his hand around the guitar made him go from 'earthy' to 'the earth descending' to plants pushing up through the ground etc etc, and this is what ended up governing the whole song thematically. The power of auditory synesthesia I guess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5QFj7mYSLc