Instant Edification
circa 2003
XTCGreetings everyone, and a special hello to everyone who's just arrived here via Chalkhills! I had no idea that John Relph had linked to me, but now that I know, I'm finally motivated to do some serious work on this part of the site. There's more elsewhere, though, and once you've read this, I invite you to explore the rest of my humble web presence. Please? Right then. XTC, eh. How did it all happen for me? Well, I actually have quite vivid memories of hearing Senses Working Overtime on the school bus in my early years of primary school, but my discipleship commenced completely by accident at the age of 14. I had taped the Top 60 of 1990 on ABC TV's rage program - a pretty uninspiring year for chart music, and it only got worse from there (Who remembers Guru Josh? "1990s...time for the guru..." etc etc. Fortunately that was the last time he was ever heard of). Anyway, at the beginning of the tape, before the top 60 began, was a compilation of XTC videos. So of course I watched them, and thought "Hmmm...they're good...". XTC videos featured surprisingly regularly on rage, so I managed to accumulate a few more over the next few months. However at that age I had neither the means to buy their albums, nor the knowledge of where to buy them from. Fortuitously, I managed to stumble across a knackered cassette copy of English Settlement for a dollar at a swap meet. My first XTC album. About a year later I bought an ex-rental LP (!) of Black Sea, which was actually in surprisingly good condition (which led me to the sorry conclusion that it spent most of its rental life on the store shelf). Having listened to and absorbed Black Sea, I decided to seek out the remainder of XTC's catalogue (mainly due to the matter of Black Sea's engulfing brilliance, you see. Oh, and English Settlement was dead good as well). I was a little more streetwise by now, and knew which record stores were likely candidates for carrying XTC's wares. And the rest is history, except to mention that I eventually replaced my duff copies of English Settlement and Black Sea with pristine, shiny new ones. And so people, I present you with the catalogue of a band that never tours, rarely records, and yet have somehow managed to survive much longer than most of their contemporaries. After reading my reviews and listening to their music you may conclude, as I have, that the only possible explanation for their longevity is the consistently high quality of their output.
White Music (1978) It needs to be made clear, right from the outset, that this is a very different XTC to the one that now sings of maypoles and harvest festivals. XTC started off as a sparky, hyperactive, vaguely new-wavish sci-fi pop act, somewhat akin to Bis. This album is about pure fun. You will find plenty of pent-up energy within its tracks (only a few tracks exceed the three-minute mark) but don't expect to find any of the social observation, pastoralism, or even trademark Englishness which is so apparent on later albums. The CD version includes the band's first release, the 3DEP, in its entirety. Andy's Science Friction and She's So Square give little food for thought but are still quite enjoyable. Colin, on the other hand, had not developed a coherant style of his own at this stage, Dance Band being a jarring rapid-fire barrage of nonsensical lyrics. This "style" of Colin's continues throughout the tracks that were on the orginal White Music LP, with only Heatwave sounding in any way musical. Andy fares somewhat better, with the memorable singles This is Pop and Statue of Liberty among his contributions, as well as the exciting Hang On To The Night and Into the Atom Age. The main low point is All Along the Watchtower, the first - and last - time a cover version featured on an XTC album. This version, with Andy barking out the lyrics like a dying walrus, adds absolutely nothing to either Dylan's or Hendrix's version. Just to reiterate - if you are an XTC virgin, it is a very, very bad idea to kick off your collection with this album. You will get completely the wrong idea if you do. However, if you are already familiar with their later work, by all means go ahead and snap this album up. It's inconsistent, but great fun in places. Just don't expect to be able to use it as a source of deep enlightenment or anything. Go2 (1978) As this album was released in the same year as XTC's debut, and mostly written during spare moments on tour, it is no surprise that much of it has the same sparky, frantic quality of its predecessor. The key difference is that the tracks tend to be longer, more exploratory and more experimental than on White Music, hence a lower track count. The only track likely to be familiar to the casual XTC fan is Andy's single Are You Receiving Me, but Andy remains on fine form for the remainder of his contributions. Colin is mercifully beginning to develop a coherant style of his own - all of his tracks are actually listenable this time. The most notable feature of Go2 is that it is the only album containing contributions by a band member other than Andy or Colin. Former keyboardist Barry Andrews, who left the band at the end of the Go2 tour and then went on to form Shriekback, contributes Super-tuff and My Weapon. Although perfectly competent in their own right, they do not mesh well with Andy and Colin's material. Both are minimal, relatively sedate affairs that sound out of place alongside the denser, more hectic arrangements that make up the remainder of the album. I have to make mention of the album's packaging. The cover, which must the most utilitarian in recorded music history, has a black background, and the text, which is in a white typewriter font, consists entirely of a lengthy diatribe explaining to customer how they are being persuaded into buying the album! A quote - "This writing is trying to pull you in much like an eye-catching picture. It is designed to get you to READ IT. This is called luring the VICTIM, and you are the VICTIM". The inlay includes a map of XTC's hometown of Swindon courtesy of Colin, with places of villainy, virginity-loss, and hallucination all helpfully marked. For that alone the album is more than worthwhile. Thanks, Colin - if I ever go to Swindon, I'll take it with me! Drums and Wires (1979) This XTC album probably spawned more alternate versions than any other, with the possible exception of English Settlement. Here we be looking at the current CD reissue. And so it's goodbye Barry, and hello Dave Gregory, welcome to the XTC fold. The replacement of Barry with guitarist Dave Gregory signalled a marked change in direction for XTC. Gone are the epileptic electronic sections. In their place, Gregory diligently provides a lush, detailed guitar soundscape from the sidelines. Drums and Wires also marked the point at which Colin temporarily surpassed Andy as the band's most prolific hit-writer. His Making Plans for Nigel concerns a theme many of us know only too well - dominating parents who think they know what's best for us when in reality they don't have a sodding clue but by the time you realise what you're all about it's too bloody late because you're already six years into a double glazing apprenticeship or something. Less traumatic aspects of one's childhood are recalled in Life Begins at the Hop, an ode to the weekly disco at the church hall where there's "nuts and crisps and Coca-Cola on tap", but most of the guys are unable to pluck up the courage to actually ask anyone for a dance. Although Andy's contributions were of little bother to the charts, he is nevertheless on fine form. One highlight is Real By Reel, a justly paranoid account of our increasing loss of privacy that would make Thom Yorke proud. And possibly George Orwell as well. Roads Girdle the Globe seems to be a firmly tongue-in-cheek celebration of the supremacy of the motor vehicle in modern life, although considering its lyrical disjointedness I can't be totally certain about this. In conclusion a most worthy XTC album, with a couple of themes that were some years ahead of their time and a style that sits comfortably alongside the offerings of contempory indie bands. Indeed, Primus later released covers of not one, but two of the tracks from this album. Black Sea (1980) We are now beginning to stray into the part of XTC's career where albums can be justly decribed as "classics" and the songwriting abilities of Messrs Partridge and Moulding can be aptly compared with those of Lennon/McCartney and Ray Davies. However, as I was yet to thoroughly absorb myself in Beatlesque and Kinksian brilliance when I first heard this album, I did not initially draw these comparisons myself. Let's see if I can refrain from making any such comparisons here for the duration of this review. Respectable Street opens the album, a wry piece of social commentary about ostensibly upstanding people who complain about the visual and aural pollution resulting from their neighbours' daily activities, all while having more than the odd skeleton in their own cupboard. As a point of interest, I analysed this song for an English assignment back in high school, for which I scored 90%, so I presume I interpreted it correctly. Then again, perhaps I received this mark simply for being one of the few students who didn't select a Guns and Roses song. Following this is Colin's minor hit Generals and Majors, whose lyrics ("Generals and majors always seem so unhappy unless they've got a war") are still all too relevant today. The same can't quite be said for Andy's thematically similar Living Through Another Cuba, but its frantic, urgent pace succeeds in conveying the sense of extreme apprehension that existed at the height of the Cold War. The high standard set by the opening tracks is maintained for much of the remainder of the album. In No Language in Our Lungs, one can sense Andy's frustration, as a highly articulate person, of having words fail him and being unable to express himself. Towers of London boasts perhaps one the most impressive guitar riffs you are likely to hear anywhere. The only relatively weak track is Sgt Rock (Is Going to Help Me), a lightweight pop single that attracted some controversy on release, when some people interpreted its lyrics as advocating violence against women! Regrettably, as is often they way, the worst song on the album ended up becoming the biggest hit. If Black Sea is XTC's Revolver and Sgt Rock is their Yellow Submarine, then Travels in Nihilon is definitely their Tomorrow Never Knows (oh well, I almost made it). In this track we are reminded that fashions and fads have no substance, they are merely a means by which our corporate overlords can enslave us towards achieving some meaningless, and probably unattainable, ideal. English Settlement (1982) Again I need to point out that it's the CD reissue I'm looking at here, because I've seen all sorts of weirdo versions of this album in the course of my travels - some of them possibly less than legitimate (such as the one I saw that had the Rolling Stones logo on the cover). So we're dealing with a double length album here (although the CD release consists of only one disc), and we have to respond to the inevitable contention that it should have been pared down to a punchier single LP. Well, if you consult an XTC discography, you'll see that in many countries it was, due to local market conditions (double vinyl albums were notoriously difficult to sell to record stores). However, the only track on English Settlement that I wouldn't miss is Leisure - in fact I'm tempted to apply for a court order preventing Andy from coming within ten metres of a saxophone. The remainder of the tracks are at worst competent, and at best absolute gems. The pinnacle achievement of the album is track number three - Senses Working Overtime. For all too many people, this song is their one and only exposure to the brilliance of XTC. The only XTC song that is played on commercial radio and that appears on major label compilations. Catchy, hook-laden, eminently singable, Senses is a classic. Another track of special note is No Thugs in Our House, about a young boy who is a member of an extreme nationalist organisation, and his incredibly stupid parents who don't have a clue what he's up to. Further into the proceedings, Melt the Guns decrys the culture and glorification of violence in society, and pins the blame squarely where it belongs - "We've trapped the source of the plague in the land of the free and home of the brave". Colin's Fly On the Wall continues the theme Andy expressed in Reel by Real, reminding us that Big Brother is very real and is watching constantly. The most striking aspect of English Settlement is the sheer diversity of styles, encompassing quasi-punk, folk, psychedelia, even proto-world music. In addition, the variety of instrumentation (angklungs, anyone?) and the quality of songwriting rates this as one of XTC's best albums. Mummer (1983) Andy's debilitating stage fright came to a head during the English Settlement tour, when he suffered a nervous breakdown on stage in Paris and later announced that XTC would never tour again. Written during his recuperation, the mellow, introspective compositions that dominate the album were reflective of his state of mind at the time, and the themes explored and the rural-folk stylings are palpably rooted in his home territory. Mummer was a disappointment to many who had expectations of an album equalling or surpassing English Settlement in terms of levels of overall accomplishment. I would agree that, as a coherant whole, it is not one of XTC's most satisfying albums. Upon my first hearing of the album, I thought that I was listening to a drained, directionless outfit, devoid of both inspiration and energy. However, I later came to the realisation that, taken as its constituent parts, some of XTC's best songs are to be found here. Two tracks clearly stand out from the rest. One is Love on a Farmboy's Wages, a simple pastoral folk song that, in my case at least, succeeds in painting a vivid illusion of an agricultural setting, clearly bringing the lyrics to life. The other is Great Fire, a superb meshing of Beatlesque musical influences intertwined with lyrics ("Your glance, a match on the tinderwood") that can only be described as vintage Partridge. Other honourable mentions include Andy's Beating of Hearts and Colin's Deliver Us From the Elements, providing an early example of XTC psychedelia and a preview of what was to come with their releases as The Dukes of Stratosphear. Another track worthy of mention is Funk Pop a Roll, which could also be taken as an indication of things to come - in this case, the next XTC album. Loud, upbeat Funk Pop a Roll, a scathing attack on the music business, is the odd one out of Mummer's tracks, and would have been much more at home on The Big Express. However, in view of its lyrics ("Please don't listen to me/I've already been poisoned by this industry"), not to mention Mummer's poor sales, it is probably a miracle that The Big Express was ever released. Maybe the band were hedging their bets with this track. The Big Express (1984) soon! Skylarking (1986) Soon - for now, for your amusement, I present you with some reviews of its most well-known track, 'Dear God', courtesy of the "Christian" Right!
Oranges and Lemons (1989) soon! Nonsuch (1992) soon! Apple Venus (1999) soon! Wasp Star (2000) soon! |
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