XTC

[Darrell]

Yeah, it's just the normal single recording of it, available on the Rag And Bone Buffet and Fossil Fuel collections.

[23 Daves]

But yes, I had also really liked Generals & Majors (which got tons of Radio 1 airplay, but barely grazed the top 40 in 1980 - a year in which singles sales were abominable).   When I got Fossil Fuel (as a convenient compilation in 1996), virtually every track sounded like a top ten single.  They had one.  How does that happen?  How, when Virgin put out a singles compilation in late 1982 (the year of Senses Working Overtime), with many of the tracks never included on albums, it got to #54?

It genuinely has been a puzzlement to me for absolutely years - I used to watch the singles charts each time an XTC single was released in the mid-eighties and wonder why it wasn't high in the Top 40.  I honestly expected each one to break through despite the massive odds against it, because I didn't see how something so good and that immediate couldn't.  The only time I've really had that feeling since is when Pulp's "Bad Cover Version" failed to make any impact (oh, and when Depeche Mode's "A Question of Lust" was virtually ignored).

Apparently - if you believe the press - Andy Partridge pissed a lot of his audience and a lot of bosses at Virgin off by pulling out of touring.  The net result of this was that the label didn't promote the product as vigorously, the peak that "English Settlement" made in their chart career wasn't capitalised on, and the fans were upset at the cancelled dates.  Also, because they weren't a presence on the gig circuit, they were denied the usual route of promotion that most alternative bands have to take in lieu of airplay.

Then there's the fact that at the height of Punk/ New Wave they were never, ever a cool option - even Julian Cope sneers at them in his biography "Head On", which I find a bit galling, since I'm a fan of both artists but a far bigger fan of XTC than I ever will be of his work - they were seen as major label-sponsored frauds, fake punks.  In a sense, of course, they were.  They certainly weren't The Sex Pistols, and Swindon probably didn't seem suitably urban enough.  These days nobody gives a shit if a band is on EMI and has a carefully tacked-on Libertines style to their work, but it definitely counted for a lot once.  But for all that, XTC didn't (to my ears) sound quite like anyone else - they were closer to wanting to be early Roxy Music than The Clash to my ears (though "Radios In Motion" treads a fine line).

Then when Noo Wave bit the dust in the early eighties, I suppose they became complete and total outcasts - out of favour and out of time.  

I do not - for the life of me - understand how "Waxworks" flopped, though, especially as it came bundled with the "Beeswax" B-sides album.  That said, Pulp's singles album also peaked in the low 70s of the album chart, which is even worse and even more mysterious.  I think some marketing person from the time at Virgin must surely have an answer, but I don't have it.

And "Black Sea"... it's just fantastic from start to finish.  Franz Ferdinand would kill for the songs and rhythms on that album.

I'm not really answering anyone's questions here, I'm just thinking aloud.  Sometimes life just isn't fair.

[mayer]

Ah, no worries.

I've been meaning to get some XTC stuff. A friend lent me White Music when I was about 16, and I didn't really like it. A stuttering mess I thought. But whilst I remember not liking it, from what I remember about what it sounds like I think it'd be right up my street these days.

[Rich]

My favourites are Skylarking, Black Sea and Nonsuch.  Honorable mentions for English Settlement and Apple Venus, slightly less honorable mentions for Oranges and Lemons, Wasp Star and Mummer (I'm not sure why Mummer isn't regarded so well), but  White Music and Drums and Wires on the whole leave me a little cold.  I've not heard Go2 or The Big Express.  I also bought Chips from the Chocolate Fireball, which I like, but can't help feeling I won't fully appreciate without working my way back though 30 years of preceding musical history.  What a band though.

[trotsky assortment]

I think everyone in this thread who's able, should sit down tomorrow evening with 'Black Sea'...  ;o)

[Sadness]

Playing "BLACK SEA" now Trotsky!! Awesome and the future of the modern day Drum sound too. Hugh Padgham engineering and messing with microphone placement makes for one ALMIGHTY WALLOP!!

By the way "The Dissapointed" crept up to 32 in the English charts in 1992 on the back of a pretty good Ad campaign utilising Neil Kinnocks failure in the British 1992 elections. It was a pretty glum picture of Kinnock with the wording....."HE IS.....ARE YOU? - "THE DISSAPOINTED by XTC - OUT NOW".

[Marginal & Troublesome]

Sometimes life just isn't fair.

Sums it up nicely!

I think everyone in this thread who's able, should sit down tomorrow evening with 'Black Sea'...  ;o)

I'll be listening to it when I'm driving around this afternoon.  Even Sgt. Rock!

[trotsky assortment]

I think everyone in this thread who's able, should sit down tomorrow evening with 'Black Sea'...  ;o)

I'll be listening to it when I'm driving around this afternoon.  Even Sgt. Rock!

Well, he is the expert at kissing and stuff...

*Ahem* - yes, well...enough of that.  I'm spinning 'Black Sea' now, as we speak.  I was going to wait until later this evening, but what the hell...I may even play it again then.

I can see it now...
'So, mate, what eductional purpose did you use the internet for today?'
'Well, I tried to organize a mass simultaneous listening of XTC's 'Black Sea'.

[23 Daves]

Continuing my probably unwelcome rant, does it strike anyone else as strange that their biggest hit was "Senses Working Overtime"? It's not a bad single, but it's far from their best or even their most commercial - the bleakness of the verses in particular (and not to mention the sinister sounding crows on the fade-out) is never good for me if I'm in the wrong mood.  I'm sure if you spoke to most casual listeners, they'd namecheck "Making Plans for Nigel" or even "Generals and Majors" over that track.

"English Settlement" was their biggest album in the UK as well, and that's not exactly "pop!" either.   It's a funny old world.

[trotsky assortment]

I still wonder what the verses of 'Senses Working Overtime' might've been like if Andy Partridge hadn't had writers' block and just glued that magical chorus to those miserable sounding verses he had kicking around for another song.  

I imagine the end result would have been even more jollying than 'Radios In Motion' or 'Love At First Sight'.

[ninestonecreature]

Playing "BLACK SEA" now Trotsky!! Awesome and the future of the modern day Drum sound too. Hugh Padgham engineering and messing with microphone placement makes for one ALMIGHTY WALLOP!!

I too had it on this morning, on my way to work. It is a fucking astonishing sounding record, and still sounds fresh as a daisy. Some of it's heavy as fuck too- 'Travels in Nihilon' is almost apocalyptic (particularly love Colin's bass on that track).

Yep, I'd put Black Sea up there alongside Skylarking, Nonsuch and Apple Venus as one of their finest works. Oranges and Lemons, in spite of its intelligence and inventiveness and it containing some of my favourite tracks ('The Mayor of Simpleton' is perfect pop), leaves me a bit cold- I think it's down to Paul Fox's production, which lacks warmth and dates the record slightly. Nonsuch also suffers a little on the production side of things (and I recall reading that Partridge was less than pleased with the final mix), but is more consistent in terms of material.

[Duffy]

Thanks for that mpeg, Neil! Superb quality.

*bump*

So does anyone have any interesting XTC or XTC-related audio rarities that they could post up here? Agony Andy, The Dukes on Saturday Live, Andy Partridge on Roundtable, non-LP b-sides, that sort of thing?

I've a few demos that Partridge gave to a former colleague of mine for helping him out some years back. It'll take me a couple of days to sort 'em out. Meanwhile, I have a fairly decent recording of that Radcliffe interview I could post up.

[The Mumbler]

I do not - for the life of me - understand how "Waxworks" flopped, though, especially as it came bundled with the "Beeswax" B-sides album.  That said, Pulp's singles album also peaked in the low 70s of the album chart, which is even worse and even more mysterious.  I think some marketing person from the time at Virgin must surely have an answer, but I don't have it.

Mark Sturdy's Truth & Beauty biog, which is surprisingly impressive considering that no-one in the group gave a first-hand interview, suggested that, effectively, Pulp's "greatest hits" album was Different Class.  I understand that argument, really - it was really the only time the band's sales ventured beyond a core fanbase.  This Is Hardcore basically sold fewer copies than His N Hers.  

Waxworks was released in the rush of pre-Christmas compilations leading up to the end of 1982, so that would partly explain its poor chart showing - except why did Squeeze's Singles 45s & Under compilation (another band who constantly missed high chart positions with ridiculously catchy singles) then shoot to number three during exactly the same period?

Airplay was always a funny thing with XTC.  Radio 1 played them loads circa Black Sea (apart from Respectable Street, of course), but the only time I ever heard Wonderland was when ITV, during a break in daytime TV, played the video incessantly over a few weeks in July/August 1983.  Farmboy's Wages, Pretty Girls and This World Over were played constantly by R1 breakfast DJ Mike Read - he even made the last of those three his Single Of The Fortnight in Smash Hits (October 84).  I heard him play Grass a lot when he was doing Sunday mornings in 1986.  By the time of Mayor Of Simpleton, I had my first record shop job, and was stunned at how such a catchy single with almost comically high airplay levels could peak at 46.  And we were a chart return shop.  I played that CD single to death in the shop...

As for The Disappointed, the only DJ I knew who championed it was Danny Baker on Radio 5's Morning Edition.  Every morning for weeks.

[23 Daves]

Mark Sturdy's Truth & Beauty biog, which is surprisingly impressive considering that no-one in the group gave a first-hand interview, suggested that, effectively, Pulp's "greatest hits" album was Different Class.  I understand that argument, really - it was really the only time the band's sales ventured beyond a core fanbase.

Even so, though... it almost didn't chart at all!  That's unfathomable to me.  Surely there were a few thousand more casual buyers out there who liked "Help The Aged", "Babies" and "Common People", but didn't own any Pulp albums?  Even Suede's Singles album fared better, a band as cultish as hell at the time who never at any point in their careers managed to outsell Pulp at their peak or have a huge crossover single.

Waxworks was released in the rush of pre-Christmas compilations leading up to the end of 1982, so that would partly explain its poor chart showing - except why did Squeeze's Singles 45s & Under compilation (another band who constantly missed high chart positions with ridiculously catchy singles) then shoot to number three during exactly the same period?

I can distinctly remember a TV advertising campaign for Squeeze's album, though, playing snippets of the choruses of each song  - and if I can remember this so many years down the line, then chances are it was on pretty heavy rotation.  And I remember thinking about buying the album purely on the strength of the advert, which is a subtle clue to its effectiveness.

Wasn't The Beautiful South's "Carry on Up The Charts" a huge success for similar TV ad reasons?  I think the record company concluded that by playing catchy snippets of their best work during certain ad-breaks, they'd accidentally reminded people of how good the band's best work could be, and created a year-end bestseller out of a CD they only expected to sell moderately well.

the only time I ever heard Wonderland was when ITV, during a break in daytime TV, played the video incessantly over a few weeks in July/August 1983.

I'm pretty sure - though not certain - that Steve Wright also played it on Radio One.  Don't hold me to that, though.  It's arguably their worst single, anyway, and one of the few I'd argue deserved to flop.  The incessant eighties keyboard riff in it is unbearable - it's the kind of thing you'd expect a band like Wang Chung to do.  I skip "Wonderland" when I play either "Mummer" or "Fossil Fuel" each and every time.

I do sometimes wonder if Virgin fucked up with marketing XTC, though.  It's the only explanation I'm left with.  And during the mid-eighties, they were a notoriously useless label to be saddled with, especially where things of an alternative hue were concerned.  They screwed up with Microdisney and That Petrol Emotion as well, though it's arguable that Microdisney messed their own careers up just by being stubborn, wilful and periodically lazy.

[The Mumbler]

Even so, though... it almost didn't chart at all!  That's unfathomable to me.  Surely there were a few thousand more casual buyers out there who liked "Help The Aged", "Babies" and "Common People", but didn't own any Pulp albums?  Even Suede's Singles album fared better, a band as cultish as hell at the time who never at any point in their careers managed to outsell Pulp at their peak or have a huge crossover single.

An exclusive track on that comp too.  And not even I bought it!  Having bought every Pulp album for ten years.  

In a funny way, I think Pulp's enormous but brief success was a litlte bit of a curse in that that success was aligned with that triumphalism of British music in 1995.  The emotion that I remember with Different Class was that, after The Great Escape (disappointing, with a few great tracks) and Morning Glory (tedious to these ears from the moment I first heard it), here was a "Britpop" album that was exciting to hear.  Along with the Saint Etienne singles compilation that came out about the same time, it was just dazzling pop music.  And although I like half of This Is Hardcore, and really rate We Love Life, it's not the same kind of pop at all.  With Different Class, you just knew any track on that could have smashed into the top five - and while, for the most part, I had given up on the idea that the charts meant anything, you'd have had to be really churlish to deny Pulp those four top ten hits, particularly the two #2 hits.

I'm sure Universal buried the compilation, ultimately.  At least they should have released The Day After The Miners Strike as a single.  Or put out Do You Remember The First Time to make it a proper hit at long last.

[The Mumbler]

Wasn't The Beautiful South's "Carry on Up The Charts" a huge success for similar TV ad reasons?  I think the record company concluded that by playing catchy snippets of their best work during certain ad-breaks, they'd accidentally reminded people of how good the band's best work could be, and created a year-end bestseller out of a CD they only expected to sell moderately well.

The bit of the story that gets forgotten with The Beautiful South was that they were played like mad by Radio 2 - from the word go.  And although their albums had been quite successful, their currency was "singles".  Didn't matter that some of them hadn't charted very highly - they were just obvious airplay favourites, really.  (I speak as no fan, incidentally, although I loved My Book, Old Red Eyes Is Back and Good As Gold.)  But I don't think anyone could have foreseen the sales for Carry On Up The Charts - I think it was one in twelve homes owned a copy or something.  Incredible sales.

[The Mumbler]

I'm pretty sure - though not certain - that Steve Wright also played it on Radio One.  Don't hold me to that, though.  It's arguably their worst single, anyway, and one of the few I'd argue deserved to flop.  The incessant eighties keyboard riff in it is unbearable - it's the kind of thing you'd expect a band like Wang Chung to do.  I skip "Wonderland" when I play either "Mummer" or "Fossil Fuel" each and every time.

I do sometimes wonder if Virgin fucked up with marketing XTC, though.  It's the only explanation I'm left with.  And during the mid-eighties, they were a notoriously useless label to be saddled with, especially where things of an alternative hue were concerned.  They screwed up with Microdisney and That Petrol Emotion as well, though it's arguable that Microdisney messed their own careers up just by being stubborn, wilful and periodically lazy.

Erm...I really liked Wonderland.  But it didn't sound like an XTC single at all. Particularly not in 1983.  

Virgin got lazy and took their eye off the ball.  Bands like The Human League, Heaven 17 and PiL became "normal", not "innovative", and ironically, the blander they got, the less successful they became.  Culture Club went from being million-sellers to white elephants within 18 months.  They started to found sideline labels like Siren, and ended up with tat like T'Pau and Cutting Crew - or Circa which had the awful Hue & Cry (but the brilliant Neneh Cherry).   And the bits of the Virgin catalogue that were really challenging - David Sylvian, Microdisney as you say, XTC - weren't promoted particularly well.   But to be honest, Virgin's biggest acts in the mid-80s were Genesis and Phil Collins.  Nuff said, really...

[trotsky assortment]

The bit of the story that gets forgotten with The Beautiful South was that they were played like mad by Radio 2 - from the word go.  And although their albums had been quite successful, their currency was "singles".  Didn't matter that some of them hadn't charted very highly - they were just obvious airplay favourites, really.  (I speak as no fan, incidentally, although I loved My Book, Old Red Eyes Is Back and Good As Gold.)  But I don't think anyone could have foreseen the sales for Carry On Up The Charts - I think it was one in twelve homes owned a copy or something.  Incredible sales.

...And of course, all the big fans bought one the week of release to make sure of getting the excellent disc of b-sides which was given away with the first batch of pressings.

[trotsky assortment]

And they took the word abortion out of Respectable Street - fine.  They left in Sony... no BBC prime time airplay there, then...

I heard the single version the other day, for the first time in ages.  I can't be 100% sure, but I think the words 'sex position' were slightly altered to either 'best position' or 'next position'.  Something wasn't quite right, anyway.

I've just heard it again.  There are three small edits:  abortion becomes absorbtion, sex postision becomes proposition and contaception has been substituted too, but I can't quite figure out the replacement word.

I'll say it again, though - 'Black Sea' is superb.  I'm in such an XTC mood again, I may even dig out 'Mummer' later - apart from 'Go2' it's the only XTC album which has passed me by, almost completely.  It's no fault of its own it's nestled between 'English Settlement' and 'The Big Express', I suppose...

[Marginal & Troublesome]

(Virgin) screwed up with Microdisney and That Petrol Emotion as well, though it's arguable that Microdisney messed their own careers up just by being stubborn, wilful and periodically lazy.

Microdisney - don't get me started!  The meagre marketing muscle of Rough Trade was fully focussed on The Smiths whilst Microdisney wilted quietly in the background.  But perhaps it was always going to be like that for the best band of the 1980's, a turgid decade which inspired those bile-bitter lyrics wrapped in such incongrously colourful sweetness.

I absolutely love their music, but it's only one or two out of the twenty or more people to whom I've played  Microdisney with serious hopes of their liking it who have enjoyed the experience.  

People, people just, people want to dream, just look at their graves and you'll see what I mean.  Let's leave them to dream...

[Marginal & Troublesome]

I still wonder what the verses of 'Senses Working Overtime' might've been like if Andy Partridge hadn't had writers' block and just glued that magical chorus to those miserable sounding verses he had kicking around for another song.

For me, the tension between the sad verses and the exuberant chorus makes the song.  You're dragged to places you'd really rather not be, but then emerge into that hyper-technicolour place (lots of synesthesia going on for me this afternoon!).  

I remember being wowed by the 12 inch single, which has a gorgeous Colin Moulding track on it - Blame The Weather, which should have been on the album.  But as it is, English Settlement doesn't quite work for me.  There are some great songs, but a few Partridge songs which are filler in their company - it makes a great 45 minute single album...

I'll get me coat again...

[23 Daves]

But as it is, English Settlement doesn't quite work for me.  There are some great songs, but a few Partridge songs which are filler in their company - it makes a great 45 minute single album...

I'll get me coat again...

Oh, I agree with you actually.  It's a very self-conscious album in places - stuff like "It's Nearly Africa" is rather too "let's drop a few world music stylings in here, chaps".  There are some wonderful moments on there, though - "Runaways", "Ball and Chain", "Snowman"... but it's not an album I return to very often.  As I said, I find it absurd that it's their best selling one in the UK.

[ninestonecreature]

Nice spanking new Partridge interview here for anyone interested:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/content/articles/2005/12/21/andy_partridge_interview_feature.shtml

[Marginal & Troublesome]

Nice spanking new Partridge interview...l

Thanks for this, ninestone!  I will attempt to locate the bits and pieces of Partridge interviews I have dotted about on tapes over the next few days.

[Pepotamo1985]

Spurred on by this thread, I dug out my moth covered, dust eaten edition of Drums & Wires and, enjoying it immensely, tracked down Black Sea. Despite the ineffably racist cover, featuring millions of chaps falling under the taxonomy of Afro-Caribbean getting burnt alive by Partridge in full Nazi regalia, I found it to be a wonderful album. Nice juxtaposition of chirpy music and blunt/disturbing lyrical subject matter. Next stop: Big Express, methinkles.

[Darrell]

Andy Partridge - 2 Rainbeau Melt

One of the new tracks off the forthcoming penultimate and final Fuzzy Warbles compilations, as played on Mark Radcliffe's R2 show a couple of months ago. It's alright I suppose.

Consider it a prologue to the CDs, which I have a horrible paranoia might be the last XTC product we ever see. Still, remastered Mummer-era demos...

[Darrell]

Actually, sod the consequences - you must hear these. 4000th post and that...

Where Did The Ordinary People Go?
(link deaded cause you can buy it on the XTC site now.)

Spiral
Say It
(For those who simply refuse to fork out cash for duplicates of albums they've already got just so they can get a URL to download two 160kbps MP3s from.)

Feel free to label the resulting folder with a depressing monicker such as 'XTC - The Complete Recordings 2001-2005'.

[12 years, 11 months old]

Thanks Darrell, there are quite a few xtc videos on this site:
http://www.youtube.com/results.php?search=xtc&search_videos=Search+Videos

[Darrell]

Thanks Darrell, there are quite a few xtc videos on this site:

http://www.youtube.com/w/Harry-Potter_Rook_XTC?v=9r-vv3JxVCU&search=xtc
Who the hell is doing that cover of Rook?! It's gorgeous!

[Ciarán2]

Is it ok to have a general XTC chat in here? When I get my iBook working again, I'll listen to those tracks. Thanks to you all.

I was listening to "English Settlement" last night and at the moment, think it's the best XTC album. There's slightly more diversity than on "Black Sea", and though I love that other XTC-envelope pushing album "Skylarking" (and I realise I am doing their Dukes of Stratosfear material a disservice by saying that), I get a bit fed up with the second half of it sometimes. I wish it all ran together like "Summer's Cauldron" and "Grass" do. I get a bit bored with the second halves of many XTC records. "Oranges and Lemons" is another. I'm not sure why that is. "English Settlement" is great throughout. I like the acoustic guitars on it, I like when XTC go acoustic. I love "Apple Venus" of course. "English Settlement" is also Andy Partridge's breakdown album isn't it? I think the chalk-marking on the cover gives the game away, that desire to go back home. Suffered from agoraphobia too, didn't he? As did Colin Mouldings wife. I identify with that although I wish I didn't. To me, "Black Sea" increasingly feels like a test-run for "English Settlement".