TS: XTC's Black Sea vs. English Settlement

Black Sea by an absolute mile. Never understood why English Settlement is rated as one of the best XTC albums. It's not that it's a bad album but they have such better ones.

Black Sea without any hesitation or doubt. I'll always have a fondness for English Settlement because it was the first XTC album I heard in full, and thus intrigued me enough to check out the rest of the catalogue. However, while I do feel Settlement has a lot of high points (the opening three tracks are ludicrously strong, and Colin wrote two of them!), it's been a long time since I've felt like listening to the whole thing in one go, and it contains one of my least favourite XTC songs ever in 'Leisure'. 'Living Through Another Cuba' is only track on Black Sea that I would even think about skipping. It's one of my top 3 all-time favourite XTC albums, and definitely my favourite of the Chambers years.

*the only track

it contains one of my least favourite XTC songs ever in 'Leisure'

Seconded. In fact, all of side 3 can eat my poo.

Love Black Sea, and it's probably my favorite of theirs after Skylarking.

Settlement, pretty easily. Black Sea's best moment is obviously Travels In Nihilon

Melt The Guns is pretty annoying too. I was always very fond of Knuckle Down but yeah that second side isn't great. Black Sea on the other hand is one of my favourite albums of theirs, probably my third favourite after Skylarking and Drums & Wires.

how can you call a second side with one of the greatest closing one-two punches 'not great'

'it's nearly africa' and 'knuckle down' is the only moment this album even threatens to lose it, although in truth I actually kinda like Partridges aggressively politically correct, right-on steez on this album - it's emphatic enough to avoid accusations of tokenism

also Leisure is amazing

it's this album's sequel to No Language In Our Lungs, which is in fact Black Sea's best moment and maybe XTC's best song, how could I forget above, dear me

'No Language In Our Lungs' is my personal highlight of Black Sea too; to say that I don't see 'Leisure' as a sequel to it would be an incredible understatement. I'm generally in agreement with what's been said here so far: side 3 of Settlement is definitely the weakest side of the album for me; and when I seriously think about it, it's probably the worst side of vinyl XTC ever did.

I mean, look at this: 'Melt The Guns', 'Leisure', 'It's Nearly Africa', 'Knuckle Down'... sure, it's only four songs, but can anyone really think of a side of vinyl on any other XTC album that is worse than this? I sure as hell can't. For what it's worth though, I do like 'Knuckle Down' a lot.

I played in an XTC covers band for fun years ago, we did No Language and it never failed to raise the hairs on my neck at the 'I would have made this instrumental' bit, such a great song.

XP - give me those four over nearly all of Wasp Star anyday

Trying to remember what songs were inexplicably shoehorned into the Black Sea CD running order pre remastering.

Chain of Command, Smokeless Zone, The Somnambulist...err

I played in an XTC covers band for fun years ago, we did No Language and it never failed to raise the hairs on my neck at the 'I would have made this instrumental' bit, such a great song.

― MaresNest, Saturday, August 17, 2013 4:24 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, that's my favourite part of the song! Another song on Black Sea which I think has a great middle 8 is 'Burning With Optimism's Flames'... the bit where it goes "Now every biiiird and beeee just fuel the fiiiire for me... wo wo wo wo wo wo... yes yes yes yes yes yeeeees!". It just kicks the song up a notch and adds to the giddiness of it all!

xpost:

'Chain Of Command' was on the Drums & Wires reissue... Black Sea had 'Don't Lose Your Temper', which I actually really like.

One day I will get around to chopping together every one of XTC's middle eights in an extended medley.

I even prefer Black Sea to Drums and Wires.

If I ever wanted to get anyone interested in this band, I'd give them Black Sea to represent the touring years and Skylarking to represent the studio years. I think that while both of these albums are not short of "XTC quirk", they're actually two of the most accessible albums the band have made.

it contains one of my least favourite XTC songs ever in 'Leisure'

Leisure is one of my absolute favorites, like I can't think of any other song that communicates the lethargic frustration/occasional burst of angry self hatred that sitting around all day in a bedsit without a job to go to induces. The 'I'VE FORGOTTEN HOW TO USE MY LEGS' bit is one of the best XTC moments,this sense of pathetic anger you get when you spend long periods of tikme onm your own.
I can see why people might hate it, but I think it's wonderful how it's not some cathartic power cord thrash but this grating, perky music hall thing that is horribly out of tune and woozy, like the anger can't be cathartic because you've spent the last three days sitting around your house playing video games and watching TV so the anger can only come out as this pathetic self-hatred.

long periods of tikme onm your own= long periods of time on your own. Reading that b(?ack it seems quite a lot coherent than it did in my head but hopefully I kind of got acroos what I meant(?)

It's been a little while since I listened to it but I remember Black Sea being my least favourite of their early/Chambers era albums, I'm surprised to see so many people rating it over English Settlement. I still love Black Sea but stuff like Generals and Majors and Love at First Sight feels like it should have been B-sides to tracks on Drums and Wires or something, Like it's XTC by numbers or something.

Black Sea has less of the quirky/twitchy tone that makes the preceding three albums but they hadn't started writing songs as gorgeous as 'All of a Sudden' or 'Yacht Dance' yet.

I'm listening to Black Sea now and I love it and feel guilty that I was badmouthing it earlier, beacsue the thread is making me think of them as a TS thing but I love them both, sorry for sounding negative about Black Sea

I discovered XTC after being blown away by "It's Nearly Africa" on WOMAD's Music and Rhythm compilation; I love the sound of it and still think it's a great song. So English Settlement was my first XTC album and a sentimental favorite.

Black Sea's several peaks are better than anything on Settlement, but Settlement gets my vote for the expansiveness and the journey.

(I love "Melt the Guns" too--that relentless rimshot rhythm and crack production tickles my ears enough to not care about obvious lyrics or a super-yelpy Partridge.)

^^largely agree

Eight Model Play on Leisure totally OTM, of course

XTC have a nice line in quietly furious songs/songs with bouncy melodies and angry lyrics- 'That's really Super, Supergirl', 'Wait 'til your boat goes Down', 'Minature Sun', I think they're a band for angry introverts.

their best songs tend to get really fucken angry though, c.f. complicated game, no language

I really love 'Miniature Sun', I've always liked how it goes from that elated middle eight right into that narked off final verse; it reflects its lyrical content very well.

The b-sides around EngSett are the missing side 5

Punch and Judy / Heaven is paved / and the rest..

Tissue Tigers!

Wow, this is tough. I reviewed the tracklisting and its got to be English Settlement for me. I adore every single track, even the of vocals of Leisure and Melt The Guns. It's sequenced perfectly and takes me on a tour of Swindon every time. I'm not even tired of Senses after all these years.

I read that Andy Partridge spent a lot of his childhood confined to bed due to illness. Do you think that this produces a certain kind of personality type? I think Steve Harley also spent a lot of childhood bedridden, and their records both have this almost prissy attention to detail and neatness, they both create the type of music that gets described as 'well-constructed', i think. Does this come from spending large part of your formative years in a restricted environment that you have total control over, not having to interact with other people?

A lot of XTC songs feel '3D' to me, like they construct these detailed but claustrophobic/hermetically sealed worlds/landscapes. If you are a bedridden child you must take refuge in fantasy and imagination to a large extent, so it must be an odd combination of freedom, like you can create worlds that you have total control over, but also restriction. I read a description of XTC's music somewhere that said that though a lot of it is jaunty/whimsical, there's always this sense just under the surface of something being not quite right.

"Black Sea" wins this pretty easily tho "English Settlement" is full of great things. I don't like the sequencing of "English Settlement", opening with two Moulding songs and then having NINE Andy Partridge songs in a row, I'm afraid that's too much Partridge in one sitting for me esp. as so many of the songs are him at his most long-winded and indigestible.

I don't often listen to English Settlement from front to back in one sitting but I've only ever dealt with it as a CD or digital album and usually jump back and forth between different tracks. I can see how it might be unwieldy as a vinyl double album.

I hadn't listened to it in years (and I mean, like, decades) but I listened to in one sitting and that long sequence of AP songs really began to drag

Black Sea. Still never fails to exhilarate and is also one of my all time favorite crunchy guitar records. The albums that preceded it were too squirrelly and right after it they swerved away from that stinging crunch.

Eng Sett has an absolutely killer single lp in it but yeah side 3 ewww.

gonna edit them both into a single LP, for the fuck of it, and also to further demonstrate my preference for ES:

SIDE A

runaways
ball & chain
senses working overtime
jason & the argonauts
no thugs in our house
no language in our lungs

SIDE B

towers of london
fly on the wall
leisure
english roundabout
snowman
travels in nihilon

This thread has just set me off on a massive XTC binge... thanks ILX! (and I mean that with absolutely zero sarcasm, of course)

A lot of XTC songs feel '3D' to me, like they construct these detailed but claustrophobic/hermetically sealed worlds/landscapes. If you are a bedridden child you must take refuge in fantasy and imagination to a large extent, so it must be an odd combination of freedom, like you can create worlds that you have total control over, but also restriction.

Possibly related to that thought, Andy once said that he and Colin determined that Andy was in indoor person who wrote outdoor songs, and Colin was an outdoor person who wrote indoor songs.

English Settlement, side 2 and a half..

1. Blame The Weather (3:37) Written-By – C. Moulding*
2. Tissue Tigers (The Arguers) (3:55) Written-By – A. Partridge*
3. Heaven Is Paved With Broken Glass (5:07) Written-By – Partridge*
4. Punch And Judy (2:44) Written-By – Partridge*
5. Looking For Footprints (3:28) Written-By – Partridge*

this is really close, voting english settlement i guess

like this basically boils down to '60 minutes of XTC at their peak or 40 minutes of XTC at their peak'

I'm with Mark here, English Settlement would be maybe their greatest album (or at least, it would stand up next to Skylarking) had they replaced some of the dead spots on Side 3 with those excellent B-sides, at least "Tissue Tigers" and "The World is Full of Angry Young Men"

I don't like the sequencing of "English Settlement"...

I'm sure I've opined on another XTC thread, but I've only ever owned the American English Settlement and I think the sequencing of that is excellent. That means I'm not overly familiar with "Leisure" or "Knuckle Down" on the seemingly maligned side 3. I have no problems with "Melt The Guns" and "Africa," love them both.

I thought 'Looking For Footprints' was an earlier track, it is descended from a song called Sleepyheads which, I'm guessing, is from Drums & Wires or earlier.

I'm torn on this. Just last week I rediscovered Black Sea and decided it's their most consistently great album - every track is a killer. But English Settlement is both a sentimental favorite and, for reasons that a lot of people have said above, maybe their single best album - it has the journey, the high points, the kind of perfect moment of getting a bit mature and realizing that it's happening, as you hear on songs like "All of a Sudden." I'm surprised nobody's mentioned that song yet - it's a great distillation of realizing you've grown up now, this is it, this is where you are, so what's next? I love that the album doesn't have a "concept." A bunch of English boys basically think about going to Africa and never actually get there. There are no grand schemes, just small realizations. And "Senses Working Overtime" - still one of the all-time greats.

"Knuckle Down" is one of their weakest but best-placed songs. It's nothing special but you need a breather right around there, and the chorus sticks in my head for that reason. "Fly on the Wall" is the opposite - it's a great song but I always skip it.

I seem to remember Dave Gregory saying that he thought the album needed more production, a bit more to the arrangements. It is pretty stripped-down and there's room to do more, and maybe if they'd taken it farther it would have more of that patina of "greatness," but I'm glad they didn't. For one thing I just love the album as it is, and for another, every album that came after it was a bit of a loud mess in one way or another. I don't think they ever truly got the hang of using lots of instruments.

Xpost it's the other way around, LFF was recorded for go2

I don't think they ever truly got the hang of using lots of instruments.

don't really love either of these albums all the way through tbh

Apple Venus was the one with the "realistic" synth orchestra right? That was gross.

Except for the fact that they were played by a real orchestra (and fairly amazing), yes.

Damn I have a really distinct memory of it sounding sampled. Maybe they were just miked weird. Now I feel guilty for holding it against them all thus time!

Maybe you heard "Demo Venus" or whatever it was called

The Big Express and Oranges & Lemons may sound overloaded with sound at first, but it all makes sense after a while.

Probably my two favorite XTC records. Skylarking is great too, especially the version with the perfect Mermaid Smiled rather than the over-obvious Dear God. Anyway, Black Sea wins.

I'm really split on Apple Venus, half of that is like their best album ever, but I really dislike the middle section of the album (outside of "Greenman" which is one of my top 5 XTCtunes)

My three favourites are Black Sea, Skylarking and Nonsuch... I get a lot out of every XTC album, but those three are kinda like the three that I would rescue from the fire/take to the desert island etc.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

REJOICE! \o/

Right on. It's frustrating, because Settlement without the filler (which is what "Melt the Guns" feels like) would easily be Black Sea's equal, or at the very least, a pastoral angle on Black Sea's rawk.

But after Black Sea, they never really rocked again. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the gripping dynamic of this particular unit of particularly agitated musicians was gone forever.

Everyone wins!

Sorry I missed this one, but I'd go with Black Sea, if only as it's a bit more clangy.

But after Black Sea, they never really rocked again.

I'd argue that the solo on Books Are Burning is one of the great classic rock solos, but maybe.

But after Black Sea, they never really rocked again.

Nonsense...."No Thugs in Our House" (English Settlement), "Wake Up" (Big Express), "Across This Anthead" (Oranges & Lemons)

AntHEAP

I love "Wake Up," but those other two (along with everything on Oranges & Lemons) always fell flat for me.

Really? "No Thugs.."? I love that goddamn song.

yeah me too tbh

I wouldn't describe 'Across This Antheap' as "rocking", either.

"Earn Enough for Us" too.

Plus the Dukes, obv

you guys are suggesting some weird pretty non-rock-y stuff imho. I don't think Tarfumes is entirely wrong that they ditched the aesthetic of Black Sea for the most part - the slashing guitars, the stuttering rhythms, the frenetic energy, etc. they didn't really go there again. some of the stuff on Big Express maybe comes closest.

Black Sea is the way that it is because that particular line-up of the band (Partridge/Gregory/Moulding/Chambers) had such an undeniable chemistry as a unit and were playing together a lot as a live band, so you get an energy and urgency on Black Sea that they couldn't replicate on their post-Settlement studio records, no matter how good the drummers they used on those recordings were/are. That, and Partridge seemed to want to move away from that particular approach to recording/style of music on the records starting with Settlement.

yup to all that

only "No Thugs" comes close to rocking out as hard - "Wake Up" feels a little more stitched and calculated than anything on Black Sea. obviously not really a knock on later XTC but they definitely lost the "live" sound pretty suddenly afterwards.

Yeah, definitely agree regarding 'Wake Up'... there's a rigidity in the way that the track has been recorded that contrasts with the live band feel on Black Sea. Not to knock the track, because I like it a lot, but you can definitely tell it was a studio creation rather than the result of a band playing together.

I wouldn't describe 'Across This Antheap' as "rocking", either.

Compared to, say, anything on albums including and after Nonesuch it does.

I mean, it ain't Motorhead, but there's a bit of edge there.

I remember being disappointed the first time I heard Wasp Star because it seemed like they were trying to do a stripped down, live band feel again, only with some kinda stodgy, un-rocking songs.

Had Dave Gregory split by that point?

I pretty much abandoned ship after Nonesuch.

Yeah, I think he left when they were partway through preparing Apple Venus vol 1, he'd already done some arrangements for it, and didn't contribute at all to Wasp Star IIRC. Possibly why it sounds relatively sloppy by XTC standards.

Compared to, say, anything on albums including and after Nonesuch it does.

― Alex in NYC, Tuesday, August 27, 2013 10:08 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'd agree with that, but we're not comparing it with what came after Nonsuch!

sloppy?! not really a term I associate with this band. like, ever.

Well like I say relatively sloppy, by their standards. But maybe 'sloppy' isn't the right word, i don't know.

Like Frogbs said, after English Settlement they didn't have that live band sound anymore, but all the albums had this lush, glossy, ultra-precise 80s production. And then Wasp Star didn't really have the live band feel or the glossy production?

Here's what David Gregory played on Apple Venus...

Easter Theatre: mellotron, acoustic guitar, keyboard programming
Frivolous Tonight: piano, synths, Mellotron, backing vocals
Greenman: keyboard programming, synth
Your Dictionary: piano, cello charts
I Can't Own Her: piano, synths
Harvest Festival: piano
Fruit Nut: synths, acoustic & electric guitars, organ, mellotron

Partridge did quite a fair bit of 'string arranging' on Apple Venus (as can he heard on his original demos for the album).

Gregory wasn't involved in recording Wasp Star.

Ah, I didn't realise he'd played that much on Apple Venus, I'd thought he left not long after they started recording it, and sort of already had one foot out of the door for quite a while before that. I think I remember in one of the books about the band Gregory talking about hearing 'Playground' for the first time and cringing, he didn't like the arrangement or recording and felt that the band was suffering for his absence? I think that was gist of what he said, anyway.

Black Sea is the way that it is because that particular line-up of the band (Partridge/Gregory/Moulding/Chambers) had such an undeniable chemistry as a unit and were playing together a lot as a live band, so you get an energy and urgency on Black Sea that they couldn't replicate on their post-Settlement studio records, no matter how good the drummers they used on those recordings were/are. That, and Partridge seemed to want to move away from that particular approach to recording/style of music on the records starting with Settlement.

― Dog Man Star took a suck on a pill... (Turrican), Tuesday, August 27, 2013 5:27 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, this is pretty much what I was getting at.

And it's not that I don't like any post-Black Sea XTC, and some of my favorite XTC is their least rocking ("Grass," for one). But the agitated dynamic of those musicians in that format was gone. What replaced it was sometimes better, sometimes not.

Yup, it would definitely have been interesting to see how Chambers would have handled the Apple Venus material!

They did crank it up a few times after Black Sea (add to the list "Funk Pop a Roll," "Reign of Blows," "Garden of Earthly Delights," "Merely a Man," "Crocodile"), but never for more than a song or two per album, and none of it has the abandon of Black Sea.

And I'm convinced that the reason Wasp Star sounds so unfinished is the absence of Dave Gregory.

I can appreciate the arguments ppl are making in favor on BS, but ES is just on a totally different level for me. I really like all the songs people complain about in this thread, and LOVE the rest. Something about the production really works for me, it shimmers timelessly whereas Black Sea just rocks a la 1980 wiry postpunk. IMO.

^^this

The problem with Wasp Star isn't sloppiness, it's that it sounds like a bunch of demos. For all the flak this band gets for having fussy arrangements (a charge I would agree with sometimes), going stripped down on Wasp Star really didn't do them favors. And that could be because of no Gregory, yeah.

The problem with Wasp Star isn't sloppiness, it's that it sounds like a bunch of demos

In fact, it doesn't sound at all like the outstanding unreleased demos from Andy's "Fuzzy Warbles" series. If it had stuff like "Sonic Boom", "Ship Trapped In The Ice" and "The Bland Leading The Bland" on it, it would've been an excellent album. But it's got Andy's worst song ever, "The Man Who Murdered Love", among other very, very weak tracks. It doesn't sound like demos, it sounds like poor songwriting. (I'll rep for Colin's last good song, "Boarded Up" though.)

I never checked out those demos, didn't realize there was something there worth checking out heh. I think about half of the songs on Wasp Star would have been improved with better arrangements - "In Another Life", "Stupidly Happy", "Wounded Horse". The songwriting is on the weaker side, true, but the arrangements sound like they were dashed off quick, like they went with the first idea they had rather than trying different approaches. Not a fan of "Boarded Up", but at least that's a case where the bare arrangement suits the material.

Man, I don't get the hate for "Melt the Guns" at all. I have no problem with the lyrics or their sentiment, but that aside, it's a fantastic piece of music. Very proto-Animal Collective - is that why?

It's just that it's so damn repetitive.

I like guns but it's a good piece of music.

I don't like because the chorus is dogshit

IMO it's a standard-issue issue example of overly irritating/quirky Partridge/XTC

Yeah, now that I am listening to it, it's got good things going on but it has bad things going on too (like the excessive Partridge quirk). Hadn't listened to it for a while. Chorus is more neutral than negative for me though.

The opening riff/progression is weak in the first place. Allows for all the XTC cliches. That's basically the entire song.

This has probably been touched on already and is nothing new but jesus, English Settlement is way too long.

I know there's sequencing issues touched on already but....a little of Andy Partridge (as good as he is at his best) goes a long way.

So the "Black Sea" demos on the new deluxe release are mostly uninteresting and sound more like rough mixes. The 'early version' of "Towers Of London" is a couple of minutes longer and the 'unused single remix' of "Rocket From A Bottle" sound almost the same.

The most interesting stuff is the unreleased material: Pearl, Holding The Baby, Monkeys In Human Skin Suits, Spy In Space, Walking To Work, Jumping The Gap, and Ban The Bomb. They're fun to hear though nothing as crucial as stuff found on the Fuzzy Warbles series. With the release of these there's very few tracks I know about that haven't shown up officially or online.

Pearl has always been a favourite, I enjoyed the new mix too. But yeah, I think most everything is out there now between bootlegs, the old cassette releases, fuzzy warbles and the reissues, all that remains are the 3295642015986 songs that AP has left unfinished on a hard drive in his shed.

I'm guessing that it would be such a shame if he didn't finish some of those.

Doesn't his shed have its own thread?

Holy shit, I think this is the only live recording of "Melt the Guns" out there. Uploaded 5 months ago. Incredible set

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv9dXo9-zrA

XTC
Paradiso
Amsterdam, Netherlands
March 8, 1982

Soundboard pre-fm version

Andy Partridge was only 10 days away from his stage fright breakdown in Paris.

01. Runaways
02. Jason And The Argonauts
03. Melt The Guns
04. Snowman
05. Ball And Chain
06. No Thugs In Our House
07. Senses Working Overtime
08. All Along The Watchtower
09. No Language In Our Lungs
10. Towers Of London
11. Making Plans For Nigel
12. Living Through Another Cuba
13. Generals And Majors
14. Real By Reel
15. Sgt. Rock (Is going To Help Me)
16. Life Begins At The Hop (With Hans Devente on Backing Vocals)

Not recorded / missing are the first three songs, played that evening: Bushman President (tape); Respectable Street, Burning With Optimism's Flames.

The Quietus: 'English Settlement' turns 40

good excuse to listen

Great article

It's a very good article, but

Certainly, nobody talks about what a good single album English Settlement might have made.

I'd say the only good song left off the 10 track single LP version is "Yacht Dance", and some of the excluded tracks ("Leisure", "Down in the Cockpit") are terrible, good riddance.

yeah that bit made me raise an eyebrow too, people in fact talk about that all the time. though tbf it's more of a "had enough material for 3 sides" sort of double

had they replaced Leisure and Cockpit with Tissue Tigers & Blame the Weather it would be just about perfect

Drop some of the more irritating finger-pointing Andy Partridge material and we're talking.

I love "Leisure", "Down in the Cockpit", and "Knuckle Down", which I often see people single out as a weak track. It's such a good album, hard for me to cut anything, though the b-sides frogbs mentioned would have been great additions too. Even "Fly on the Wall", a track I used to skip, has grown on me

Some of the irritating finger-pointing Andy material (Melt The Guns, No Thugs) is my favourite, and I wouldn’t have them off the album for anything.

Very good article. A quibble: the writer’s characterization of Generals & Majors as “a goofy disco rewrite of Paperback Writer” is way off the mark in about 3 dimensions, and moderately accurate in only one.

Leisure is great you fools

None of the b-sides have ever sounded like they belong on there. Leave it alooone

“no thugs” is either the second or third best song on the album. i think “cockpit” is fine and “leisure” is good, but “melt the guns” is too much for even me, a guy who genuinely loves “living through another cuba”

Good article, though I often struggle to figure out where the line is between pop and underground. One of the article's assertions, and has been asserted by many others, is that XTC would be more broadly popular if they had just been heard. I don't know if that's true, it seems like plenty of people heard them and liked them well enough, and that their appeal grew after they became a studio-only band. This implies that a bigger marketing budget = increased popularity, and that's not true though it certainly helps! Is XTC's work too literate, too political or too musically challenging for mass appeal? Did Andy ever make any concessions to writing "pop"? One of XTC's charms is that their songs sound really straightforward but under the hood there are oddities that make them more than a 4/4 top 40 ballad or whatever. XTC have over 875,000 monthly listeners on Spotify which is a decent amount though pales compared to the punk elite.

yeah XTC, much like Sparks, seem to repeatedly get that narrative assigned to them. when I talk to older people I meet at record shops & my cool family members I get the impression that both bands were fairly well-known in their day but too off-center and weird/cynical/annoying to be as big as they deserved to be. when I asked my uncle about them and he said "Generals and Majors" was played all the time when he was in college and that a lot of people found the tune obnoxious. and "Senses Working Overtime" was a significant hit, though idk how it was received at the time. I've played it for friends and they found it to be fairly "annoying" as well. Andy losing his marbles shortly thereafter and retreating to release the fairly unmarketable Mummer ain't really the record company's fault.

today the idea that XTC are still underrated is kind of absurd, I mean if you look on RYM they have five bolded albums and a ton of ratings. and yet whenever people write about them it always seems to start with a statement that the band never got its due and are still some kind of hidden gem.

"dear god" was frequently played on the radio (WHFS) in the early/mid 90s, i heard it once a week at least. i had never thought of them as further under the radar than their peers til i read this article.

XTC are a hidden gem. And it’s unlikely they would have been much more popular in their day if they’d had more exposure. Too quirky, too brainy, too awkward, and just not good-looking enough (sorry, lads). There’s no louche legend to attach to them, no cool image; it’s all about the music, which is most definitely “music for music nerds.”

However, their profile with the generations younger than Gen X - even music nerds - is abysmal. My kids know them, but that’s because I played them nonstop at home and in the car in the post-Apple Venus years. And my kids don’t love them the way they love, say, Sparks. A producer friend says any mention of them draws blanks with the bands he records. I think their POV is maybe too naive to catch on with kids who grew up with the certain knowledge that humanity is doomed? (Probably a flawed theory, not least because XTC have way more Spotify listeners than Sparks do.) they’re probably one of those bands destined to be eternally overrated by their fans and underrated by everyone else.

Yeah, XTC defined the "college band" stereotype in the 1980s and early '90s. I know English Settlement did quite well on CMA pollings.

They were as popular as they got in the U.S. in 1982 and again between 1987-1992. I can't imagine much more.

er CMJ

my uncle about them and he said "Generals and Majors" was played all the time when he was in college and that a lot of people found the tune obnoxious. and "Senses Working Overtime" was a significant hit, though idk how it was received at the time. I've played it for friends and they found it to be fairly "annoying" as well.

heh yeah love em and never really consider it when i'm listening alone, but if someone else is there i'm immediately conscious of how a lot of it could be annoying

They retired from playing live, which is fine if you're the Beatles, they weren't though.

The comparison to Sparks is an excellent one, I think. Two of my alltime favorite bands. Trouser Press' adjectives and descriptors used to describe XTC:

Dissonance, unresolved melodic lines... hiccupping vocals... equally nervous music... hyperactive material
...alternately herky-jerky and menacing. ... funhouse world... more accessible, but still booby- trapped... undanceable rhythms, intricate interplay and gloriously literate lyrics... preachy, wordy... precious, overwrought pop IQ tests...

And that's in a record guide aimed at music nerds likely to actually enjoy them. None of those sound like a band destined for much commercial success. Quirky smart-assery seldom is.

Thinking about my criticism of "Leisure" etc.:

On certain songs on their first three albums, they got aggressive, unmelodic and rhythmically disjunctive (as well as singing in silly voices), there was enough power in the music to put it over. When they try to do pursue that same mode on Black Sea or English Settlement, there's been a loss of energy and an increase in production gloss, and those songs are irritating instead of bracing. They were better off at that point in their career in going for Beatles instead of Beefheart.

...and they would, to diminishing returns, starting in 1986.

Sense is a fascinating song to have as their highest-charting hit, even it's Nigel that has remained their most-remembered. The chorus is one of the most succinct, easy-to-swallow hooks they ever came up with, but the rest of the song is closer to prog if anything, and the verses a strange medieval dirge. I'm surprised the public ate it up so much, and that radio folks made it as far as the end of the pre-chorus

Re: Sparks and XTC, years ago I would tell people that while Sparks were my favorite band of all time, I thought XTC were probably the *best* band of all time, and I think part of the reason I made that distinction was because I could easily understand finding Sparks irritating, but XTC seemed like something most everyone should be able to enjoy. Took me a while to realize they're a lot closer to Sparks in that regard than I'd thought.

same, it's only with some distance that I started to hear why people didn't like them. kind of the same with They Might be Giants, another band whose academic style of songwriting and forced quirkiness irks a lot of people

I'm surprised the public ate it up so much

It was a different time; the masses still had an occasional ear for arty sui generis pop. My go-to example is that Laurie Anderson made it to no. 2 in the British charts in 1981.

as opposed to XTC's later era where their music sounded out of step with nearly everything on the radio - Skylarking sure as hell doesn't sound like a pop record from 1986

Thinking about my criticism of "Leisure" etc.:

On certain songs on their first three albums, they got aggressive, unmelodic and rhythmically disjunctive (as well as singing in silly voices), there was enough power in the music to put it over. When they try to do pursue that same mode on Black Sea or English Settlement, there's been a loss of energy and an increase in production gloss, and those songs are irritating instead of bracing. They were better off at that point in their career in going for Beatles instead of Beefheart.

― Halfway there but for you, Monday, February 14, 2022 6:33 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is a good point, definitely a big part of the problem with Leisure for me is that sort of waddling gait it has, it just sounds so bumptious.

The Sparks comparison is interesting – obv. both bands were produced by Todd Rundgren.

relistening to English Settlement now and noticing some things

1) there are a lot of awesome bass lines on this thing
2) Partridge is a total weirdo, I can see why he puts people off. he doesn't really have the voice to do all those sing-songy bits and his phrasing is so bizarre sometimes. he does the Zappa thing a bunch where he writes these rapid melodies and tries to sing every note of them
3) regardless, dude spins some great tunes. Yacht Dance is so damn beautiful. as is All of the Sudden. he's a brilliant lyricist...sometimes
4) No Thugs riff is immense
5) this album sounds dated in a way I never really noticed before. I think Hugh Padgham has a pretty signature style. where he puts the reverb and such.
6) album's theme seems to be anti-progress, sorta like Village Green Preservation Society. feel like Andy saw the world hurtling towards something bad and felt like we'd gone too far. well, can't imagine you'd like how things are now buddy
7) Leisure is the worst track I've always felt, but lately it kinda wins me over until the sax part...what the fuck!!!! Dont do that!!
8) English Roundabout = one of Colin's best tracks? his singing on it is incredible.
9) Fly on the Wall is almost like a throwback to their first two albums. were they trying to replicate Barry's sound or something?
10) bridge on Senses is amazing: "And birds might fall from black skies/And bullies might give you black eyes/And buses might skid on black ice"...brilliant
11) also really love that "we will skid across the surface of the ocean as though we're really seabirds" line on Yacht Dance
12) can't think of anything else

I think it's "wheeling seabirds," isn't it?

1) there are a lot of awesome bass lines on this thing

OTM

Terry Chambers is a hero and i think people who came to xtc in the post TC era don't really understand how massive the guy's sound was in the context of the time. he was also a prog fan and was totally blown away at learning the Bill Bruford had name checked him as a drummer to listen to i guess in the early 80s

TB: I think every drummer is a soup of all their influences -- I mean, that's the whole point, you put all that stuff in, mix it up, and you come up with something that tastes a little different. But you can still taste all the ingredients. I mean, it was good for me to play along with you, to hear those holes and the discipline, because I grew up listening to prog drummers -- Bill Bruford, Carl Palmer, early Phil Collins...

TC: Yeah. In the end, I stopped listening to them. I thought, "Well, I'm never going to be this fucking good, so I'm just going to go me own way now." "I've learned all I can learn off of these guys," I could just never kind of catch up with them, because every time I'd think, "Well, I'm sort of getting on top of this," they'd bring another album out and take it to a new level. So I could never win!

TB: Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Well, if it's any consolation, I remember seeing an interview with Bruford back in 1980 -- it was right when King Crimson had gotten back together and put out Discipline, and they had asked him for the five albums he was listening to at the time. One of them was Drums and Wires.

TC: You're kidding.

TB: Nope.

TC: Well mate, that really is a jug handle, if I may use such a term! I mean, that's unbelievable!

TB: Yeah, so, a bit of a turnaround there, huh?

TC: Well, I mean ... I'm not even worthy to talk of the man! The man is a living god! I mean, if he was a Greek, he would be a god for sure!

Awww

Now I'm obsessing over the phrase 'that really is a jug handle', I wonder what it means exactly?

It was a different time; the masses still had an occasional ear for arty sui generis pop. My go-to example is that Laurie Anderson made it to no. 2 in the British charts in 1981.

That is the big one... but funny then how XTC had so few proper hits. Towers Of London at the very least should have been done better.

When they were getting in the charts and on the radio in the UK I was between 7-10 years old.

At the age of 15 I bought a second-hand copy of Waxworks and soon realised that I knew all the songs from 'Life Begins...' onwards - and later found out that I knew 'Ten Feet Tall' very well but didn't know it was XTC -

So, hits or otherwise, they definitely penetrated our little household from casual kitchen-radio listening at the time.

"Making Plans For Nigel" was a hit, as was "Sgt. Rock". "Life Begins At the Hop" wasn't but they got on Top of the Pops!

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

a cool thing about the bridge on “senses” is that it secretly changes the key, and then when the pre-chorus comes back it’s a half step higher. cool effect, costello’s “oliver’s army” does a similar thing

My copy of ES (a beige cassette c. 1985 purchased at Rockhead’s in downtown St. Paul) had the aforementioned US tracklisting except with “Yacht Dance” replacing “It’s Nearly Africa”, resulting in an almost perfect album IMO. The only spare track I’d eagerly restore would be “Fly On The Wall”.

1. "Runaways"
2. "Ball and Chain"
3. "Senses Working Overtime"
4. "Jason and the Argonauts"
5. "Snowman"

1. "Melt the Guns"
2. "No Thugs in Our House"
3. "Yacht Dance"
4. "English Roundabout"
5. "All of a Sudden (It's Too Late)"

Wow, weird. That's on wiki: Some versions of the following track listing replace "It's Nearly Africa" with "Yacht Dance", resulting in a nearly identical runtime. Wonder what the reasoning for that was?

Stray thoughts:

- Is "Yacht Dance" XTC's version of acoustic Jethro Tull?
- I always liked Christgau's suggestion that "English Roundabout" is about the convoluted language, not just U.K. traffic.
- "All of a Sudden" sounds like cheery later McCartney mixed with the melancholy world-view of "Eleanor Rigby" or "For No One".

Too quirky, too brainy, too awkward, and just not good-looking enough (sorry, lads). There’s no louche legend to attach to them, no cool image; it’s all about the music, which is most definitely “music for music nerds.”

I've been thinking about this and it's definitely otm. in fact this is what deterred me from getting into the band in the first place. I remember seeing their CDs at the library and researching them online and they just came off so boring. the album covers, their photoshoots in pilgrim outfits, song titles like "Wrapped in Grey". everyone I know who's into them is a huge music dork. in that sense maybe they are more like They Might be Giants? yes, smart, profound, brilliant, all that...but they write music for music's sake and the people behind it are just sorta...normal dudes

moulding seems like a normal guy, idk if partridge fits by any stretch of the definition

Partridge is a normal dude in the sense that he’s a strong example of a “type” everybody knows: the abrasive know-it-all nerd.

Andy was interviewed a few years back for a podcast about Judee Sill. Her song "The Kiss" literally brought him to tears.

i thought it was interesting, watching the footage of the band's last day before they abruptly stopped playing live, that partridge seems together and with it, throughout. a little nervous and uptight but i certainly can understand that, and kind of a dick sometimes to people and a bit self-important, but also we don't see the months and years of touring and PR bullshit. anyway, he seemed perfectly fine, to me. and then, even the set itself when it happens, the songs leading up to it, the very song itself, even (i forget which one) -- to me i'm watching, thinking "when is the show where he walks off?", and then suddenly, he does.

just not at all the kind of "singer leaves set halfway through" kind of thing you're used to, you know?! very XTC in that way, i think. i think there's another xtc thread where every few years, for the last 15, i pop in and state my interest in getting into xtc but also that i've been unable to, or something. still true to this day, although every time i come back it's more familiar and i also hear a bunch of new things i didn't notice a few years earlier. that seems like an outstanding and uncommon quality in a pop band

yeah if you were in the crowd you'd think "wow, guess he had to piss huh?" its weird cuz you listen to those Black Sea era recordings and he was a total showman. however I have taken valium one time and a thought I had is "yes going from this world to that world must be pretty jarring". that said as the Quietus article mentions the bigger story is the insane pressure that was put on those bands back in the day. like I remember an article about TMBG where one of the Johns mentions 1990 as the band's most unhappy period because they spent basically every waking hour on the road or giving interviews getting asked the same 3 questions over and over. I'm surprised more of these folks didn't lose their marbles.

Listening to "English Settlement" again and "Black Sea" is still the better album. Anyway...

I could be wrong but in "Knuckle Down" there's a kind of froglike croaking in the background that sounds like it's a homage to Morricone's "A Fistul of Dynamite" soundtrack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1TqRbosxro

Meanwhile, more obviously, the spoken word part of "Down in the Cockpit" is inspired by Leonard Nimoy's "A Visit to a Sad Planet".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkAE0lL4DnA

Also "Black Sea" is still a much better album than "English Settlement".

apart from it being slightly less good than English Settlement

There's a good interview with Hugh Padgham about the recording of English Settlement on the latest episode of the XTC podcast.

And, yes, Black Sea is a much better album.

hard question to answer, Black Sea is pretty much perfect in it's (relatively) narrow scope, English Settlement is more ambitious and contains some all-time moments, along with a wealth of songs that reveal more every time you hear them, and yet as an album it does that double LP thing where it really has you then it loses you which is a shame because there are some amazing songs at the end. Only track I'd outright cut is probably "Leisure" though there are a few I wish were shorter. Also I think both albums are obnoxious in particular ways, but Black Sea actually is more annoying than I remembered. when I first got into the band I asked my uncle about them since he's pretty hip to this stuff and he said "oh they're the ones who did that Generals and Majors song right?" and then he proceeds to sing it in the most annoying way possible, actually not unlike how Colin sung it live. I love the song but he has a point.

was interesting to learn that XTC actually had a bunch of hits despite not really being a household name. reading about them online you'd think only Senses & Dear God made a splash.

"Travels in Nihilon" is my favourite XTC song and one of my favourite-ever songs

was interesting to learn that XTC actually had a bunch of hits despite not really being a household name. reading about them online you'd think only Senses & Dear God made a splash.

i still hear 'generals and majors' and 'mayor of simpleton' and 'king for a day' in local stores all the time, they seem like mainstays of slightly hip retail playlists

only on ILM could 26 people be so wrong

otm @frogbs

I was going to say that I prefer Black Sea — and it is their rockingest record, which is my sweet spot -- but see that it too has some of that characteristic annoyingness that also comes up on English Settlement. Still, many really great songs on both and texturally I think they never topped Runaways, Jason and the Argonauts, English Roundabout, Snowman. Fretless bass + 12-string are super important on this one, and I don't think they ever were as important later (though I could be wrong).

On the other hand, to me at least it inaugurates a pastoral vibe that takes over on the last two records (which I can't deal with at all), though is magnificent on Skylarking (especially the original version with the perfect Mermaid Smiled).

thing is i adore both albums and they are my favourite band ever basically, but if i had to rank the albums black sea would probably fall into the back half. it's not as diverse as - well most xtc albums really, not least those either side of it. it's an album of superior power pop + cuba and travels as excellent diversions (those two and optimism's flames are my favourites). english settlement has only one track it could arguably do without (leisure obv) but that still leaves 14 tracks i adore. but while both of my two least favourites on black sea - language and towers - are better than leisure, that's still two relatively minor tracks i might be tempted to skip now and then. and most xtc albums don't even have that many.

"Living Through Another Cuba" is the only song on the album that annoys me ymmv

otoh "No Language in Our Lungs"? Best XTC song ever.

Could live without all of Side 3 from "English Settlement" tbh, although "Knuckle Down" is OK I suppose. "Down in the Cockpit" can go too.

"Language" and "Towers" are my two favorite tracks on the album! but then I usually skip fgti's favorite. another no consensus band

i also have always loved "burning with optimism's flames"

yeah was always surprised that one wasn't a single as well

I remember being quite unimpressed with the second disc of English Settlement whereas Black Sea has good songs all the way through

as Tom mentions it's really Side C that's the problem, I mean Side D is as great as the rest, though I know some people get annoyed with "Down in the Cockpit"

what's frustrating about that is they had some really good B-sides/non-album singles floating around at this time, "Tissue Tigers" especially. maybe "Punch and Judy" and "Blame the Weather" could've made it as well

settlement bums me out. it has the highs of the best xtc records and the most opportunities for the band to stretch out to 5 minute pseudo-jams, but for me has too many ultra corny songs and sounds, similar to mummer and big express and everything post dukes.

i know i'm an outlier in that i think leisure is great - including the atonal sax part illustrating the headsplitting boredom causing mental illness (this seems to be a metaphor for partridge's impending desire to retire but it will make him crazy) and the lazybones tin pan alley interpolation at the end. but i usually skip runaways, guns, africa, knuckle down, and cockpit. runaways in particular bothers me: the don't crys just make me wince, the song is trying to be sad or something and i just don't buy the emotion in it, and more importantly, the theme of the song is just so conservative and mother knows best, stay at home, don't rebel, that's too worrisome. it seems to declare this entire album's project is to reject xtc's punk's rebellious spirit and connect with the past.

one thing settlement has going for it... it seems to encompass all the seasons. you can put it on in spring, summer, winter, fall. i think i'd like it more if they included some of the b-sides as album tracks, particularly over rusty water, heaven is paved with broken glass, punch and judy, and tissue tigers. some more spikiness would do the album well, i think.

never got that impression from "Runaways" myself, it's very clear that the subject is running away from a very abusive situation

A "no consensus band" is right. I dig Leisure, too, fwiw.

fwiw I dig a lot of XTC's "annoying" songs but not that one for some reason. I'll even defend "Wounded Horse"