XTC singles compilation: Fossil Fuels

"Senses Working Overtime" over "Grass" and "Respectable Street."

i'm a sucker for the second disc with the doomy ballads more than the earlier punkier stuff, strangley enough. peter pumpkinhead and the disappointed are brilliant gloomy pop songs.

although today "great fire" is my fave. used to hate it.

(my fave today)

Always had a love/meh relationship with XTC - I don't know all the songs on here but would only really rate half the ones I do. 'Disappointed' is indeed great but 'Making Plans for Nigel' is my pick. And I still rep for 'Dear God', even though i believe andy is embarrassed by it now.

When you look at the list, it's kind of underwhelming - I wanted something to jump out at me, or to have some big emotional struggle. I wouldn't want to go without the album, but there's not really a single song I couldn't live without.

The Black Sea singles are the srongest as a group, IMO, so I went for "Respectable Street." Over "Generals," "Towers of London," "Hop," "Nigel."

I listen to Rag and Bone Buffet as much as anything, though, to tell the ruth.

why no recent remaster of rag & bone buffet?

http://www.vintagephotos.com/Image_415_Angry_Cat_with_Hat.jpg

Nigel vs Senses vs Grass

but, uh, THIS IS POP

Senses or Peter Pumpkinhead.

Fuggit, Senses.

No, Peter.

Arh.

many of these are massive yoga flame but i'm gonna go with Wrapped In Grey

narrowed it down to the same three as Alfred, but went with Respectable Street

it's a slightly depressing poll because, half the time, Virgin were complete shit at picking XTC's singles.

if only "Vanishing Girl" was on this comp...

not actually familiar with most of these, but voted for "no thugs in our house" anyway.

If I sat around and thought about it, I wouldn't have been able to pick. I just went with "No Thugs in Our House" on instinct.

if only "Vanishing Girl" was on this comp

Yes. Couldn't agree more.

Grass

Senses Working Overtime is a great song and definitely near the top of their catalog but something about the overly thin production and the way the chorus is actually louder than the verses has always annoyed me

voted "Love On A Farmboy's Wages", but yeah, most of my fave XTC songs weren't singles

Allow me to horrify all true XTC heads by saying that I only really dig - but I do really dig - a) the singles b) the Moulding singles c) oh, probably "Life Begins at the Hop" or "General and Majors" then, thanks

(if you ever do a pilgrimage to the horse on the front of English Settlement come and say hi, though, and I will take you to some weird local-for-local-people pubs from whose car parks - sadly not from whose faded, Queen-Mother-adorned, coronation-chicken-serving interiors - you can just about see it if you squint) (actually I won't, because they're only on an occasional bus route and I can't drive - but I do live about 4 miles away)

Voted "Grass". They have been mostly great from 1986 onwards, but the singles haven't neccessarily been any better than the rest of their songs.

Never understood why Earn Enough For Us from Skylarking wasn't a single. Lots to choose from I suppose.

Nigel never gets old

generals, because senses doesn't need my help to win

no thugs

half the time, Virgin were complete shit at picking XTC's singles.

They have been mostly great ... but the singles haven't neccessarily [sic] been any better than the rest of their songs.

An embarrassment of riches even so.

A little love for "respecthable thtreet" but it could have been "thugs" or "senses" or "grass" or especially "mayor of simpleton".

Andy's doing a 'remaster' thing with the XTC albums, including the Dukes one (extra tracks, 2CD versions, etc)

I believe Rag and Bone buf is in there.

'towers of london' for me. but i don't think i've heard every last track here.

ANOTHER remaster series? Why? It's only been four(?) years since the Caroline reissues. Oh well, I guess XTC backcatalogue is mostly Andy's cash cow.

That's sort of the nub of it:

Ownership has reverted back to him, so it's planned to be a "deluxe" 2CD issue for stuff like Oranges&Lemons, EngSett, and a couple others through EMI, and the Dukes of Stratosphear through his own Ape Records imprint.

When you look at the list, it's kind of underwhelming - I wanted something to jump out at me, or to have some big emotional struggle.

As Mackro said upthread, the singles were never the best songs.

Having said that, I hate XTC polls because they're all so incredibly fantastic that choosing is physically painful.

Always had a love/meh relationship with XTC - I don't know all the songs on here but would only really rate half the ones I do

Yeh, I'd agree ... although mine's more of an "oh! That's OK"/meh relationship.

I remember one night circa 1996/1997 hearing an awesome XTC song on the radio -- think this was when Mark and Lard had the 10pm show on Radio 1 -- which I thought they said was from Black Sea. So I bought a copy in the second-hand shop and didn't really enjoy it at all. No idea what the song was, but I remember it as a kind of dark, droning, bleak thing with keyboards all over it. (Mind, I seem to be false-memory kid at the moment; qv the Shining thread).

That'll be "Travels In Nihilon" then

Sounds like "Travels in Nihilon"...

XPOST!

Ha! Thank you both. I'm going to go and check it out right now.

It's the last track on "Black Sea"

Geir hates it, so you're quids in basically

Listening now. Yeh, this is almost certainly it. In which case ... why don't I remember it from the time I actually bought bloody Black Sea?

(Answer: because I spent most of 1994-1997 stoned off my fucking gourd, probably.)

Anyway. It sounds like Crispy Ambulance. That is a good thing. Thanks again!

XTC had a weird thing about closing tracks. They'd rarely pull out anything but all the stops.

Travels in Nihilon v. Train Running Low on Soul Coal

v. Complicated Game <-- the winner

including the Dukes one (extra tracks, 2CD versions, etc

?!? what could there possibly be left in the vault from the Dukes after all those Fuzzy Warbles volumes?!

altho tbh this is a deluxe CD reissue I would probably get because my original copy of Chips from the Chocolate Fireball is mastered at this ridiculously low volume. It's really odd.

The bridge of Towers of London made me weep once. At work.

My faves:

Are You Receiving Me? - Andy you so growly

Life Begins At The Hop – I used to go to church dances, and this is the total silly, giddy, shy & gentle but boisterous neighbs vibe in sum.

Making Plans for Nigel - Wait, Scissors man wasn't a single? This will do. "oh-ooh"

Ten Feet Tall - I always imagine Moulding lost in some giant office building. He sounds kind of bored, eh?

Generals and Majors - Black Sea is the business and this song is one of their better clever take-downs.

Towers of London - Piercing! Total William Blake "man are peeps fucked over in labor or what" thing, the bridge KILLS me.

Sgt. Rock (Is Going to Help Me) - I think Andy apologized for this one a lot. Feeling sorry about "My Weapon" is wholly justified but Sgt. Rock is such a cute and innocent song! It's about total comic book fantasies, harmless and a real blast of a song.

Love at First Sight – I put this on every mixtape I made for like years, until the song was a joke people would make about me. Everyone would sing it when I entered a party. What, were people all comparing Abbott mix notes?

Respectable Street - Love live versions of this, with the crowd catching on to the first line of the intro and joining in 'til everyone's all super loud at "I suppose."

Ball and Chain - Synth lnine on this tune is the second best thing on this album (first being "Runaways" in its entirety).

Love on a Farmboy's Wages - This song is so sexy. No one I know likes it though.

All You Pretty Girls - If they had this at Karaoke it would be a signature choice. I got a huegs crush on Andy bcz of songs like this, the perfect-amount-of-shy and gentle man with a genuine respect for women and some hidden sexy. Epic drums in the intro. So good.

This World Over - This has made me teary before too, but it sure sounds like the Polic, yes?

Wake Up - Dueling stereo choppy guitar is the best! Best SECOND to the outro with it all, the guitars, cascading drums, the shorus and synth all haunting and gripping.

Grass & The Meeting Place - Hell of sexy too! When I first heard the album at age 16 these two tunes were tied up in my mind with Winston & Julia of 1984 finally being able to escape and romp in bed. It was a map of what I wanted out of a romantic encounter, sly and sunny and idyllic.

The Meeting Place - XTC, Moulding, Colin

Dear God - It has enough light touches ("we all need a big reduction in the price of beer") to avoid being too hamfisted. I had (and have) a lot of respect and love for Andy, so when I was 18-19 this song, being so pretty and bittersweet and from so great a man, was a lynchpin in me deciding I could leave the church (Mormon). That I didn't need religion. That it wasn't justifiable that the world was so harsh. Has also made me cry.

Grass or The Meeting Place.

The latter then. Ta

abbott wins this thread

Finding this poll impossible. Will anyone vote for "Wait Till Your Boat Goes Down"? Anyone in the known universe that is, not just ILX.

Ten Feet Tall for me.

All this talk only reminds me of an idea I had to chop all the XTC middle eights together.

fun fact: I have still never heard "Dear God" (because my copy of Skylarking has "Mermaid Smiled" on it)

Well it wasn't on the original album

Is someone gonna stand up for those Oranges & Lemons tracks?

(N.B. I am not a fan of theirs, not at all)

The Mayor of Simpleton is good... errrrrrrr, was that on Oranges & Lemons?

Mares, I *did* have the ide of chopping the intro (guitar plus drums intro) into a PE style loop. Fine!

.. the intro of "Respectable street", that is!

Virtuall impossible to choose just one for me, but I'll go with "Respectable Street"

I don't know if I'd vote for it, but I really like "Wait Till Your Boat Goes Down"! The story about it is funny re: respected rock/pop producer is brought in to create XTC's weirdest sounding verses ever, period, and this was a SINGLE. It's not surprising this never ended up on an album. Still, I think this was XTC's best attempt at anything Kingston sounding, and I love the dark ambient outro. The segue between the reggae and the outro gives me goosebumps.

Agree with folks upthread in thinking of almost all of these as album cuts rather than singles, since I never heard them on the radio, except for "Mayor of Simpleton." So that.

"Great Fire" was a single, WTF? Animals are panicking, there's a poppy little ditty...

"Senses" over "Grass," "Hop," "Nigel," "Mayor."

Mummer is such a not-singles-friendly album. I mean 'Great Fire' is a wtf single but what else were they supposed to throw out there? 'Human Alchemy'?

'Ten Feet Tall' over 'Senses...', 'Generals...' and 'Great Fire'.

Funk Pop A Roll obviously

x-post

The ice cream toppings front is apparently also very paranoid.

um. right.

oops?

lolololol I love wrong thread posts

"Funk Pop A Roll" was a master stroke because it was the only single friendly thing on Mummer, but the lyrics are all "FUCK YOU VIRGIN" basically. The band thought that was their last song ever at the time.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

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

Two votes for "Wake Up"?

I genuinely considered "Wake Up"

"Who cares?"

ugh such predictable results. Nice spread, though.