It was a heady time. In fact, looking back, I realize that this was the last Listening Post before I burned out. What I did, in reality, was burn myself out. Genesis, XTC and Motley Crue, all listened to and reviewed in one 2 week period. It almost killed me. Genesis actually has some terrific moments and really enjoyable music. Crue can be just fun. XTC was a chore. I was surprised at that.
XTC – White Music – 1978In 1980 my friend, John, got tickets to see The Cars at Madison Square Garden. Yes, the same John with the Genesis loving sister! I recall his dad thinking that the $18 or thereabouts was quite steep.
Anyhoo.
We stood outside the Garden, waiting to get in and I kept hearing people talking about the opening band, Ecstasy.
They were interesting. After the show we commiserated that they were most definitely better than the main attraction. The Cars were perhaps the most boring live band ever.
The next year I would get my first XTC record and start a flirtation with them much like my passing adoration of The Clash.
So, what is the debut XTC record like?
Man, I do love me some edgy, angular New Wave. White Music explodes with a sound that feels like The Jam was suddenly taken over by a band that was inspired by Devo. “Radios in Motion” is speedy, quirky and every other adjective that fits that synonym.
In the early 80s I had a compilation of Ohio new wave called Red Snerts. A bunch of musicians on the “gulcher” label. It's quite possible that most of them were inspired by “Cross Wires”, a residents song on cocaine.
“This is Pop” is very much the opposite. It's a screed or irony so venomous that you can see the microphone dripping from the spittle Andy Partridge is spewing.
The songs are breakneck and schizophrenic and it isn't until the first side is just about over that we get to hear what this band really is. On “Statue of Liberty” it's obvious that these guys are cut from the same songsmith cloth that made Elvis Costello. They can do any style because their record collection is vast an all encompassing. They love music. They are crazy about pop. And they're a bit off. Case in point: The harmonica driven semi funk diversion cover of “All Along The Watchtower”. It's bizarre and it does just what punk was supposed to do in the mid-70s; it turns the pomp on it's head and raises a mirror to grandiloquence all the while shouting, “fake!” But you can't do that unless you adore the original and I am quite sure Partridge and Moulding do. Very much. It's because they love it that they are able to fully rape the song the way they do.
Side two rights the mistake of that cover with the pop/punk ditty “Atomic Age” and “I'm Setting Myself on Fire” a song I am pretty sure Adam Ant must have heard prior to recording “Dirk Wears White Sox”. It's JUST as annoying as half of that record! In fact, a lot of White Music sounds like it was recorded next to Dirk.
I read a lot of reviews that rate this album in relation to the later work by the band. I don't think that's fair. This is what they sounded like at the time. It's what got them signed, got them paid and laid the foundation for their future, however that might sound.
White Music has all the marks of a band aping the hot sounds of the day in an attempt to make something of themselves. Fortunately, I know that they will figure it all out. On this record they're just trying too hard.
Grade: C+
A Side: This is Pop
BlindSide: Radios in Motion, Statue of Liberty
DownSide: All Along the Watchtower, I'm Bugged
XTC – Go 2 – 1978From all I've heard, I imagine I could get away with just writing, “the best thing about this album is the cover” and I would be right.
But, I gotta give it a listen anway.
While “Meccanik Dancing” carries that angular stench from the previous record there are actually glimmers of the traditional Partridgian melody in the choruses a hint of “Supergirl”. It's a harbinger of what's to come...I hope.
Which is “Battery Brides”, a sort of ode to Brian Eno. I don't care for the warm jets and I really hate this. A monotonous “melody” interspersed with other notes to break up the monotony. I can't even begin to describe “BuzzCity Talking” except to say that, if I wanted to get out of a record deal, I would put this song on my album.
At least “Crowded Room” & “Red” sound like someone gave a shit and tried to write, I dunno, a Madness song. Soon to be exiting keyboardist Barry Andrews is the only one who scores a somewhat enjoyable track with “My Weapon”.
In the end, Go 2 is less of an album than a collection of unstructured ideas laid down by musicians who know how to pull them off if not give them any life. I don't imagine the label, the musicians, or the fans ever listen to this record and think, “huh...what an underrated album”.
In the 21st Century this was the kind of release that gets you released from your contract.
Others were doing angsty, angular new wave at the same time (Squeeze's U.K. Squeeze among many others come to mind) and they were doing it better.
Grade: D
A Side: My Weapon
BlindSide: Crowded Room,
DownSide: Battery Brides, BuzzCity Talking, Life is Good in the Greenhouse
XTC – Drums & Wires – 1979
Drums & Wires opens with such promise....
“Making Plans for Nigel” is hands down better than anything on the previous two records combined. Andy Partridge gets so much notoriety for XTC. Being the force behind grounding the band from all love shows might have had something to do with it, I guess. But, I keep going back to Colin Moulding as a primary force for this group. And an unsung one, at that.
There is a cohesiveness in the production of this record that at once calls to mind The Police is one of the many things that separates it from those previous two.
“Helicopter” is another disaffected offering from Partridge (who is beginning to sound like an Asperger's sufferer more than a songwriter). It calls to mind all that messy herky jerk but with Steve Lillywhite at the helm it stays afloat.
XTC doesn't make it easy on the listener. There seems to be a discordant guitar forcing it's way into the proceedings at every turn. Or a mind-numbingly annoying riff that never seems to want to end. And just when I find myself hating everything about them, they left turn into some blissfully elastic power pop track like “When You're Near I Have Difficulty”, angsty relationship goo all over this one.
I still find XTC as impenetrable as ever. I had hoped Drums & Wires would allay that somewhat, instead what it does hammer home is the idea that Moulding & Partridge, while talented, are not the geniuses I've always read about. Not yet. Songs on D&W drone on and on long after their welcome was worn. Is it filler or something else, something less professional?
There are tracks that I actively despise, “Roads Girdle the Globe”, a song whose employ of “world rhythms & chants” (quotes mine) are so callous and calculated that I find myself pulling further and further away from the album instead of being drawn in. I feel like Partridge is writing songs that are this difficult and annoying specifically to say, “Anyone can write a song people like, I like to write songs that challenge the listener. And by “challenge” I mean “irritiate”.
Side Two opens with the near-ska “Reel by Reel”, the first XTC track with any discernible guitar solo (Welcome to the party, Dave Gregory!) which, perhaps because it is relegated to the second side, is less self-conscious and more accessible. And “Scissor Man” is pretty great. So is the bloodletting of “Complicated Game”.
But that's not enough to save this record.
Drums & Wires is the third miss in a row for a band that has been so heralded that it warranted a Listening Post. If I wasn't already so familiar with English Settlement and Skylarking I would have dropped this band by now.
Grade C-
A Side: Making Plans for Nigel
BlindSide: When You're Near Me I Have Difficulty, Scissor Man, Complicated Game
Downside: Day In Day Out, Roads Girdle the Globe.
XTC – Black Sea – 1980If you were to make a mix tape in 1980 of the best, catchiest XTC songs in an effort to convince someone of how great they were, here's what you would do:
You would make a tape made up mostly of Colin Moulding songs and your friend would be hooked. Where we all got off calling Andy Partridge the genius behind XTC I don't know. Because Black Sea is ANOTHER example of Andy's experimental annoyance and Moulding's singular ability to write a catchy hook.
The guy who was responsible for “Making Plans for Nigel” this time brings us the other great pop new wave song from the band: “Generals & Majors”. It's brilliant and on par with, or better than, the interim single, “Life Begins at the Hop”, also by Moulding.
Not to say Partridge doesn't avail himself a bit. “Respectable Street” is a dynamite opener about sex-education or sex-miseducation.
Partridge takes over for much of this record and you either love his overtly quirky sensibilities or you don't. He gives me a headache about 60% of the time, with is over singing and kitchen sink production.
“Towers of London” and “Paper & Iron” are great constructions. I would prefer them to be instrumentals. Partridge's self-conscious lyrics and shoehorned melodies don't do it for me.
I will admit that, until the breakdown, I really like “Burning with Optimism's Flame”. I think I would like it a lot more if Moulding was able to get his hands on it. And rewrite it. Cause Andy Partridge is kind of an asshole. I don't know him. I'm just guessing. I bet I'm right. “Sgt. Rock's Going to Help Me” is a cute ditty but it can't rescue the rest of the album for me. (I do love the closer, “Travels in Nihilon”, though but I think that has more to do with production than with writing)
I guess what I'm learning is that XTC is one of the bands responsible for the sound of the 80s that I did not like. The one that gave us Tears for Fears and the likes of Big Country.
Grade: C
A Side: Generals and Majors
BlindSide: Respectable Street, Travels in Nihilon
DownSide: Living Through Another Cuba
XTC – English Settlement – 1982(Disclaimer: This review is of the US release. The English version and subsequent releases are much much longer)
As a teenager I always felt like an outsider. I know, crazy, right? I mean, who else could possibly feel that way? I embraced my underground individualism and, though I was ensconced in suburban New Jersey where the nearest counter-culture was miles away at the local college radio station, I managed to find solace and quench my thirst to belong by reading magazines like “Trouser Press”. That was a long way to go to say that, without TP I certainly doubt I would have heard of any music outside the big FM stations and WNBC's top 40.
In the pages of TP I would read about X, Throbbing Gristle, U2, Duran Duran, Martin Briley and Adam Ant side by side with discographies of The Who and Genesis.
And, somewhere in those pages I kept seeing the name, XTC. Just look at those letters. Cool, huh? AND AND!!! I had seen them in concert! Even though I had absolutely no memory of the show I remembered that they were better than the headliners, The Cars.
When English Settlement was released I was deep in my throes of Trouser Press reading (I was a subscriber so I could get the flexi-disc) and I had completely eschewed WHDA, “The Parkway to Rock!” and was consumed by college radio. I even got to hang out with “The Kid”, a dj who let me spin a couple records.
I bought the new XTC as soon as I could.
Listening to it now I am struck by the fact that, despite how great it is, I never went back into the band's catalog nor did I seek out any follow-ups. That's not like me, really. I'm sort of a completist.
Ah, well. I haven't listened to English Settlement in almost 24 years.
The most striking change from the previous four records is how the angular, herky guitars are gone, replaced by big, acoustic 12 string guitars which, when placed side by side with Terry Chambers solid and rousing drumming set the record apart from, well, anything else I had heard at that point.
The album starts off with two Colin Moulding tracks, “Runaways” and “Ball and Chain” and they're great.
What follows is what I would never have expected. Andy Partridge avails himself of all that experimental ballyhoo that he was previously responsible for by writing the magnificent “Senses Working Overtime.”
No song, to me, better represents the era.
Followed quickly on the heels by “Jason and the Argonauts”, where Chambers seems to be driving the band with his fervent drumming.
On any of the previous albums a droning experiment like “Snowman” would have left me cold. Here, I am drawn in and find myself feeling sympathy for the narrator and his predicament. Although I imagine it's all of his own doing.
Side two sees the return of some electric guitars just enough to remind us why the first incarnation of Adam and the Ants didn't really work. (I am really beginning to see why They Might Be Giants wrote that song, these two groups have a lot of intersections)
I don't mind the caterwauling on “Melt the Guns” as the rest of the album has earned it. Plus it's a pretty cool song whose politics I completely agree with. And it leads us into the second hit by Partridge, “No Thugs in Our House”, taking the opposite road from Moulding's “Making Plans for Nigel”, Andy's family is pretty fucked up and Graham is a dick.
The African rhythm of (MORE intersections!) “It's Nearly Africa” is leaps beyond the musical roundelay of “Cuba”
On their fifth album XTC completely redeems themselves. It's a masterwork.
Grade: A+
A Side: Runaways, Ball and Chain, Senses Working Overtime, Jason and the Argonauts, No Thugs in Our House
BlindSide: Snowman, Melt the Guns
Downside: ------
XTC – Mummer – 1983I have been warned.
The leader of XTC, Andy Partridge, suffered a mental breakdown while touring for English Settlement. XTC would never perform live again. This would cause the departure of the drummer, as touring is a great source of income for bandmates who don't write the music. The inability to perform live means no revenue from t-shirts or concerts.
So, the only source of revenue would be from sales of records. What does a record by a musician with mental illness, a Pop Rock musician nonetheless, sound like?
It's oddly serene. Pastoral. Gentle. With horrifically awful electronic drums. Hello, 80s!
I still don't know what it means that the single that made the most impact was written by Colin Moulding. Was he trapped by Andy Partridge? Why doesn't he get more credit?
If the first few XTC records were examples of the edginess and quirk of New Wave, the first half of Mummer is a far left turn from that. Building on the acoustic themes of Settlement, Mummer is brighter, more accessible, dare I say it, pretty? The songs are more assured than on the first two and the writers have more to say. There's real fear, of lost wages, or inability to provide, and the songs, replete with those great 12 strings play in hopeful contrast to the dire circumstances presented by Partridge and Moulding.
Moulding's “Deliver Us From The Elements” is more concerned with mood than anything else. It's studio craft designed to convey the awesome power of nature. As a song it's useless. As a concept it's interesting.
Side two opens with “Human Alchemy” and we're back to experimentation, the kind of stuff that made their first two records such successes. (Note: Irony intended) It's not just awful but it dispels any and all good will accumulated on the first side. And it's downhill from there. “Ladybird”, “In Loving Memory of a Name”, “Me and the Wind” are all the worst kind of filler. The sounds a songwriters who have lost not the ability to write, but will to live. There are no teeth. It's pop music as inertia.
There's a neat attempt at jangle pop at the very end with “Funk Pop and Roll”. It's harmless and too little too late.
Grade: C-
A Side: Wonderland, Great Fire
BlindSide: Love on a Farm Boy's Wages
DownSide: Human Alchemy
XTC – The Big Express – 1984When is someone going to realize that the reason you put a Colin Moulding song up top is because he writes stuff that don't make people want to poke their eyes out?
Sigh.
I never heard of this album prior to this Listening Post series. Lemme see what this is all about.
Wow. This sounds a LOT like “No Thugs”. But not enough to be classified as plagiarism. In point of fact, it's actually an improvement. Then we're back to some Partridge craziness. In the case of “All You Pretty Girls” he's channeling Danny Elfman. It's a percussive trifle and not a great one, at that. But, that's okay. Because “Shake You Donkey Up” kind of explains what this album is all about.
The Big Express is the first album that brings together the song structures of Settlement, the herky jerk of the first record and the expansive sound of Mummer into a cohesive whole.
It doesn't always work. But even some of the failures are interesting. The dancing skeleton music of “Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her” is better than the melody or lyrics. But it isn't hatefully experimental as I've felt so much of Partridge's music can be, you know? He's always been oppressively impenetrable and he is here, as well. But the production overwhelms his worst intentions.
While not horrible by any means, The Big Express is also not that interesting. And it feels inordinately long. Without anything to grab on to, without any real hooks the whole album just leaves me wanting. So, even a song like, “I Bought Myself a Liarbird” which is under 3 minutes, feels like it's five because it’s boring and uneventful.
I kinda wish Andy Partridge would just shut up and let the band play his music. Hand lyric writing over to Colin Moulding.
Grade C-
A Side: Wake Up
BlindSide: Shake You Donkey Up, This World Over
DownSide: Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her, Train Running Low On Soul Coal.
XTC – Skylarking – 1986
Andy Partridge notoriously fought with producer Todd Rundgren during the making of this record. Eventually admitting that Rundgren is quite a talented arranger and had great ideas.
Really.
Partridge arguing with somebody. And that person's contribution works to create the most accessible and artistically satisfying of XTC's career.
Sorry, John, I still want to punch Partridge in the face.
It's impossible to talk about Skylarking without getting to “Dear God” so let's dispense with that right away. It wasn't on the album at first. It became a huge stand alone hit and was included on subsequent pressings. It's one of the 100 best songs in the rock pantheon. I tip my hat to Partridge for having written it.
Ok. Let's get back to the record.
Is it a concept album? Sort of.
Is it beautiful? No question.
Partridge is focused and painting sublime images. “Share a joke, the laughs on me, when I get you on your own, we'll see...” It's a lovely refrain in a lovely love song that has me rooting for the suitor and his love. Oh, wait. That's a Moulding song. And so was “Grass”. Two of the prettiest songs on the record. As is “Big Day” and “Summer's Cauldron”
Hm.
Partridge is back with his snark on tracks like “That's Really Super, SuperGirl”. I do enjoy the fact that Partridge seems to adore comic books. That might be some of the appeal of this band to some. But it's clear that, save a few songs, Moulding is the real talent in this band. What I mean by that is that he can cut to the emotional quick. His musings are spot on and mostly devoid of self-righteousness.
That's what I think the problem is with Partridge for me. He's overt in how much smarter he is than you. God I really don't like this guy. I wonder why....
I think it's because for years I'd heard the name Andy Partridge spoken in unison with XTC. As if the band was his and the players were just Andy Summers to his Sting. But this couldn't be further from the truth. In point of fact, Moulding is every bit his equal as a songwriter.
But, what about Skylarking?
It's magic.
The songs are great, yes, but the production is sublime. The arrangements, the instrumentation are lush, pastoral, delicate but bountiful. “Ballet for a Rainy Day” is a perfect example of this. XTC had never sounded like this and this is a good place for them. It's the best of latter day Beatles, a magical mystery XTC. And it flows into “1000 Umbrellas” like they were written as a suite. An “Eleanor Rigby” for the 80s.
Besides Rundgren's contribution kudos have to be given to one of the greatest drummers ever to emerge from the 70s glam, Ex-Tubes drummer Prairie Prince handles the sticks on this and he, well, Prince can do anything, really.
“Earn Enough for Us” shows us a Partridge that was previously impenetrable though all that experimentation. Instead, I feel empathy for this working class slob who just wants to make enough money to keep his wife and family provided for.
The album wears it's Beatles-ism a little bit on it's sleeve on “Big Day” but that's easily forgiven as homage. And then that's followed by the creepy rejection of “Another Satellite”. And the beat poetry of “The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul”, a song that instantly wipes away all that White Music/Go 2 crap away in a little moody piano, syncopation and Henry Mancini drama.
Now. Back to “Dear God”. Featuring Partridge's son on the first verse, this is the most vituperative rejection of mankind's inhumanity to man under the guise of blaming a “God” that I'm not sure Partridge believes in in the first place. But it's really his disapprobation of what we have done to each other toward the end of the song that cuts so deep.
I won't believe in heaven and hell. No saints, no sinners, no
Devil as well. No pearly gates, no thorny crown. You're always
Letting us humans down. The wars you bring, the babes you
Drown. Those lost at sea and never found, and it's the same the
Whole world 'round. The hurt I see helps to compound that
Father, Son and Holy Ghost is just somebody's unholy hoax,
And if you're up there you'd perceive that my heart's here upon
My sleeve. If there's one thing I don't believe in
It's you....
Well, Mr. Partridge. That song, in and of itself, is enough to redeem you in my eyes. How you did it, I don't know. It's worth having put up with your previous crap to get here.
XTC's Skylarking is a remarkable achievement especially considering just how much I have been let down by this group so far. If you don't have this album you need it in your collection.
Now.
A Side: Dear God
BlindSide: The Meeting Place, Ballet for a Rainy Day, 1000 Umbrellas, Season Cycle, Earn Enough for Us....fuck it. The whole thing is great.
XTC – Oranges and Lemons – 1989By now it's pretty clear that I am not the biggest XTC fan. With the exception of Skylarking and English Settlement I'm not too sure why anyone would list them as one of the most important band of the new wave or any era. Certainly not power-poppers.
So, it's no surprise that it took me over a month to get back to reviewing their catalog. Cause I really want it to just be over.
As someone who has never been in arduous love with The Beatles (note the Rolling Stones LPs) it's safe to say that the Peter Max inspired artwork on the cover of this record would be the first “turn back” sign I would encounter. I remember seeing it in the bin at Tower and tossing it back in, uninterested.
Then Oranges and Lemons opens with “The Garden of Earthly Delights” and it's pretty obvious that the band has learned something from working with Todd Rundgren. The upbeat yet snarky “Mayor of Simpleton” is one of the catchiest ditties ever to come out of this band, followed by the Moulding song, “King for a Day”, not a bad song, but one that sounds more like it's influenced by the faux-soul of the day. It's as if Moulding was trying to write a song for Crowded House.
Things turn decidedly more political on “Here Comes President Kill Again”. If Partridge had been so blatantly biased in the past he was hiding behind elliptical lyrics and experimentation. Not here. He's not happy. But, by the end of the 80s I don't think anyone was too happy with American Presidents. Unless they were on paper.
While the album isn't as thematic as its predecessor, the collection of songs are decidedly not haphazard. Nor is the production. Lemons is a lovely record. Crafted with care. Case in point “One of the Millions”, a track that has everything I loathe about XTC: annoying vocals, distracting rhythms, poor rhymes and yet I love it, because it ISN'T stripped bare. The layer upon layers keep the entire proceedings moving like a gondola ride down a river made of slippery molasses. I have no idea what that means, either.
“Merely a Man” is the last track on the album brimming with any vitality and/or resonance. After that it's a melange of I don't care.
Chop 20 minutes off this thing and it's a near classic.
Grade: C+
A Side: The Mayor of Simpleton
BlindSide: The Garden of Earthly Delights, The Loving, One of the Millions, Merely a Man
DownSide: Miniature Sun
XTC – Nonsuch – 1992For all my apathy toward this band they have displayed moments of brilliance, obviously, and, on occasion I do find myself listing a song or two of theirs as one of my favorites. “The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead” is one of those. As political allegory it's spot on. As pop, it's confection. I've never heard Nonsuch however. Just that one song.
Five songs in and I have to say, this is one of the most pleasing listening experiences I've encountered from this band. Lush, layered, gentle but not wimpy. It's a great soundtrack to a Sunday afternoon. What I notice (and this is echoed in reviews I've read subsequently) is that, instead of paying homage to The Beatles, XTC seems to be drawing from the Beach Boys palette. This is mostly due to the background harmonies, which, to be honest, crib from the Wilson motif. So, somewhere between Pet Sounds and Super Furry Animals/Animal Collective is this album, the connector, if you will.
Where the lack of cohesion bothered me on Oranges and Lemons, I really don't mind it here. This is a protracted and more mature English Settlement. And a much easier listen, as well. Makes sense. Partridge is 10 years older. He's almost 40. He's no longer bogged down by stage fright. Well, he is, but he's dealt with it by not performing live anymore. I think if this record had been made 5 years before it would sound a lot like Tears for Fears. We're lucky that didn't happen.
Around the middle of the record XTC is up to their old awkward habits. “Crocodile” is annoyingly angular and “Rook” is bad Broadway ala Chess. Yet, while “Omnibus” revels in it's weirdness, it's actually engaging and harkens back to the Drums and Wires era. In a good way. So, the first third is pop, the second third, culminating with “That Wave” is the more experimental middle.
What's the last act of Nonsuch?
“Then She Appeared” with it's backwards masking and arpeggiated guitars is hypnotic and delicate. Almost suggesting the, well, the closing act of a three part piece. “Books Are Burning”, the least XTC (it almost sounds like Queen, if you ask me) song of all I've heard closes out this set, the latter third playing out like an extended coda.
All in all, Nonsuch is a great little record. Sure it's about 35 minutes too long, but it never overstays its welcome. I would say it's among the band's better works.
Grade: B
A Side: The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead
BlindSide: Dear Madam Barnum, The Disappointed, Then She Appeared, Books Are Burning
DownSide: Rook
XTC – Apple Venus Pt 1 – 1999Apple Venus starts off with a delicately orchestrated piece “River of Orchids”, which sounds more like the opening of a Sondheim musical circa Sunday in the Park with George. It's unlike anything I would have expected and yet, exactly what I expected. Then it moves into the accessible acoustic beauty, “I'd Like That”. A return to Skylarking form, I'd say.
From there it's one lovely song after another. A culmination of everything they've learned from those three best records (Settlement, Skylarking and Nonsuch). A panopoly, if you will. Not a hodgepodge at all. Sadly, the song I like the least on the first half of the record is Moulding's “Frivolous Tonight”. Considering how he's never let me down before this is a tragedy. He almost redeems himself with the french inspired “Fruit Nuit”. Almost.
“You're Dictionary” is a lacerating screed that brings to mind the most vicious Paul Weller moments.
“I Can't Hold Her” is the most humane ballad Partrige has given us, showing humanity in not just his words but in the music as well.
The album loses it's way amidst its own preciousness at the end with “Harvest Festival” and “The Last Balloon” but all in all, it's a pretty solid outing.
Grade: B+
A Side: River of Orchids, I'd Like That
BlindSide: Knights in Shining Karma, Your Dictionary, I Can't Hold Her
DownSide: Frivolous Tonight
XTC – Wasp Star (Apple Venus Pt. 2) – 2000The thing about the Listening Posts is that they are supposed to be a review of bands whose catalog I am peripherally aware AND they are still releasing music today, making them somewhat relevant. Believe it or not, all of the bands I have covered so far fit that criteria except two that were part of this series. Genesis was finally, mercifully, put out of operation.
XTC has, somehow or someway, gone into that gentle good night. They did it with a 1-2 punch of the Apple Venus records.
The first one was great. This one is more like the band looked around the leftovers and realized they had enough to fill up a record. It's not cohesive. Passingly interesting. Never groundbreaking.
If you like the latter day XTC, you will have no issue with Wasp Star. It actually plays more like a Power Pop record than almost any of their others.
Even Colin Moulding redeems himself with “Standing in for Joe”. It's piffle, yes. But delightful piffle.
Wasp Star is nice. It's edgy when it wants to be. It's quirky. How could it not be? It's XTC. I'll never go back into most of these records again. I'm fine with English Settlement and Skylarking. But, then again, I don't know if anyone else can write, “You and the Clouds will Still be Beautiful”. A song that I could listen to for three times as long as it goes on.
I might pull out Nonsuch or Apple Venus, but I doubt it. There's too much good stuff out there.
Bye bye, XTC. It was a long journey.
Grade: B+
A Side: Playground, You and the Clouds Will Still Be Beautiful
BlindSide: I'm the Man Who Murdered Love, Standing in for Joe
DownSide: Wounded Horse
