Love your enthusiasm for XTC. I knew you had this in the works so very excited to watch. I've been a fan since 1992. Well, here goes 13. The Big Express 12. Go 2 11. Apple Venus 10. White Music 9. Mummer 8. Wasp Star 7. Oranges And Lemons 6. Nonsuch 5. Chips From The Chocolate Fireball 4. Black Sea 3. English Settlement 2. Drums And Wires 1. Skylarking
I walked into my local record store only yesterday and the owner and I got yapping about the first cd we ever bought. When I told him it was Oranges and Lemons, he reached out and shook my hand. Now, the next day, your video comes out. Kismet! Strangely, it was “Travels in Nihilon” that brought me in to XTC. Then I discovered the rest of their greatness.
Glad to see that, unlike most XTC ranking videos, Go2 & White Music are rated more highly. I loved the Barry Andrews era & bought Go2 the day it came out - if I did a rating it'd probably make the top four. I was lucky enough to see them on the Drums & Wires tour over here in the UK & was part of a stage invasion whilst they played Meccanick Dancing. I agree with your observations on English Settlement having a lot of weak tracks, and it's an album I just don't get on with at all. It'd be very low in my rating, which would probably get me slammed by other XTC fans. Thanks for the video.
Great to see XTC getting some attention, thanks for doing it. Tied for first for me are Black Sea, English Settlement, Chips from the Chocco Fireball, Rag and Bone Buffet (Blame the Weather, great track!) and Big Express. Everything else is tied for second. Except for Apple Venus Vol 1, never could get into it. Martin Newell's "Greatest Living Englishman" was produced by Partridge and is very XTC-ish, and Newell's whole DIY catalog is pretty darn jangly good, check it out. I also have a bootleg of a drunken XTC jam session with such "cover tracks" as "Pupil Hays," "Whole Lotta Age" and "Community Worker Breakdown." Not very PC but hilarious in spots, and showing their versatility as muscians.
Great video! Not having talked to any XTC fans before, I don’t know what the general consensus on the best and worst albums, so it was interesting to see this list and how different it is to mine. Especially how there’s songs you seem to not like, when for me, I absolutely love every single track (so far). 😂 (Others I haven’t listened to yet) 10. Mummer 9. White Music 8. Go 2 7. Chips from the Chocolate Fireball 6. Oranges & Lemons 5. Nonsuch 4. English Settlement 3. Black Sea 2. Drums and Wires 1. Skylarking I would say this ranking is very fluid and will change drastically after maybe a month of listening. I’ve only just listened to Mummer, and I think it’s absolutely amazing, so that might shift up after a few more listens.
Great video, been waiting on this one for a while. For me, Nonsuch and Oranges and Lemons are at the very top. Wrapped in Gray and The Disappointed, two of my favorite songs by them. War Dance is solid in my opinion. You just can’t beat that Oranges and Lemons psych pop sound also.
Like you, I first heard XTC in 1979, in the form of Helicopter. I was immediately floored. Also went to HS in southern California from 78-82, and KROQ was a huge part of our lives. Favorite bands in HS both started with 'X'. (XTC and X) How often does that happen? Still love both bands to this day. Great video Tom. Gratitude.
Hi Tom! I grew up and have lived all my life in a rural, former Western Pennsylvania coal mining area. Our radio listening has always been by way of Pittsburgh's stations. In about 1983 I came across a program on WYDD in Pittsburgh called "The 12/60 Club." It was on every night at midnight and ran for an hour - hence the name. They played strictly punk and post-punk. I knew a guy who could find TDK120 cassettes, and fortunately my stereo had a timer feature. I would slip a fresh tape in, set it to come on at midnight, record the program and then kill the power after an hour. The next day driving to and from work I would check out the previous night's show. That was my first run-in with XTC. One night they played "Wonderland," I absolutely loved it; so much so that before I went home I hit the record store to buy the album that the song came from (which, of course was "Mummer"). I was working for a landscaper at the time, so when I stopped at the store to buy the album I was absolutely filthy! Ordinarily I would never go into a store that way, but I really wanted this album! On the way home, while listening to the second half of the previous night's show, the host played "Love on a Farmboy's Wages." Ahhh! I absolutely loved it!!! After showering and eating I immediately cracked the album open and played it. Like you, I wasn't, and am still not real big on "Deliver Us from the Elements" or "Human Alchemy." My absolute favorites are "Wonderland," "Love on a Farmboy's Wages," "Great Fire" and "Ladybird!" In about 1986 or so, a new station went on the air in Pittsburgh: 100.7 WXXP. They only lasted about two years and then they were gone. They stuck pretty much strictly with post-punk. That was where I heard "Dear God." Didn't care for it. About a year later I started a job at a record store. The owners (a husband and wife) would buy used CD's. They would keep them face-out on rows of shelves behind the check-out counter and people could rent them. Those were also what we would listen to throughout the day. "Skylarking" was one of those discs and we played it a lot! I decided to buy the album, and wouldn't you know, mine contained "Mermaid Smiled." Personally, I feel that song slots in much better on the album and is the better of the two songs. To me, there's not a bum song on there! The first track I heard from "Oranges and Lemons" was "King for a Day." I loved it! So, I ordered the album. By this time, if you wanted an album on vinyl you had to ask an employee if it was available on vinyl. If it was then you had to order it because the stores weren't stocking much vinyl anymore. I wasn't particularly smitten with "Here Comes President Kill Again." The only track from side two that really grabbed me was "The Loving," good song! "Merely a Man" was the grabber for me off of side three. I like all of side four! So, about nine really good tracks vs. six meh tracks made it worth the purchase in my book! When I was working at the record store, the other guy who worked there loaned me his Dukes of Stratosphere album. Great, great album!!! Top shelf! I love the better part of XTC's stuff. My collecting their albums is by no means over! Great call for an "Artist Feature" video! One of the best!!
I discovered XTC doing a BBC John Peel session in 1977! Superb band it's great I'm seeing more stuff about them now especially in the States! Excellent! 👍
I concur with your ranking and appraisal of XTC's albums. But whenever anybody mocks "cheesy keyboards" l clench up and go to Defcon One. I love "Cheesy" keyboards. Consider: "Ball and Chain" features two keyboard solos which were probably played on Korg or Sequential Circuits synths, but as it happens, sound EXACTLY like the sound Rick Wright got out of a Farfisa Compact combo organ in the early days of Pink Floyd. Call it cheesy if you like. I call it a way of life. My axe was a Vox Jaguar, by the way. Cheesy, cheesy. I wish l still had it
It's cool that you've been with them since close to the beginning. My favorite has changed over the years from Skylarking to Drums and Wires to, most recently Black Sea. However, I always liked the harsh, clangy, dense sound design of The Big Express, which is exactly as they intended. Certainly easier listening than a lot of the noise rock from that time (Swans, Neubauten, Big Black, Scratch Acid, Butthole Surfers, etc)! When Oranges & Lemons came out, I was shocked at how bad it was. They completely lost their mojo, and every now and then I try again, and I still hate it. Nonsuch sounds slightly better, but not a single song has stuck with me. I'll take Apple Venus over both.
XTC is one of my favorite bands and I actually found them through you’re my drug so for awhile I didn’t know that XTC was a bigger band with more music
Take all the "misadventures" of the Pretty Things & add: an easily misunderstood name & a lead who sounds like a 70s sitcom BUT Please move Mummer further up on the list....Lady Bird.....
When Eng Settlement hit college radio it was a. Asteroid major baseline cathartic genius. Plus melody!☮️☄️they definitely worked their studio butts off. Yeah, u did your homework 🌞
It took me a while to come around to them, because my first exposure to them was picking up Go2 in a cut out bin, and I really could not get into that album.
That Rag And Bone Buffet compilation of theirs that you mentioned has for long been deleted, but contains rarities that have not been reissued elsewhere. But I have now purchased a used copy, advertised as VG from Ebay for £5.32, post free. Used copies on Amazon were hellishy dear, or extortionate. People may disagree. But I think their best material was their Dukes Of Stratosphere alias tracks. That EP you mentioned was expanded to a CD album with loads of great bonus tracks, including early demo versions of it's tracks. This was all musically based on the Psychedelia of 1967, and sounds like a journey back to that time, without having been recorded nearly as far back as then. But they made an excellent job of recreating it nearly 20 years later, and with entirely their own material, no covers here. I like some of the tracks on Big Express. But the best version of the album was the 5.1 surround mix, which did not sound like a surround mix, but a remix of the tracks in much clearer sound, with the heavy drumming pushed to the background, making the album sound more comfortable. Someone uploaded these mixes onto TH-cam. But worst of all was the Steven Wilson 2023 remix of the album which sounds worse than the original, heavily distorted. He apparently did his mix from the original multi-track tapes, after they had just been found, having previously been lost for many years. But despite that, he made them sound terrible. But one track, This World Over reminded me of metrpolitan band The Police.
The only exposure to XTC I have is a single 45 I bought about 1983-84, can't remember the title but believe it was just one word. It could possibly have been a track on their Skylarking LP. I probably saw the accompanying video on MTV. I remember hearing "The Mayor of Simpleton" on FM-radio in the late 1980s.
Posting my personal rankings prior to this viewing. For clarity, I like EVERY XTC album. No 2 rankings EVER the same. 13 Wasp Star 12 White Music 11 Oranges and Lemons 10 Go To 9 The Big Express 8 Dukes of Stratosphere (25 o'clock, Chips from the Chocolate Fireball) 7 Nonsuch 6 Mummer 5 Apple Venus Volume 1 4 Skylarking 3 English Settlement 2 Drums and Wires 1 Black Sea
There are three songs you mentioned that you don’t like by them and they are three of my favorite XTC songs, “Melt The Guns”, “It’s nearly Africa” and Travels in Nihilon”, from those choices, it appears you are not fond of African drum rhythms because all three of those songs utilize African rhythms and I ytink they are brilliant. I do agree with your other choices on English settlement you don’t like though, those should have been the b-sides and the 3 b-sides from that album should have been on that album, “Blame The Weather” and “Heaven is Paved with Broken Glass” are two of my favorite XTC songs.
Absolutely, those 2,songs should have been on English Settlement. I’ve always been blown away by the amount of first rate songs that became outtakes in their catalog. Highly prolific.
Wow. I'm truly surprised how much our lists differ, but I guess that's a tribute to the greatness of the band. Here's my personal ranking: 13 Wasp Star: I pretty much agree with everything you said, except I think I like it even less, so much that it's the only album of theirs I don't own. 12 Apple Venus: I have to listen to this one more; as you said, some great songs, but overall it is a bit pretentious. 11 Chips From the Chocolate Fireball: Another one I have to listen to more...I could definitely see this one rising in the future. 10 White Music: A fine debut. 9 Go 2: A slightly better followup. 8 Oranges and Lemons: Not as consistent as their best work, but I like it a lot. 7 Drums and Wires: Probably too low a ranking according to most fans, but the band hadn't quite crystallized their sound yet. Still a great record though. 6 Skylarking: I love the songs, but for some reason Todd Rundgren's production keeps me at arm's length. Nonetheless, brilliant songwriting. 5 The Big Express: Underrated! I will defend All You Pretty Girls until the day I die, insanely catchy, like a sea chanty almost. 4 Mummer: For me, this album has an excellent flow to it, and a great direction for the band following English Settlement. 3 Nonsuch: Not sure why this album is usually near the bottom. I love every song! This might be Colin Moulding's finest hour as a pop songwriter, and Partridge, well, if I start listing all the great songs of his that are on this album, we'll be here forever... 2 English Settlement: I go back and forth between this one and Black Sea as to which is my number one, but today it's number two. I agree, it is very top heavy, but I do like the second album quite a bit. FYI, there was a single version of this released in the US at the same time as the double album's release, and they pick the right songs, but still, I've always been drawn to the messiness of double albums. But... At the same time, there's something to be said for perfection which is why Black Sea is my number one. Every song is a winner, and the way each song flows into the next, especially on the second side, is sublime. A combination of great songwriting and perfect sequencing, this is an alternative rock masterpiece. So, we start and end at the same place, but in between our differences are both interesting and noteworthy. Thanks, Tom!
Thanks Tom. I have Mummer a bit higher than you, but more importantly, Nonsuch is my favourite. XTC sounded very different under different producers. Steve Lillywhite for Drums and Wires and Black Sea, then Hugh Padgham with a different sound on English Settlement. Nonsuch is produced by Gus Dudgeon who of course produced Elton John’s best albums in the 70s. None of their albums sound like Nonsuch, just as none of their albums sound like Skylarking. But they are always a really enjoyable band. A discography with tremendous depth. There aren’t many artists with the bottom half still being this good.
@@bradbull3926 It’s nice to see new generations discovering XTC. There was a time where it was rare to find someone who knew who they were, except the random fanatic. 😉
Xtc are fantastic and one band who never caved into record company pressure or passing trends and thats why this band is so special is that their music is their own sound so for my top 5 here we go black sea, white music, drums and wires, oranges and lemons and English settlement this can change tomorrow that's how good xtc are
@@dmk7700 Sounds like a great idea. A lot of albums to cover. I think I’ve seen Auger live about 8 times over a long period of time. I saw him at The Baked Potato in LA about 10 years ago. Best of all his shows I’ve seen. Had my copy of Streetnoise signed. He said that was one of his fave albums in his discography.
I saw/heard the "Eric Burdon/Brian Auger Band" at the short lived China Club, Chicago circa '93/'94. I brought my copy of Streetnoise to be autographed also, but failed in my endeavor.
To be honest, as much as I love early XTC, I completely lost interest after English Settlement. What little I heard after that did not appeal to me, or inspire spending money on albums with deeper tracks. Never had a problem with Barry Andrews on the first two records, thought the next two were a noticeable improvement, and was *slightly* let down by the fifth, but not much. After that... Meh. I could live the rest of my life grateful to never hear "Dear God" again (I have the same problem with Jethro Tull's "My God" -- is this a British thing, addressing epistles to imaginary deities?) Did kind of like Dukes Of Stratosfear when I caught up with it a decade or so later. One thing you don't mention is Andy's record of XTC remixes, Take Way/The Lure Of Salvage, under the "Mr. Partridge" moniker. *That* I quite like -- very weird. Got to see the band just once, on that 1980 tour, at the Lawrence, Kansas Opera House. They closed the show with "Travels In Nihilon" with a light show that involved black and white film strips. I loved that so much that I went out and found the book it was based on, by Allan Sillitoe. Can't remember it now.
Indeed it was. It was probably a tacked-on extra show because Lawrence is so close to Kansas City, and the university radio station was playing the heck out of them. Wanted to see them again on the cancelled tour. Lawrence was a regular stop for alt-FM bands, like The Bongos, REM, and Iggy Pop.
Love your enthusiasm for XTC. I knew you had this in the works so very excited to watch. I've been a fan since 1992. Well, here goes
13. The Big Express
12. Go 2
11. Apple Venus
10. White Music
9. Mummer
8. Wasp Star
7. Oranges And Lemons
6. Nonsuch
5. Chips From The Chocolate Fireball
4. Black Sea
3. English Settlement
2. Drums And Wires
1. Skylarking
I walked into my local record store only yesterday and the owner and I got yapping about the first cd we ever bought. When I told him it was Oranges and Lemons, he reached out and shook my hand. Now, the next day, your video comes out. Kismet! Strangely, it was “Travels in Nihilon” that brought me in to XTC. Then I discovered the rest of their greatness.
Two of my first CDs I ever bought were Chips from the Chocolate Fireball and Skylarking!
Glad to see that, unlike most XTC ranking videos, Go2 & White Music are rated more highly. I loved the Barry Andrews era & bought Go2 the day it came out - if I did a rating it'd probably make the top four. I was lucky enough to see them on the Drums & Wires tour over here in the UK & was part of a stage invasion whilst they played Meccanick Dancing. I agree with your observations on English Settlement having a lot of weak tracks, and it's an album I just don't get on with at all. It'd be very low in my rating, which would probably get me slammed by other XTC fans. Thanks for the video.
Great to see XTC getting some attention, thanks for doing it. Tied for first for me are Black Sea, English Settlement, Chips from the Chocco Fireball, Rag and Bone Buffet (Blame the Weather, great track!) and Big Express. Everything else is tied for second. Except for Apple Venus Vol 1, never could get into it. Martin Newell's "Greatest Living Englishman" was produced by Partridge and is very XTC-ish, and Newell's whole DIY catalog is pretty darn jangly good, check it out. I also have a bootleg of a drunken XTC jam session with such "cover tracks" as "Pupil Hays," "Whole Lotta Age" and "Community Worker Breakdown." Not very PC but hilarious in spots, and showing their versatility as muscians.
Sounds entertaining. I must seek that one out. 😉
Great video! Not having talked to any XTC fans before, I don’t know what the general consensus on the best and worst albums, so it was interesting to see this list and how different it is to mine. Especially how there’s songs you seem to not like, when for me, I absolutely love every single track (so far). 😂
(Others I haven’t listened to yet)
10. Mummer
9. White Music
8. Go 2
7. Chips from the Chocolate Fireball
6. Oranges & Lemons
5. Nonsuch
4. English Settlement
3. Black Sea
2. Drums and Wires
1. Skylarking
I would say this ranking is very fluid and will change drastically after maybe a month of listening. I’ve only just listened to Mummer, and I think it’s absolutely amazing, so that might shift up after a few more listens.
@@adambartlett-jones4870 Mummer has some stellar tracks. That album has grown on me overtime. 😉
Great video, been waiting on this one for a while. For me, Nonsuch and Oranges and Lemons are at the very top. Wrapped in Gray and The Disappointed, two of my favorite songs by them. War Dance is solid in my opinion. You just can’t beat that Oranges and Lemons psych pop sound also.
Like you, I first heard XTC in 1979, in the form of Helicopter. I was immediately floored. Also went to HS in southern California from 78-82, and KROQ was a huge part of our lives. Favorite bands in HS both started with 'X'. (XTC and X) How often does that happen? Still love both bands to this day. Great video Tom. Gratitude.
@@toddhill7483 Thanks Todd 😉
This is great. Looking forward to hearing you rate the Blur catalog now that you’re a recent convert 😉
it's strange to hear the words "an xtc record that didn't register with me" coming out of your mouth. you're still a devotee i know.
Oh definitely! I’m blown away by their brilliance. 😉
Hi Tom! I grew up and have lived all my life in a rural, former Western Pennsylvania coal mining area. Our radio listening has always been by way of Pittsburgh's stations. In about 1983 I came across a program on WYDD in Pittsburgh called "The 12/60 Club." It was on every night at midnight and ran for an hour - hence the name. They played strictly punk and post-punk. I knew a guy who could find TDK120 cassettes, and fortunately my stereo had a timer feature. I would slip a fresh tape in, set it to come on at midnight, record the program and then kill the power after an hour. The next day driving to and from work I would check out the previous night's show. That was my first run-in with XTC. One night they played "Wonderland," I absolutely loved it; so much so that before I went home I hit the record store to buy the album that the song came from (which, of course was "Mummer"). I was working for a landscaper at the time, so when I stopped at the store to buy the album I was absolutely filthy! Ordinarily I would never go into a store that way, but I really wanted this album! On the way home, while listening to the second half of the previous night's show, the host played "Love on a Farmboy's Wages." Ahhh! I absolutely loved it!!! After showering and eating I immediately cracked the album open and played it. Like you, I wasn't, and am still not real big on "Deliver Us from the Elements" or "Human Alchemy." My absolute favorites are "Wonderland," "Love on a Farmboy's Wages," "Great Fire" and "Ladybird!"
In about 1986 or so, a new station went on the air in Pittsburgh: 100.7 WXXP. They only lasted about two years and then they were gone. They stuck pretty much strictly with post-punk. That was where I heard "Dear God." Didn't care for it. About a year later I started a job at a record store. The owners (a husband and wife) would buy used CD's. They would keep them face-out on rows of shelves behind the check-out counter and people could rent them. Those were also what we would listen to throughout the day. "Skylarking" was one of those discs and we played it a lot! I decided to buy the album, and wouldn't you know, mine contained "Mermaid Smiled." Personally, I feel that song slots in much better on the album and is the better of the two songs. To me, there's not a bum song on there!
The first track I heard from "Oranges and Lemons" was "King for a Day." I loved it! So, I ordered the album. By this time, if you wanted an album on vinyl you had to ask an employee if it was available on vinyl. If it was then you had to order it because the stores weren't stocking much vinyl anymore. I wasn't particularly smitten with "Here Comes President Kill Again." The only track from side two that really grabbed me was "The Loving," good song! "Merely a Man" was the grabber for me off of side three. I like all of side four! So, about nine really good tracks vs. six meh tracks made it worth the purchase in my book!
When I was working at the record store, the other guy who worked there loaned me his Dukes of Stratosphere album. Great, great album!!! Top shelf! I love the better part of XTC's stuff. My collecting their albums is by no means over!
Great call for an "Artist Feature" video! One of the best!!
@@nathanlaney4577 Thanks Nathan. Cool stories regarding your discoveries of XTC albums. Such a varied catalog.
English Settlement has been on my playlist for the past 6 months straight. Just musical perfection!
I was always bummed that the single disc version had the nice embossed cover, but the double disc was totally generic.
@@seed_drill7135 Mmm.... interesting because my original UK version has the embossed cover.
I discovered XTC doing a BBC John Peel session in 1977! Superb band it's great I'm seeing more stuff about them now especially in the States! Excellent! 👍
Great review, Tom! I can actually say I own all these albums, myself.
Spot on, nice job, thx
Great stuff as usual😊
TY
Their performance in Urgh! A Music War is outstanding. They were a great live act.
I saw them open for Cheap Trick in 1979.... .Peace and Love, Terry and Julia Tutor
@@TerryTutor-cv3hh Very cool. 😉
I concur with your ranking and appraisal of XTC's albums. But whenever anybody mocks "cheesy keyboards" l clench up and go to Defcon One. I love "Cheesy" keyboards. Consider: "Ball and Chain" features two keyboard solos which were probably played on Korg or Sequential Circuits synths, but as it happens, sound EXACTLY like the sound Rick Wright got out of a Farfisa Compact combo organ in the early days of Pink Floyd. Call it cheesy if you like. I call it a way of life.
My axe was a Vox Jaguar, by the way. Cheesy, cheesy. I wish l still had it
❤❤❤❤
MY FAVORITE BAND EVER!!!!
(except Yes and Genesis…)
@@TheProgCorner Nice! I’m a huge Peter Gabriel era Genesis fan myself. Love early Yes as well. 😉
It's cool that you've been with them since close to the beginning. My favorite has changed over the years from Skylarking to Drums and Wires to, most recently Black Sea. However, I always liked the harsh, clangy, dense sound design of The Big Express, which is exactly as they intended. Certainly easier listening than a lot of the noise rock from that time (Swans, Neubauten, Big Black, Scratch Acid, Butthole Surfers, etc)!
When Oranges & Lemons came out, I was shocked at how bad it was. They completely lost their mojo, and every now and then I try again, and I still hate it. Nonsuch sounds slightly better, but not a single song has stuck with me. I'll take Apple Venus over both.
XTC is one of my favorite bands and I actually found them through you’re my drug so for awhile I didn’t know that XTC was a bigger band with more music
They’re amazing. One of the great unsung bands of all time.
Take all the "misadventures" of the Pretty Things & add: an easily misunderstood name & a lead who sounds like a 70s sitcom
BUT Please move Mummer further up on the list....Lady Bird.....
What a fabulous band
When Eng Settlement hit college radio it was a. Asteroid major baseline cathartic genius. Plus melody!☮️☄️they definitely worked their studio butts off. Yeah, u did your homework 🌞
It took me a while to come around to them, because my first exposure to them was picking up Go2 in a cut out bin, and I really could not get into that album.
That Rag And Bone Buffet compilation of theirs that you mentioned has for long been deleted, but contains rarities that have not been reissued elsewhere. But I have now purchased a used copy, advertised as VG from Ebay for £5.32, post free. Used copies on Amazon were hellishy dear, or extortionate.
People may disagree. But I think their best material was their Dukes Of Stratosphere alias tracks. That EP you mentioned was expanded to a CD album with loads of great bonus tracks, including early demo versions of it's tracks. This was all musically based on the Psychedelia of 1967, and sounds like a journey back to that time, without having been recorded nearly as far back as then. But they made an excellent job of recreating it nearly 20 years later, and with entirely their own material, no covers here.
I like some of the tracks on Big Express. But the best version of the album was the 5.1 surround mix, which did not sound like a surround mix, but a remix of the tracks in much clearer sound, with the heavy drumming pushed to the background, making the album sound more comfortable. Someone uploaded these mixes onto TH-cam. But worst of all was the Steven Wilson 2023 remix of the album which sounds worse than the original, heavily distorted. He apparently did his mix from the original multi-track tapes, after they had just been found, having previously been lost for many years. But despite that, he made them sound terrible. But one track, This World Over reminded me of metrpolitan band The Police.
The only exposure to XTC I have is a single 45 I bought about 1983-84, can't remember the title but believe it was just one word. It could possibly have been a track on their Skylarking LP. I probably saw the accompanying video on MTV. I remember hearing "The Mayor of Simpleton" on FM-radio in the late 1980s.
Try the 5.1 remixes. Also TC&I. Plus see exTC live if possible.
@@johnnysockhead If they come to LA I’m there! I would love to see that show. 😉
Posting my personal rankings prior to this viewing. For clarity, I like EVERY XTC album. No 2 rankings EVER the same.
13 Wasp Star
12 White Music
11 Oranges and Lemons
10 Go To
9 The Big Express
8 Dukes of Stratosphere (25 o'clock, Chips from the Chocolate Fireball)
7 Nonsuch
6 Mummer
5 Apple Venus Volume 1
4 Skylarking
3 English Settlement
2 Drums and Wires
1 Black Sea
There are three songs you mentioned that you don’t like by them and they are three of my favorite XTC songs, “Melt The Guns”, “It’s nearly Africa” and Travels in Nihilon”, from those choices, it appears you are not fond of African drum rhythms because all three of those songs utilize African rhythms and I ytink they are brilliant. I do agree with your other choices on English settlement you don’t like though, those should have been the b-sides and the 3 b-sides from that album should have been on that album, “Blame The Weather” and “Heaven is Paved with Broken Glass” are two of my favorite XTC songs.
Absolutely, those 2,songs should have been on English Settlement. I’ve always been blown away by the amount of first rate songs that became outtakes in their catalog. Highly prolific.
I love Fly On The Wall. Trippy psychedelia that you'd hear on the Dukes project. It's Nearly Africa is also cool.
Wow. I'm truly surprised how much our lists differ, but I guess that's a tribute to the greatness of the band. Here's my personal ranking:
13 Wasp Star: I pretty much agree with everything you said, except I think I like it even less, so much that it's the only album of theirs I don't own.
12 Apple Venus: I have to listen to this one more; as you said, some great songs, but overall it is a bit pretentious.
11 Chips From the Chocolate Fireball: Another one I have to listen to more...I could definitely see this one rising in the future.
10 White Music: A fine debut.
9 Go 2: A slightly better followup.
8 Oranges and Lemons: Not as consistent as their best work, but I like it a lot.
7 Drums and Wires: Probably too low a ranking according to most fans, but the band hadn't quite crystallized their sound yet. Still a great record though.
6 Skylarking: I love the songs, but for some reason Todd Rundgren's production keeps me at arm's length. Nonetheless, brilliant songwriting.
5 The Big Express: Underrated! I will defend All You Pretty Girls until the day I die, insanely catchy, like a sea chanty almost.
4 Mummer: For me, this album has an excellent flow to it, and a great direction for the band following English Settlement.
3 Nonsuch: Not sure why this album is usually near the bottom. I love every song! This might be Colin Moulding's finest hour as a pop songwriter, and Partridge, well, if I start listing all the great songs of his that are on this album, we'll be here forever...
2 English Settlement: I go back and forth between this one and Black Sea as to which is my number one, but today it's number two. I agree, it is very top heavy, but I do like the second album quite a bit. FYI, there was a single version of this released in the US at the same time as the double album's release, and they pick the right songs, but still, I've always been drawn to the messiness of double albums.
But...
At the same time, there's something to be said for perfection which is why Black Sea is my number one. Every song is a winner, and the way each song flows into the next, especially on the second side, is sublime. A combination of great songwriting and perfect sequencing, this is an alternative rock masterpiece.
So, we start and end at the same place, but in between our differences are both interesting and noteworthy. Thanks, Tom!
Dukes :)
Thanks Tom. I have Mummer a bit higher than you, but more importantly, Nonsuch is my favourite. XTC sounded very different under different producers. Steve Lillywhite for Drums and Wires and Black Sea, then Hugh Padgham with a different sound on English Settlement. Nonsuch is produced by Gus Dudgeon who of course produced Elton John’s best albums in the 70s. None of their albums sound like Nonsuch, just as none of their albums sound like Skylarking.
But they are always a really enjoyable band. A discography with tremendous depth. There aren’t many artists with the bottom half still being this good.
@@bradbull3926 It’s nice to see new generations discovering XTC. There was a time where it was rare to find someone who knew who they were, except the random fanatic. 😉
@@tomrobinson5776 Mmm. Tom I turn 65 next week, but I like your thinking 😂
@@bradbull3926 Just making a general statement regarding new fans who have discovered them over the years. 😉
Xtc are fantastic and one band who never caved into record company pressure or passing trends and thats why this band is so special is that their music is their own sound so for my top 5 here we go black sea, white music, drums and wires, oranges and lemons and English settlement this can change tomorrow that's how good xtc are
Albums two through five are thecream of the crop.
“White Music”, I will put it in third position
😮😮😮
don't recall
I caught the Brian Auger Oblivion Express reference ----- how 'bout ranking them?
@@dmk7700 Sounds like a great idea. A lot of albums to cover. I think I’ve seen Auger live about 8 times over a long period of time. I saw him at The Baked Potato in LA about 10 years ago. Best of all his shows I’ve seen. Had my copy of Streetnoise signed. He said that was one of his fave albums in his discography.
I saw/heard the "Eric Burdon/Brian Auger Band" at the short lived China Club, Chicago circa '93/'94. I brought my copy of Streetnoise to be autographed also, but failed in my endeavor.
To be honest, as much as I love early XTC, I completely lost interest after English Settlement. What little I heard after that did not appeal to me, or inspire spending money on albums with deeper tracks. Never had a problem with Barry Andrews on the first two records, thought the next two were a noticeable improvement, and was *slightly* let down by the fifth, but not much. After that... Meh. I could live the rest of my life grateful to never hear "Dear God" again (I have the same problem with Jethro Tull's "My God" -- is this a British thing, addressing epistles to imaginary deities?) Did kind of like Dukes Of Stratosfear when I caught up with it a decade or so later. One thing you don't mention is Andy's record of XTC remixes, Take Way/The Lure Of Salvage, under the "Mr. Partridge" moniker. *That* I quite like -- very weird. Got to see the band just once, on that 1980 tour, at the Lawrence, Kansas Opera House. They closed the show with "Travels In Nihilon" with a light show that involved black and white film strips. I loved that so much that I went out and found the book it was based on, by Allan Sillitoe. Can't remember it now.
@@simonKagree So cool you saw that show in ‘80. I can imagine how it must have been…..awesome!
Indeed it was. It was probably a tacked-on extra show because Lawrence is so close to Kansas City, and the university radio station was playing the heck out of them. Wanted to see them again on the cancelled tour. Lawrence was a regular stop for alt-FM bands, like The Bongos, REM, and Iggy Pop.