Even by rock n’ roll’s mercurial requirements, XTC has a historical past greatest described as “eccentric.” Blessed with not one however two excellent singer-songwriters in guitarist Andy Partridge and bassist Colin Moulding, this much-loved UK outfit sustained a profession spanning nearly 30 years and loved widespread vital acclaim – but the worldwide stardom that always appeared theirs for the taking eluded them ultimately.
Nonetheless, XTC left behind one in all UK rock’s most enviable our bodies of labor. Having initially risen to prominence as punk mutated into new wave, landmark titles reminiscent of 1979’s Drums and Wires and 1980’s Black Sea introduced them into mainstream rivalry whereas 1982’s bold double set English Settlement – that includes signature hit “Senses Working Overtime” – positioned the band for mass success.
Take heed to one of the best XTC songs now.
As much as this era, XTC had additionally gigged closely (typically sharing phases with the likes of The Police and Speaking Heads), but after Andy Partridge suffered from acute stage fright on the aborted English Settlement tour, they stop touring and successfully grew to become a studio-based band for the rest of their profession.
Label sponsors Virgin Data harbored doubts they might survive with out enjoying stay, but XTC step by step proved them flawed. Certainly, the band’s affect solely grew over time. They went on to create elegant albums reminiscent of 1986’s Skylarking and 1992’s Nonsuch with in-demand producers reminiscent of Todd Rundgren and Elton John acolyte Gus Dudgeon.
When Partridge and Moulding went their separate methods in 2006, their legacy was represented by 12 incredible albums. This ensures that condensing all of it all the way down to a bespoke checklist of the 20 Greatest XTC songs presents one thing of a problem – albeit one we hope we’ve risen to right here.
House is the place the center is
(“Meccanik Dancing (Oh We Go),” “The Everyday Story Of Smalltown,” “The Meeting Place,” “Chalkhills And Children”)
As XTC has freely admitted over time, hailing from Swindon within the UK’s West Nation was tantamount to the kiss of dying when the band signed to Virgin Data in 1977. The realm was much better often called the upkeep hub of the UK’s Nice Western Railway than for its (nearly complete lack) of cultural significance.
Nonetheless, downtrodden Swindon incessantly impressed XTC to put in writing actually nice songs over time. For instance, it was as soon as customary for Andy Partridge’s dad and mom to spend weekends socializing on the city’s Mechanics Institute, and the custom was handed all the way down to the teenage Partridge, inspiring him to pen “Meccanik Dancing (Oh We Go)” for XTC’s second album, Go 2. An early instance of the clipped, minimal post-punk type XTC would make its personal on Drums and Wires, the music made for the best curtain raiser for Go 2 and – with hindsight – in all probability ought to have been a single.
Penned by Colin Moulding, a later XTC observe that did change into a single, 1986’s pleasant chiming pop music “The Meeting Place,” sampled the hooter that known as staff to their shifts at Swindon’s Railway Works. The Works, the city’s principal employer from the 1850s till its closure in 1986, additionally impressed one in all XTC’s greatest deep cuts, The Massive Categorical’ “The Everyday Story Of Smalltown” – a rousing, Ray Davies-esque slice of reportage stuffed with references to quintessential English staples reminiscent of the meat drink Oxo, the Salvation Military and “Tories and Reds” (the UK’s Conservative and Labour political events).
It wasn’t simply Swindon’s city panorama that impressed XTC. The band selected a placing picture of the close by prehistoric hill determine, the Uffington White Horse, for the duvet of its fifth album, English Settlement, whereas the identical pastoral West Nation panorama impressed Partridge to pen “Chalkhills And Children,” a deceptively mellow rumination on rising older and having youngsters which introduced XTC’s ninth album, Oranges And Lemons to a suitably haunting shut.
Courting Controversy
(“Statue Of Liberty,” “Respectable Street,” “Dear God,” “Wrapped In Grey”)
XTC initially rose to prominence throughout punk, however in reality, they have been ambivalent in regards to the motion. They admired its power, however much less so its musical strictures, as all 4 band members have been confirmed followers of 60s pop and rock. In actual fact, Andy Partridge described the band’s 1978 debut White Music as “Captain Beefheart meets The Archies” in a 1999 Mojo interview throughout which he additionally revealed XTC listened to everybody from The Beatles to Solar Ra and Atomic Rooster in the course of the making of the album.
Nonetheless, whereas XTC spurned the Intercourse Pistols’ anti-establishment stance, the band nonetheless inadvertently courted controversy at completely different factors throughout their profession. For instance, whereas it was truly a wonderfully harmless reflection of the band’s first go to to New York, the brilliantly quirky White Music-era single “Statue Of Liberty” was banned by the BBC because of the lyric “In my fantasy, I sail beneath her skirt” – and it subsequently missed the charts altogether.
Certainly, even after XTC had damaged into the listings, they nonetheless had issues with the powers that be. The band’s fourth album Black Sea was a UK High 20 success, a feat repeated by the report’s third single, “Sgt. Rock (Is Going To Help Me),” guaranteeing expectations have been excessive for the band’s subsequent 45, the muscular “Respectable Street.” A powerful, Partridge-penned snapshot of the inverted snobbery inherent in British suburban life (“It’s in the order of the hedgerows/It’s in the way the curtains open and close/It’s in the looks they give you down their nose”), the album model additionally included a number of lyrics which may simply have infected the BBC. Anticipating this, Partridge recorded a brand new vocal for the only model (changing phrases reminiscent of “abortion” and “sex position” with “absorption” and “proposition”) but nonetheless “Respectable Street” was banned and one in all XTC’s greatest songs missed the High 40. Years later, the band found this was due to the phrase “Sony Entertainment Centres” – which the BBC refused to condone on the grounds of “corporate sponsorship.”
Satirically, whereas XTC was generally sunk by the BBC, one other controversial basic considerably raised the band’s profile in North America. Andy Partridge wrote the somber, emotive “Dear God” from the standpoint of a struggling agnostic writing a letter to God difficult his existence and initially agreed with the choice to not embody it on XTC’s eighth album, the acclaimed, Todd Rundgren-produced Skylarking because it was felt it could upset American audiences. That supposition later proved right in that Partridge later acquired hate mail, but the divisive “Dear God” did nice enterprise for XTC. Initially launched because the flipside of “Grass,” it acquired such widespread play on US faculty radio, it was re-released as bona fide A-side and entered the Billboard Mainstream Rock High 40 underneath its personal steam.
Sadly, although, the controversy surrounding an underrated basic from XTC’s later profession negatively impacted the band’s twilight years. One in all many highlights from XTC’s elegant tenth album Nonsuch, the sweeping orchestral ballad “Wrapped In Grey” was initially chosen because the album’s third single by Virgin, who – for causes nonetheless unspecified – modified its thoughts, although as much as 5,000 copies are believed to have been ready for launch. Virgin’s determination to withdraw it had extraordinary penalties: XTC successfully went on strike and refused to report any new materials till the label launched them in 1998.
What’s In A Title?
(“Making Plans For Nigel,” “No Thugs In Our House,” “The Ballad Of Peter Pumpkinhead,” “Standing In For Joe”)
Understandably, XTC is normally often called Andy Partridge’s band as he wrote the lion’s share of their catalog. Nonetheless, Colin Moulding’s contribution ought to by no means be underestimated. The bassist wrote a big collection of XTC’s most resonant songs. Moulding wrote a handful of tunes for each White Music and Go 2, but he actually got here into his personal circa the band’s third album, Drums and Wires. Previous to the report’s launch, Moulding penned the agreeably angular stand-alone single “Life Begins At The Hop,” however he then supplied XTC with its breakthrough hit, the infectiously catchy post-punk pop anthem “Making Plans For Nigel.” Having recognized a boy known as Nigel at college, Moulding selected the title for the protagonist in his loosely autobiographical music about overbearing dad and mom who’ve already determined their son will work for British Metal and that “his future is as good as sealed.” Aligning a radio-friendly tune with a theme that chimed with youngsters the world over, “Nigel” supplied XTC’s breakthrough UK High 20 hit within the fall of 1979.
Andy Partridge wrote the following of XTC’s nice “name” songs, although he seemingly selected the protagonist’s title – Graham – because it was additionally Moulding’s reclusive brother’s Graham. The Graham in “No Thugs In Our House” doesn’t characteristic within the music’s title, however he’s a sinister presence in a music a couple of typical English suburban household whereby the blinkered dad and mom worship their son and refuse to imagine he harbors a proclivity for violence and racism (“We made little Graham promise us he’d be a good boy.”) Additionally that includes storming performances from drummer Terry Chambers and lead guitarist Dave Gregory, the pressing “No Thugs In Our House” was solely a minor hit, but it surely’s nonetheless one in all English Settlement’s key songs and its anti-violence message stays each bit as related at the moment.
If Graham from “No Thugs In Our House” isn’t what he appears, then the central determine in Andy Partridge’s “The Ballad Of Peter Pumpkinhead” can be misunderstood – albeit otherwise. Within the music, the genial, Messiah-like titular hero is anxious with feeding and clothes the poor, but regardless of his success, his altruism units him up in opposition to the authorities (“he made too many enemies of the people who would keep us on our knees”), who proceed to wreak a dreadful revenge. A strident rocker ably supported by blasts of harmonica, “The Ballad Of Peter Pumpkinhead” made for the best opener for XTC’s tenth album Nonsuch, and it had legs. It later grew to become a High 5 hit in Canada when Crash Take a look at Dummies lined the music for the 1995 Dumb & Dumber soundtrack.
A deeper dive into XTC’s catalog additionally reveals additional wonderful “name”-related songs, together with Nonsuch duo “Dear Madam Barnum” and “Humble Daisy,” but relating to absolutely the important XTC, Colin Moulding’s “Standing In For Joe” have to be talked about. Successfully a story of misguided friendship, this successful, glam-flavored pop music from XTC’s remaining album, Wasp Star (Apple Venus Vol. 2) has a sting within the tail. Certainly, a lot to his chagrin, the titular Joe places far an excessive amount of religion in his good friend’s capability to not simply investigate cross-check his girlfriend, but in addition to maintain issues platonic together with her whereas he’s out of city (“Who could resist her tender charms?/So the story goes, the actor he plays all the parts”) on this wonderfully-observed vignette.
Battle: what’s it good for?
(“Living Through Another Cuba,” “Melt The Guns,” “This World Over,” “War Dance”)
Battle is a recurring theme in XTC’s catalog. The band’s pacifist stance meant that Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding returned to the topic quite a few occasions all through their profession. The band first critically tackled it on 1980’s Black Sea, recorded when relations between the worldwide superpowers, the USA and USSR have been incessantly on a knife edge. “Living Through Another Cuba” is a lean and spiky stay favourite which, as Partridge later advised XTC fan website Chalkhills, was the results of “total nuclear-war paranoia – that and the uselessness of England, this completely and utterly useless little country whose significance in the world ended at the First World War.”
Partridge subsequent returned to the topic on “Melt The Guns” on XTC’s fifth album, English Settlement. This sparse and brittle protest music discovered him railing in opposition to each North America’s gun legal guidelines and the media’s glorification of violence (“As long as your killers are heroes/ And all the media/ Will fiddle while Rome burns/ Acting like modern-time Neros”) earlier than arriving at a repetitively easy refrain (“Melt the guns and never more to fire them”) which made his emotions brutally plain.
He adopted a extra resigned tone, nonetheless, on “This World Over,” one of many key tracks from 1984’s The Massive Categorical. This superb, nearly hymnal music was impressed by latest speeches by then-US president Ronald Reagan, which once more instigated Partridge’s fears of impending nuclear doom – not least as a result of he was about to change into a father for the primary time. Because of this, he wrote “This World Over” from a post-Armageddon view of the world, including additional poignancy to an already emotive topic. By this time, Colin Moulding had additionally written his personal anti-war diatribe “War Dance,” in response to the UK’s temporary, however devastating battle with Argentina over the Falkland Islands, however XTC held it again and later recorded his brooding, pensive music for 1992’s Nonsuch, when it once more appeared well timed within the wake of the primary Gulf Battle.
All Creatures Nice and Small
(“Senses Working Overtime,” “Ladybird,” “Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her, Kiss Her,” “My Bird Performs”)
Even earlier than XTC formally stop touring in 1982, Andy Partridge was eager to maneuver away from the heavier, stage-ready electrical rock music his band perfected on Drums and Wires and Black Sea. Certainly, the group considerably broadened its palette of sounds on its fifth album, English Settlement, with acoustic textures and subtler songs, arguably greatest exemplified by the report’s signature hit “Senses Working Overtime,” a considerate pop music full of imagery regarding the surprise of the world. Not surprisingly, the music was a considerable UK hit (peaking at No. 10), whereas English Settlement rewarded the band with a career-best chart peak of No. 5.
Taking XTC’s profession as an entire, it’s too simplistic to say the band eschewed rock’ n’ roll from then on. There are nonetheless dazzling guitar-driven pop songs on all their later albums, apart from the closely orchestrated Apple Venus (Vol.1). Nonetheless, after XTC got here off the street, each Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding’s songs typically had an inclination to observe a extra pastoral path, with each penning songs rife with imagery involving nature and the animal world. A working example is Partridge’s “Ladybird” from XTC’s underrated sixth album Mummer. One of many band’s least heralded songs, this delightfully jazzy stroll was carried out with a lightness of contact that units it aside – each then and now.
Additionally circa Mummer, XTC acquired a Mellotron, which formed the sound of a number of of its greatest songs. This legendary proto-sampling keyboard made its presence felt on Mummer highlights reminiscent of “Beating Of Hearts” and “Deliver Us From The Elements,” but it surely additionally supplied the spine for one in all XTC’s best possible songs “Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her, Kiss Her” from 1984’s The Massive Categorical. Composed on the Mellotron by Andy Partridge – utilizing solely three fingers – the music’s dreamy, however disorienting ambiance and its barely queasy fairground/seaside really feel instantly make it stand out (as does the euphonium solo) and it stays some of the adventurous set items within the XTC canon.
Certainly, avian references abound in lots of their greatest songs, from “Senses Working Overtime” to “Summer’s Cauldron” from Skylarking. Andy Partridge’s wonderful “Rook” may additionally simply have made this checklist. In the end, although, Colin Moulding’s “My Bird Performs” fills the ultimate slot in our round-up of one of the best XTC songs. Like all of his band’ best latter-career songs, this Nonsuch-era basic yearns for the less complicated life (“Fine art never moved my soul, no vintage wine or designer clothes/ But my world shakes for me when my bird sings sweetly”) and like all of the alternatives right here, it shows all of the hallmarks of timelessness.
Take heed to one of the best XTC songs now.
