'70s Undergound, Pop/Post-Punk Music (1 Viewer)

[Bob Magaw]

Wilson has also done the deluxe 5.1, surround sound treatment for another band noted in the OP, Simple Minds, as well as another band that is neither underground, 70's or post/pop-punk (great mainstream success, 80s and synth-pop/new wave) - Songs from the Big Chair by Tears For Fears.

Band

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tears_for_Fears

Album '85

"The title was my idea. It's a bit perverse but then you've got to understand our sense of humour. The 'Big Chair' idea is from this brilliant film called Sybil about a girl with 16 different personalities. She'd been tortured incredibly by her mother as a child and the only place she felt safe, the only time she could really be herself was when she was sitting in her analyst's chair. She felt safe, comfortable and wasn't using her different faces as a defence. It's kind of an 'up yours' to the English music press who really ####ed us up for a while. This is us now – and they can't get at us anymore."

—Curt Smith explains the album's title, March 1985

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songs_from_the_Big_Chair  

Three versions of their international #1 hit record, Everybody Wants To Rule The World

Original video (VIDEO 3 minutes), the intro chiming guitars have a retro Byrds vibe, I typically have a low threshold for pop hit redundancy and quickly fall prey to listener fatigue/boredom, but in this case, it retained its melodic catchiness, and the deceptively complex sonic layers and levels held interest even after (nearly impossible to avoid at the time and even now on some stations) repeated listenings.     

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST86JM1RPl0

Live '85 (VIDEO 5 minutes), co-leader/song writer/front man Raymond Orzabal is the star and primary musical creative force, a talented albeit economical and non-flashy guitarist, and I hadn't realized before, looking a lot like Jerry Seinfeld here!  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHoJPUHG83g

Live Night of the Proms, Belgium/France? 2007 (VIDEO 4 minutes), gets the orchestral, symphonic treatment  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8L_hLS21cw

* Track breakdown by their producer

http://www.mixonline.com/news/profiles/classic-tracks-tears-fears-everybody-wants-rule-world/365857

Orzabal cites the Eno/Byrne collaboration MLITBOG as an influence (VIDEO 8 minute interview)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM01bAYoYe0

** David Byrne & Brian Eno revisited

Byrne's The Catherine Wheel '81, circa shortly after RIL album/tour, includes principals such as Eno, Adrian Belew, Bernie Worrell, Jerry Harrison and Steve Scales 

The Catherine Wheel is David Byrne's musical score commissioned by Twyla Tharp for her dance project. The Catherine Wheel premiered September 22, 1981, at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York City.

The tracks "Big Blue Plymouth", "My Big Hands", "Big Business", and "What a Day That Was", were performed live by Talking Heads in 1982 and 1983; the latter two appear in their Stop Making Sense film, and "What a Day That Was" appears on the album.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Catherine_Wheel_(album)

Filmed dance performance with soundtrack '83 (VIDEO 75 minutes), a revelation if you like MLITBOG & RIL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L83KTSOFNM

Everything That Happens Will Happen Today '08

Everything That Happens Will Happen Today is the second album made in collaboration between David Byrne and Brian Eno, released on August 18, 2008, by Todo Mundo. The album explores themes of humanity versus technology and optimism in spite of bleak circumstance through the blending of electronic and gospel music. Critical reception was largely positive and the album received awards for both the musical content as well as the packaging and technical production.

This album is the first joint effort between the two musicians since 1981's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts and Eno's work producing and co-writing with Talking Heads. Byrne and Eno worked on the tracks in their home studios throughout 2007 and early 2008 and sent digital copies of the recordings to one another over e-mail. The single "Strange Overtones" was released for free to promote the album and Byrne toured through 2008 and 2009, performing songs from this release as well as the duo's previous collaborations. This tour was later documented with the live extended play Everything That Happens Will Happen on This Tour – David Byrne on Tour: Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno and the concert film Ride, Rise, Roar.

Everything That Happens Will Happen Today was released with a marketing strategy that involved Byrne creating the vanity label Todo Mundo and hiring Internet startup company Topspin Media to promote the album online using word-of-mouth and Internet sales to market the music. Several formats were created to allow users to have options on how to listen to the music—from free streaming audio to a deluxe package housed in a tin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_That_Happens_Will_Happen_Today 

AUDIO 47 minutes, third track my favorite at the 8:25 mark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=855eDSjhgOk

Live version (VIDEO 7 minutes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOn1upS3ggc

*** BONUS LIVE TALKING HEADS CIRCA REMAIN IN LIGHT TOUR

Live in Rome '80 (VIDEO 1 hour), with Adrian Belew and Bernie Worrell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwWW742T0Wc

NJ '80 (VIDEO 80 minutes), also with Belew/Worrell, same tour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-_PC6TlIhs

 

[Bob Magaw]

1) Rolling Stone's 100 Best Albums of the Eighties:

#4 - Remain in Light

"A lot of people don't realize this, but Remain in Light was the worst-selling Talking Heads record ever," says drummer Chris Frantz.

"Financially, we took a beating on that one," says David Byrne. "At the time, it was a really hard sell. The reaction that we heard was that it sounded too black for white radio and too white for black radio."

Remain in Light may have been a commercial disappointment, but musically, the band's 1980 album — which combines funk, disco and African rhythms — was years ahead of its time. "It got great critical acclaim, and we felt that it kind of took popular music to the next phase," says Frantz, "which is what we always wanted to do."

But getting there wasn't easy. Depending on who you speak to, tensions in the studio often ran high between at least two parties. "Remain in Light was a difficult album to make," says Frantz. "We wanted to do something groundbreaking, but we didn't want to get into fights about it. And a couple of times we did get into fights — musical fights — because somebody wanted to go one way and another person thought it shouldn't sound like that."

Within the first week of recording with producer Brian Eno at the Compass Point studios, in the Bahamas, British engineer Rhett Davies quit in frustration. "He said, 'You guys could be making a great pop album,'" says Frantz. "The British, you know, have these ideas about 'great pop albums.' So he left." In his place, they hired David Jerden, who had worked with Eno and Byrne on their recent collaboration, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.

Bassist Tina Weymouth says recruiting Eno was difficult because he and Byrne had had a falling out. "Brian didn't even stay to finish Bush of Ghosts," she says. "Something happened between him and David. We asked him to work on Remain in Light, and at first he was reluctant. I really don't know what went down between them."

Byrne has slightly different memories of who was fighting whom. "That was between me and Tina," he says with a laugh. "I think she was understandably upset that Brian and I were pushing this whole direction so adamantly. It was almost like it was a train out of control or something. Maybe she felt that she wasn't a part of that. She was a part of it, but I can understand how she might have felt." Did that tension affect the album? "Nah," says Byrne, "it was all kind of extracurricular."

Even today, the band members disagree about what they'd set out to accomplish. "We were really intrigued and excited by the formal aspects of African music — the way it was created and put together," says Byrne.

Weymouth, however, says, "David had such a completely different theory about it. His theory was far more intellectual and bookish. I never felt that there was any conscious, manipulative effort on our part to play African styles. To me and Chris, it seemed as if that importance was attached to the record after the fact."

While working on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, Byrne and Eno studied voodoo and Afro-Atlantic cultures. "They were very keen on some literature they'd been reading," says Weymouth. "I suppose we all were quite aware of African music sometime before that. But no one discussed with us the fact we were going to be playing in an African style. To us, it was all very funny, putting this bibliography together with a record. It's so pseudo intellectual and everything we were trying to get away from."

While the music may or may not owe a formal, conscious debt to African styles, the words are definitely more playful than intellectual. Byrne says that Eno encouraged him to be a bit freer with his lyrics. "I really played around a lot more," he says.

"It was the beginning of David finding a way to improvise very quickly in the studio," says Weymouth. "Before, it had been a very private kind of struggle."

For "Crosseyed and Painless," Weymouth says, Byrne was struggling to come up with a vocal part. "Chris had just played drums on the new Kurtis Blow record, 'The Breaks,' which was a real front-runner hip-hop record," she says. Frantz played Blow's album for everyone, and after hearing it, Byrne came up with such lyrics as "Facts are late." "It was that whole rap thing," says Weymouth, "but in his own style."

Weymouth claims that most of the songs on Remain in Light came about from jams, yet only Byrne and Eno receive songwriting credits. "Eno called up David and said, 'I really think this is unfair,'" she says. "'I really think I did more work, and so I think you and I should get all of the credit.'"

That didn't go over well with the rest of the band. "Poor David got yelled at by a lot of people as a result," Weymouth says with a laugh. "But Brian and David were really into this credit thing, I guess."

The album cover, which features computer images over the faces of each band member, was conceived of by Frantz and Weymouth, who'd been experimenting on computers at MIT. "The masks could have been anything," says Weymouth. "They could have been African, they could have been tomatoes on our face. It wasn't really that important — it was just kind of raising questions. Making people think, 'What are they trying to do?'

"We really didn't know. We don't always know what we're doing. We often just get excited, put something down and say, 'Oh, neat.'"

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-best-albums-of-the-eighties-20110418/talking-heads-remain-in-light-20110330

2) Original Rolling Stone RIL review '80

Seldom in pop-music history has there been a larger gap between what black and white audiences are listening to than there is right now. While blacks are almost entirely uninterested in the clipped, rigid urgency of the New Wave, it's doubtful that more than a small percentage of Rolling Stone's predominantly white readership knows anything at all about the summer's only piece of culture-defining music, Kurtis Blow's huge hit, "The Breaks." Such a situation is both sad and ironic, because rarely have the radical edges of black and white music come closer to overlapping. On one hand, the Gang of Four utilize their bass guitar every bit as prominently and starkly as the curt bass figures that prod the spoken verses in "The Breaks." On the other, Chic producers Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards choose to make Diana Ross sound as sullen and alienated as Deborah Harry. None of this has escaped the notice of Talking Heads, however, and Remain in Light is their brave, absorbing attempt to locate a common ground in today's divergent, often hostile musical community.

From the first, Talking Heads' contribution to the avant-punk scene they helped create was their emphasis on rhythm over beat. While the Ramones' rockers banged and Blondie's blared, the Heads' early songs pulsed, winding their way past jitteriness to achieve the compelling tension that defined a particular moment in rock & roll history — a moment when white rock fans wanted to dance so badly, and yet were so intimidated by the idea, that they started hopping straight up and down for instant relief. By 1978, punk and disco had divided the pop audience. What did Talking Heads do? They recorded Al Green's "Take Me to the River." The gesture was a heroic one.

Despite David Byrne's vocal restraint and certain puritanical tendencies in his lyrics to value work over pleasure ("Artists Only," "Don't Worry about the Government"), Talking Heads never stopped learning from the sensuous music that existed in a world parallel to theirs. On 1979's Fear of Music, they made a defiant connection with funk and disco in "I Zimbra" and "Life during Wartime," both of which aid in preparing us for Remain in Light's startling avant-primitivism.

On Remain in Light, rhythm takes over. Each of the eight compositions adheres to a single guitar-drum riff repeated endlessly, creating what funk musicians commonly refer to as a groove. A series of thin, shifting layers is then added: more jiggly percussion, glancing and contrasting guitar figures, singing by Byrne that represents a sharp and exhilarating break with the neurotic and intentionally wooden vocals that had previously characterized all Talking Heads albums.

Though the tunes take their time (side one has just three cuts), nobody steps out to solo here. There isn't any elaboration of the initial unifying riff either. Because of this, these songs resemble the African music that the band has taken great pains to acknowledge as Remain in Light's guiding structure. (An even bolder example of the African influence is My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, an LP recorded by David Byrne and Brian Eno that may never be issued in its ideal form. My Life in the Bush of Ghosts uses fixed staccato rhythm patterns in much the same way that Eno's early solo work built whole compositions around simple synthesizer clusters. In place of formal singing, the album substitutes "found" vocals: e.g., random voices taped off the radio. Indeed, one of these voices, that of evangelist Kathryn Kuhlman, threw the entire project into legal limbo with a threat to sue unless it was removed. Sire has indicated that the disc will probably be remixed, but no release date has been set. Which is too bad, because My Life in the Bush of Ghosts enhances the aesthetic of Remain in Light, and at least one of its sections, "Shaking with My Voice," is as strange and thrilling a piece of music as either Byrne or Eno has ever made.)

In addition to its African influences, Remain in Light also flashes the ecstatic freedom of current American funk, across which any number of complex emotions and topics can roam. In both "Born under Punches (the Heat Goes On)" and "Crosseyed and Painless," the rhythm lurches about while always moving forward, thrust ahead by the tough, serene beat of the bass and percussion. Throughout, instruments are so tightly meshed that it's often difficult to pick out what you're hearing---or even who's playing. As part of their let's-rethink-this-music attitude, Talking Heads occasionally play one another's instruments, and guests as disparate as Robert Palmer and Nona Hendryx are enlisted. (By now, of course, producer Brian Eno can be considered a fifth Head.) Far from being confusing, however, such density contributes greatly to the mesmerizing power exerted by these elaborate dance tunes.

Though you can follow, to some extent, the story lines of, say, "Listening Wind" (in which an Indian stores up weaponry to launch an assault on plundering Americans) and the spoken fable, "Seen and Not Seen," Remain in Light's lyrics are more frequently utilized to describe or embody abstract concepts. Thus, beneath the wild dance patterns of "Crosseyed and Painless," there lurks a dementedly sober disquisition on the nature of facts that culminates in a hilarious, rapidly recited list of characteristics ("Facts are simple and facts are straight/Facts are lazy and facts are late... ") that could go on forever ---and probably does, since the song fades out before the singer can finish reading what's on the lyric sheet. Elsewhere, strings of words convey meaning only through Byrne's intonation and emphasis: his throaty, conspiratorial murmur in "Houses in Motion" adds implications you can't extract from lines as flyaway as "I'm walking a line--- I'm thinking about empty motion."

In all of this lies a solution to a problem that was clearly bothering David Byrne on Fear of Music: how to write rock lyrics that don't yield to easy analysis and yet aren't pretentious. Talking Heads' most radical attempt at an answer was the use of da-daist Hugo Ball's nonsense words as a mock-African chant in "I Zimbra." The strategy on Remain in Light is much more complicated and risky. In compositions like "Born under Punches" and "Crosseyed and Painless," phrases are suggested and measured, repeated and turned inside out, in reaction to the spins and spirals of their organizing riff-melodies. At no time does the music change to accommodate the completion of a conventional pop-song sentiment or clever line.

Once in a while, the experiments backfire on the experimenters. Both "The Great Curve" and "The Overload" are droning drags, full of screeching guitar noise that's more freaked-out than felt. Usually, however, the gambler's aesthetic operating within Remain in Light yields scary, funny music to which you can dance and think, think and dance, dance and think, ad infinitum.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/remain-in-light-19801211

From The Archives Issue 710: June 15, 1995
3) Rolling Stones 100 Best Albums of the Eighties cont. 

#3 - Joshua Tree

#2 - Purple Rain

#1 - London Calling

4) A testament to the influence of Eno and how his fingerprints were on many key albums from this era - he produced the #3 and #4 albums here.

Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno, RDI (/ˈiːnoʊ/; born 15 May 1948 and originally christened Brian Peter George Eno) is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer, writer, and visual artist. He is best known for his pioneering work in ambient and electronic music as well as his influential contributions to rock, worldbeat, chance, and generative music styles.[2][3] A self-described "non-musician," Eno has advocated a methodology of "theory over practice" throughout his career, and has helped to introduce a variety of unique recording techniques and conceptual approaches into contemporary music. He has been described as one of popular music's most influential and innovative figures.[2][4][5][6]

Born in Suffolk, Eno studied painting and experimental music at art school in the late 1960s before joining glam rock group Roxy Music as synthesizer player in 1971. After recording two albums with the band, he departed in 1973 to record a number of solo albums, ultimately helping to develop ambient music with works such as Another Green World (1975), Discreet Music (1975), and Music for Airports (1978). During this decade, Eno would also begin a parallel career as an influential producer, which included work on albums by Talking Heads and Devo, the no wave compilation No New York (1978), and works by avant-garde artists such as John Cale, Jon Hassell, and Harold Budd, among others. He also took part in frequent collaborations, among them two mid-70s albums with guitarist Robert Fripp, singer David Bowie’s late-70s “Berlin Trilogy”, and the David Byrne collaboration My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981).

In subsequent decades, Eno continued to record solo albums, collaborate, and produce for other artists, including U2, Coldplay, Laurie Anderson, James, Grace Jones, Slowdive, and James Blake. Dating back to his time as a student, he has also pursued a variety of multimedia projects in parallel with his music career, including sound installations and his mid-70s co-development of Oblique Strategies, a deck of cards featuring cryptic aphorisms intended to break creative blocks and encourage lateral thinking. He continues to release music, produce, and write, and maintains a regular column in Prospect Magazine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Eno 

5) No New York compilation '78

No New York is a compilation album released in 1978 by Antilles Records under the curation of producer Brian Eno. Although it only contained songs by four different artists, it is considered by many to be the definitive single album documenting New York City's late-1970s no wave movement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_New_York

Audio 45 minutes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoSLo9Y9z9o 

6) Everything That Happens Will Happen Today - Eno/Byrne interview (VIDEO 10 minutes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqTv_Nlk-eM

7) BBC Four Eno doc - Another Green World (VIDEO 1 hour)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPOz5-rcIeA

* The Studio As Compositional Tool lecture (AUDIO 30 minutes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1vuhJC6A28

Downbeat Magazine excerpts '79?  

http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/interviews/downbeat79.htm

Revisited '16

http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/28/revisiting-brian-enos-the-studio-as-a-compositional-tool/

 

[Bob Magaw]

IMO, Eno's best collaborations in the 70's were with Robert Fripp, David Bowie and Talking Heads.

A good way to hear Eno's influence on Bowie (or is it the other way around, or maybe both?) is an instrumental compilation curated by the latter, titled All Saints.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Saints_(David_Bowie_album)

Reissue '01 (AUDIO 75 minutes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceCVakrLqVs&list=PLJNbijG2M7OwRlyp_iBt-aHa6s_jdnlvn

Fripp and Eno - Evening Star '75

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evening_Star_(album)

AUDIO 48 minutes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faTxUSO-6mA&list=PLT9Kch_hxeXYMDUBOTw2qWxWMjtk1_igA

 

[El Floppo]

I'll give Eno's music another try. 

it was in and around my wheelhouse in various stages of my life, and I'd delve in and find it all kind of meh.

 

[Leroy Hoard]

While I like some of his solo stuff, I've found some of Eno's collaborations more interesting. From his best selling studio work with Bowie & U2 to more obscure stuff with Jah Wobble.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REKUs97QDs8

 

[Bob Magaw]

Some links I was putting up from memory before I had a chance to give another listen.

After recently listening to the four albums by XTC noted above (Drums and Wires, Skylarking, Oranges & Lemons and Nonsuch), I was reminded they stood out in a lot of ways as atypical pop stars from their era - their intelligence, quirky sense of humor, especially their sense of irony, musical talent and intricate pop craftsmanship. 

Smartest Monkeys from Nonsuch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaRa3yiklKk 

 

[El Floppo]

Wasn't one or some of XTC affected by profound stage fright?

 

[Bob Magaw]

Wasn't one or some of XTC affected by profound stage fright?

XTC would tour no more  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZrCL1aF_Zg

Adventurous Punk Of a Troubled Past

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/09/arts/music-adventurous-punk-of-a-troubled-past.html

A Watershed Moment: XTC's Andy Partridge On English Settlement

http://thequietus.com/articles/07896-xtc-andy-partridge-english-settlement

Partridge interview with synoptic band background

http://www.puremusic.com/71andy1.html

See immediately above

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/interview-andy-partridge-andys-plans-work-out-but-theres-no-room-for-nigel-1196333.html

Ditto

http://www.bullz-eye.com/music/interviews/2006/andy_partridge.htm

“Andy Partridge: The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul” 

https://beatpatrol.wordpress.com/2008/11/12/patrick-schabe-andy-partridge-the-man-who-sailed-around-his-soul-2006/

[SIZE=12pt]There is no mansion and no country estate. There is no fancy sports car collection, nor luxury yacht, nor private jet. The road to becoming one of alternative rock’s most influential artists of the last 30 years has not been paved with riches and rock and roll status symbols. There is no museum, no shrine. Not even a framed gold or platinum album hanging on the wall (though not for lack of sales). [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]In fact, rather than being a rags to riches story of musical salvation and material excess, it’s a life story enlivened by managerial fraud and graft, financial ruin, frustrated success, marital collapse, industry restraints, and reclusive defiance. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]So why does Andy Partridge seem so calm, so happy, so content? [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]Perhaps because after thirty years in the music industry, struggling against all manner of odds and potential ends, Partridge is finally comfortably ensconced in the place he has carved out for himself. Perhaps it’s that after a strange career marked equally by praise and indifference, the legacy of his work is finally beginning to speak for itself. It certainly must have something to do with achieving that ideal of artistic independence that has wound its Elysian thread through rock history. No matter how modest, as humble as a daisy, it is a niche that Partridge fought for and fashioned to his design. And after years of conflict, the future is finally his on his own terms. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]As Partridge explains in his own words, “My expectations of success are that sort of weird invisible horn that grows out of your head and waves around thinking ‘Wow! Where’s success? Where is it?’ I think it shriveled up and dropped off a long time ago. To me, success is really making enough money to be able to carry on making music. That’s success.” [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]1. Funk Pop a Roll Beats Up My Soul[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]By some accounts, the rough journey of Andy Partridge and his band, XTC, is due in no small part to Partridge himself. He was difficult, complicated, and contrary. He didn’t play by the rules, and he didn’t play well with others. He was (and maybe is) headstrong, arrogant, and stubborn. He has no one to blame but himself. And, of course, there is The Incident, and all that came, or didn’t come, afterwards. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]Any biography of XTC and Partridge himself must eventually return to The Incident. It is the black hole at the center of the XTC galaxy, exerting its gravitational pull on all the history that swirls around the band and its members, bending and warping each of their lights. Over the years, various explanations and descriptions have been given accounting for the conditions that led up The Incident. Most settle for a lazy explanation that Partridge suffers from crippling stage fright. Others chalk it up to exhaustion. Partridge himself refers to it as a nervous breakdown. Whatever the case, there remains little doubt that The Incident changed XTC’s course forever. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]In 1982, XTC had released its fifth album, English Settlement, in as many years, cutting their own path out of the UK punk scene, running briefly through new wave and heading into larger pop territories. Each album since their White Music debut had seen XTC grow in leaps and bounds. 1979’s Drums and Wires yielded XTC’s first chart success in the single “Making Plans for Nigel”, while 1980’s Black Sea sold well on the album charts on the strength of its solid post-punk tracks, including “Respectable Street”, “Towers of London”, and “Generals and Majors”. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]And the band was active—intensely so. From the moment that XTC signed to Virgin in 1977, they embarked on a flurry of touring and promotional appearances, hitting television studios, club stages, and progressively larger concert venues in a series of almost endless appearances. The band would be home in its native Swindon, England, for only months out of the year following the release of Drums and Wires, spending most of its time on the road around Europe, and eventually Asia and America, where they performed alongside the likes of the Police and Talking Heads. Those shows were high energy as well, with a grinning Partridge front and center the whole time, churning through versions of their tunes that occasionally reached manic pitch and volumes so loud that XTC made the 1981 edition of Rolling Stone’s Book of Rock Lists‘s list of 17 Loudest Bands in the World (coming in at Number 15 and beating out both Queen and KISS—unsurprisingly, the Who was number 1). [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]This frenzied pace may have been simply part and parcel of the rock and roll world, but it had dire physical consequences for Partridge. As a child, Partridge was diagnosed as “hyperactive” (in a world before ADD) and placed on a regimen of Valium to calm him down. As the demands of performing and life on the road began to stack up, so too did the demands of the Valium. In 1979, three years before The Incident, Partridge experienced what he believed was a nervous breakdown, essentially blacking out on stage and forgetting who he was and all of XTC’s songs. It was temporary, and he went quickly back to work, but the pressures of performing began to build up more and more from that point on. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]The Incident was actually stretched across a small span of time in 1982. On stage at a show in Paris during the first European leg of the English Settlement promotional tour, Partridge relapsed, collapsing on stage and cutting the show short. The collapse prompted the cancellation of the English tour that was to follow, and Partridge began a round of various psychological treatments, which seemed to relieve him of the stress. It was revealed that he’d stopped eating three days before the Paris show. The Valium was fingered as a culprit, and Partridge’s wife Marianne tossed the pills, forcing him to kick a serious dependency. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]Believing he was cured, Partridge joined the band in California to kick off a sizable US tour—their first as a headlining act in the States—and took to the stage for the first night’s show in Sand Diego. Once on stage, however, the entire flood of stressors returned, and Partridge fell apart once more, struggling through the show, unable to focus, and collapsing once more. Though the band tried to resurrect him for the second show, a sold out Los Angeles performance, Partridge was physically unable to take the stage, and the tour was cancelled, much to Virgin’s dismay. Partridge resolved to never tour again. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]The fallout of Partridge’s refusal to tour was an increasingly impatient and unhappy parent in Virgin Records, who saw XTC as untenable as the studio-only act Partridge declared them to have become. Drummer Terry Chambers no longer saw a place for himself in the group, and abruptly quit as the band was trying to record their next disc, Mummer. And while convalescing at home in the generally more rural Swindon, Partridge’s rediscovered love for the English countryside he grew up in was reflected in the new material he was writing. None of this was a formula for pop-rock success in the mid-1980s. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]But it’s also a fallacy to chalk up XTC’s semi-transparency to the simple problem of the band’s refusal to tour and call it stubbornness. While it certainly limited the band’s marketability, and therefore their label support, XTC suffered more from the hands of industry forces than they did from failure to find an audience. While XTC defied expectations by retaining a dedicated fan base that grew with each release, despite their low profile, the most damaging trials came from within the ranks of their own management. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]While Partridge and company have a court-enforced gag order preventing them from discussing details, what is known is that their initial manager, Ian Reid, inked a deal with Virgin that wound up working out primarily for Reid, secondarily for Virgin, and not at all for XTC. Throughout their first five years of existence, XTC never saw a penny of profits from either album sales or touring revenue. Reid, on the other hand, took out large loans from Virgin, borrowing against XTC’s royalties, to the tune of millions of pounds by some estimates. Even after the band settled out of court with Reid, because of the terms of the contract, Virgin was able to hold XTC liable for the sum. Because of XTC’s failure to tour, the likelihood of ever repaying Virgin dwindled further and further away. Over the course of a 20-year contract with Virgin Records, and after achieving gold and platinum status in album sales on a number of discs, XTC never saw any publishing royalties. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]Moreover, despite of the increasing presence of Partridge in the greater music scene as something of a muse in his own right, working as a co-songwriter and producer with a number of other artists, Virgin continually rejected XTC’s demands for creative control of the group’s output. To the end, Virgin demanded an outside producer be in charge of each release, not trusting the sometimes fanciful and unpredictable whims of Partridge to deliver the album with the best chance of paying back their debt. Recording sessions were followed by tales of resentment settling into resignation, as producers and Partridge butted heads. The time spent recording and producing XTC’s probable masterwork, Skylarking, with Todd Rundgren was famously charged with tempests of clashing visions. Nonsuch was wrapped up with producer Gus Dudgeon and Partridge no longer speaking to one another. And Partridge, a talented visual artist before deciding on music as a teen, was constantly having sleeve designs and packaging concepts rejected by Virgin executives (often later picked up and used in the final output without crediting Andy himself). [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]So XTC went on strike. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]Following the 1992 release of Nonsuch, Partridge, bassist Colin Moulding, and guitarist/arranger Dave Gregory demanded to be released from their contract, citing both creative differences and the money they felt was owed them by Virgin. Virgin, still in the red where XTC was concerned, refused to void the contract. And so an industry strike quietly raged past the point of more famous (and publicized) strikes by Prince and George Michael. Partridge and Moulding continued to write and record demos, planning what they hoped would become their first post-Virgin release, but the label dragged the fight out over five long years. In the end, XTC won, despite making some heavy concessions, and 20 years after punk first broke, they were DIY for the first time in their career. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]XTC immediately went to work recording their triumphal return, but the strike years had strained relations within the band. Partridge’s new material forced a further evolution of the band’s sound. The incorporation of more symphonic elements led to Partridge arranging those parts, duties that had previously fallen to Gregory. Tensions came to a head and Gregory quit XTC while preparing to record the long-awaited Apple Venus Vol. 1. Still, Partridge and Moulding pushed on, and the album release was met with critical acclaim (and very modest commercial success). The follow-up, Wasp Star: Apple Venus Vol. 2, debuted a year later, to similar results. Moving forward, rather than shopping itself around to small independent labels, XTC took the logical step of forming its own label, dubbed Idea Records. Partridge also struck out on his own, resolving both his solo work and his production history into one entity by forming his own APE House Records label. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]All of this is not to say that XTC’s is a sad-sack story of a band to be pitied. On the contrary, despite challenging many music industry foundations, XTC managed to continue to record and thrive where many bands failed, split up, and moved on to more respectable jobs. At one point in time, XTC were seen as contemporaries of Public Image Ltd., Wire, Joy Division, the Human League, the Specials, Gang of Four, Blondie, the Cure, Buzzcocks, and the aforementioned Talking Heads and the Police. But by striking out on their own path, rather than merely being lauded as new wave icons, or godfathers of such and such, XTC is also frequently and reverentially compared to larger than life icons like the Who and the Kinks, and most especially the Beatles. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]Yet, in looking back on the career of Andy Partridge and XTC, it’s difficult to justify claims of greatness without trying to understand exactly why they never managed to rise above the status of cult band. Respect and recognition are the real validation of such claims, not financial success, and for various reasons that came slowly to Partridge. But perseverance, even stubbornness, pays off, and come it has. [/SIZE]

 

[Bob Magaw]

XTC's last two albums, seven years after Nonsuch (mostly due to a recording strike against their label Virgin Records), originally envisioned as a double album, but split up for marketing reasons due to their very different sound. The former heavily orchestrated with acoustic guitars (and last with lead guitarist Dave Gregory), the latter similar to their previous electric chamber pop/rock.   

Apple Venus Volume 1 (AUDIO 50 minutes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE_i5o2kYI0

Wasp Star - Apple Venus Volume 2 (AUDIO 50 minutes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlJYicQLAb4

 

[Bob Magaw]

Fripp is better known outside of King Crimson for his collaborations with Brian Eno, but he also did some interesting work on a few albums with guitarist Andy Summers of The Police (completely different from that body of work). 

Andy Summers & Robert Fripp - I Advance Masked '82 (AUDIO 38 minutes)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Advance_Masked

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

Bewitched '84 (AUDIO), haunting intro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWqKUsVEU40&list=PLRfaAw6tjxhqrbq4dZJjOhusU-EHH1hHC

Summers - Mysterious Barricades '88 (AUDIO), I saw him open for Tangerine Dream during the Optical Race tour at the Wiltern in LA, and it was just him with Frippertronics-like, layered, looped, heavily delayed/echoed and myriad other effect pedals instrumental solo guitar.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCQETOkUUbs&list=PL1344CA2BB48DC677

 

[Bob Magaw]

XTC's psychedelic alter ego band, more of an homage to the era/sound of 60's British psychedelia than Rutles-like parody, some of the songs are dead on evocations/sonic recapturings and highly recommended for those that already like the band, and highlight their range, versatility and brilliant song writing/musicianship.  

WARNING: Known to inspire spontaneous/contact lava lamp and incense flashbacks.

The Dukes of Stratosphear - Chips from the Chocolate Fireball '87 (AUDIO 1 hour), compilation of the 25 O'Clock EP '85 and full album Psonic Psunspot '87.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0D9JyoccOo

Background

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dukes_of_Stratosphear

 

[Bob Magaw]

XTC Discography

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XTC_discography

Up-thread are already links to Drums and Wires ('79), Skylarking ('86), Oranges & Lemons ('89), Nonsuch ('92), Apple Venus Volume 1 ('99) and Wasp Star (Apple Venus Volume 2) '00  

Black Sea '80 (AUDIO 1 hour)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Hl1R-FVuTY

English Settlement '82 (AUDIO 70 minutes)

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

Mummer '83 (AUDIO 1 hour)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVM85klGg6k

Big Express '84 (AUDIO 50 minutes)

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

Rag and Bone Buffet: Rare Cuts and Leftovers '90 (AUDIO 80 minutes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=118Vwx6cbzU

Fossil Fuel: The XTC Singles 1977-92 '96 (AUDIO 2 hours)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL8z8j2vVLc&list=PLhDYqbEX811QOWDzQqxGq0oTQAymM3af4&index=1

 

[El Floppo]

Fripp is better known outside of King Crimson for his collaborations with Brian Eno, but he also did some interesting work on a few albums with guitarist Andy Summers of The Police (completely different from that body of work). 

Andy Summers & Robert Fripp - I Advance Masked '82 (AUDIO 38 minutes)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Advance_Masked

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

Bewitched '84 (AUDIO), haunting intro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWqKUsVEU40&list=PLRfaAw6tjxhqrbq4dZJjOhusU-EHH1hHC

Summers - Mysterious Barricades '88 (AUDIO), I saw him open for Tangerine Dream during the Optical Race tour at the Wiltern in LA, and it was just him with Frippertronics-like, layered, looped, heavily delayed/echoed and myriad other effect pedals instrumental solo guitar.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCQETOkUUbs&list=PL1344CA2BB48DC677

Fripp did a fair bit of collaboration with my fave 80s guy, David Sylvian (self-important sulky former lead singer of Japan, everything in minor key, and even the happiest songs sound depressing...   ). Some of my favorite Sylvian tunes (from ablum "Gone to Earth") include Fripp on guitar or on "Frippertronics".They did a joint album and tour together called The First Day which IMO wasn't the highlight of that work, but had some interesting songs.

. 

XTC's psychedelic alter ego band, more of an homage to the era/sound of 60's British psychedelia than Rutles-like parody, some of the songs are dead on evocations/sonic recapturings and highly recommended for those that already like the band, and highlight their range, versatility and brilliant song writing/musicianship.  

WARNING: Known to inspire spontaneous/contact lava lamp and incense flashbacks.

The Dukes of Stratosphear - Chips from the Chocolate Fireball '87 (AUDIO 1 hour), compilation of the 25 O'Clock EP '85 and full album Psonic Psunspot '87.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0D9JyoccOo

Background

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dukes_of_Stratosphear

Funny- I loved the Dukes, but quickly burned out on that first... maybe EP. was almost too perfect a recreation/homage to that era.

 

[saintfool]

i was a dyed-in-the-wool XTC fan for most of my life as my older brother introduced them to me in my early teens. in fact, i have a tattoo of the Chalkhill Horse, inspired by English Settlement's place in my heart. Partridge is as talented a songwriter and arranger as you'll find in music. Clever, soulful, and mercurial. Their albums through the 80's are just magnificent and overflowing with ideas that are completely out of step with their contemporaries. i was sad to hear that Colin and Andy finally parted ways on such bad terms with Andy saying Colin was out of good ideas. Colin had some of my favorite XTC tunes. 

 

[Eephus]

Spinning off from Andy Partridge, Martin Newell has almost nothing to do with punk or post-punk.  "The Wild Man of Wivenhoe" is one of a certain type of eccentrics who I could picture raising carnivorous plants in his hothouse, sort of like a veddy veddy English version of R. Stevie Moore. 

Newell's music falls somewhere between XTC, the Move and parts unknown.  He's released thirteen albums over the years under his own name and a variety of bands.  Some of them were self released and others were on tiny labels so finding them won't be easy.

The Partridge connection comes from Newell's 1993 album "The Greatest Living Englishman" which Andy performed on and produced.  I think anybody who likes late-period XTC will love this.  It has a less polished sound than XTC's material but is very accessible pop.

The title track of Newell's album is completely different from David Sylvian's song of the same name.

 

[rifkin]

Did I miss any mention of Blondie?

My favorite Blondie stuff involves Fripp playing with them:

Atomic Live @ Hammersmith

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re2vDEb68sU

Hereos Cover @ some midtown theater

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jw8C2zyYCI

More great Fripp guitar with Blondie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t70Ef-uzhpA

Big thing that Eno did for Remain in Light was bring in Adrian Belew for some of the guitar tracks.

Once in a Lifetime live with a great lineup:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJyw8sAdths

 

[Bob Magaw]

i was a dyed-in-the-wool XTC fan for most of my life as my older brother introduced them to me in my early teens. in fact, i have a tattoo of the Chalkhill Horse, inspired by English Settlement's place in my heart. Partridge is as talented a songwriter and arranger as you'll find in music. Clever, soulful, and mercurial. Their albums through the 80's are just magnificent and overflowing with ideas that are completely out of step with their contemporaries. i was sad to hear that Colin and Andy finally parted ways on such bad terms with Andy saying Colin was out of good ideas. Colin had some of my favorite XTC tunes. 

Better that tattoo than the BH Surfers Hairway to Steven or Locust Abortion Technician!

I had heard Making Plans For Nigel (Colin single), which was ubiquitous on KROQ in LA at that time, but discovered their later albums relatively recently though the surround sound mixing work of Steven Wilson - better known for his work on prog bands, such as King Crimson, Yes, Jethro Tull, ELP, etc. Drums and Wires is out in that format (reportedly his favorite with Black Sea), as are O & L and Nonsuch, with Skylarking expected out sometime later this year. Some of the other different album multi-tracks have gone MIA - though the latter was just found recently. They have a deep enough body of work (14 studio albums?) that I'm still discovering albums and don't have everything yet, but it isn't as daunting or Herculean a task as trying to round up every Sun Ra album.  

Agree with everything you wrote. They are brilliant writers, possibly geniuses (and I don't use the term lightly). They had a lot of setbacks, including being ripped off by their manager, a horrible contract by Virgin and label indifference. Partridge's aversion to playing live/touring didn't help to further break them in the States (Steely Dan had success on their own terms as a virtual/studio band for many years, but XTC's sound wasn't as overtly commercial, and they didn't have their finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist in the same way, as you alluded to, they were somewhat quirky, idiosyncratic and eccentric, but they did enjoy a measure of success on THEIR own terms, which is what Partridge no doubt wanted). 

I've heard Partridge also state that he would prefer to leave things open as to the possibility of recording together with Moulding again in the future. Supposedly the latter expressed being disinterested in writing and playing, yet he did do something for another musician as recently as 2014? It doesn't seem like it, but Partridge and Moulding are in their early '60s. It was also "bad luck" that some of their potentially most productive years were taken from them for the better part of a decade before the post-Nonsuch strike caused Virgin to relent and grant their musical freedom and independence, it must have come at great cost (but so would have REMAINING under the label's exploitave terms). Depending on taste, imo, they seem like a rare band that improved in some ways with successive albums, so it is sad that something as trivial as industry machinations fated/doomed them to be robbed of a significant chunk of later, what should have been some of their most artistically mature, sophisticated and challenging development.     

 

[El Floppo]

URGH!! A Music War ... that's where I really found XTC (and just about every other one of my favorite bands of the early 80s). had heard Nigel on KUSF, but didn't make the connection until later. Got really into Black Sea (after Urgh) and English Settlement but Mummer underwhelmed me, so then just kind of forgot about them until Dukes.

URGH!!... 12/13 year old me went ape#### over this one. The only bands that had "made it" (in the US) at the time of my purchase were The Police, Devo and Gary Numan. A friend had the DVD (videotape) but I was always too high to watch it all the way through... had waaay more people on it. A lot of bands would go on to find a US hit or more not long afterwards.

Side 1

1. The Police – "Driven to Tears"
   
2. Wall of Voodoo – "Back in Flesh"
   
3. Toyah Wilcox – "Dance"
   
4. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark – "Enola Gay"
   
5. Oingo Boingo – "Ain't This the Life"
   
6. XTC – "Respectable Street"
   

Side 2

1. The Members – "Offshore Banking Business"
   
2. Go-Go's – "We Got the Beat"
   
3. Klaus Nomi – "Total Eclipse"
   
4. Althletico Spizz '80 – "Where's Captain Kirk"
   
5. Alley Cats – "Nothing Means Nothing Anymore"
   
6. Jools Holland – "Foolish I Know"
   
7. Steel Pulse – "Ku Klux Klan"
   

Side 3

1. Devo – "Uncontrollable Urge"
   
2. Echo and the Bunnymen – "The Puppet"
   
3. The Au Pairs – "Come Again"
   
4. The Cramps – "Tear It Up"
   
5. Joan Jett & The Blackhearts – "Bad Reputation"
   
6. Pere Ubu – "Birdies"
   
7. Gary Numan – "Down in the Park"
   

Side 4

1. Fleshtones – "Shadow Line"
   
2. Gang of Four – "He'd Send in the Army"
   
3. John Otway – "Cheryl's Going Home"
   
4. 999 – "Homicide"
   
5. X – "Beyond and Back"
   
6. Magazine – "Model Worker"
   
7. Skafish – "Sign of the Cross"
   

 

[Bob Magaw]

Article ranks every XTC studio album from 1-14

http://www.stereogum.com/1701312/xtc-albums-from-worst-to-best/franchises/counting-down/

A few Andy Partridge songs, his voice seemed to mellow and become more burnished of an instrument with the passage of time (maybe partly delivery?)

Chalkhills and Children from Oranges & Lemons

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0dXZfcw34Q

Wrapped in Grey from Nonsuch (a withdrawn third single from the album, ended up being the straw that broke the camel's back and precipitated their final break with their label, Virgin Records).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNvWWJ6YAOI

XTC At The Manor '80 (VIDEO 1 hour), doc on the recording process in the studio with a very young producer Steve Lillywhite 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne35P7kbucs

 

[Bob Magaw]

The Helium Kids, XTC coming up from Swindon circa '74, pre-British ska (as far as radio play?), this is like boogie rock, sounding a lot more like Grand Funk Railroad...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrFJdm4AnTI

than the stylistically vastly different hits like Making Plans For Nigel a half decade later.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXNhL4J_S00

* Punk/New Wave doc excerpt (VIDEO 50:00-54:00)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXhfzkH_u14

 

[Bob Magaw]

XTC

Paris 11-18-79 (VIDEO 20 minutes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH3IByibTpM

Rockpalast '82 (VIDEO 70 minutes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WE5olpWJCPs

King For A Day, first US TV appearance in seven years on Letterman Show, circa O & L '89 (VIDEO 4 minutes), co-leader/songwriter Colin Moulding wasn't as prolific as co-leader/songwriter Andy Partridge, but some of the best songs were his, and he was a great vocalist AND bass player.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Amx5CK7vdoc 

MTV Studio Live "Unplugged"-type acoustic segment '89 (VIDEO 12 minutes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI8MalyCCGU

Oranges & Lemons North American promotional tour (aka acoustical Oranges & Lemons radio station tour) '89
KROQ live in studio (AUDIO 48 minutes)

1- Intro Dialogue
2- Scarecrow People
3-Dialogue
4-Mayor Of Simpleton
5-Dialogue
6-Senses Working Overtime/Grass/Love on Farmboy's Wages
7-Dialogue
8-Blue Beret
9-Dialog
10-Geat Fire/Dear God/Big Day
11-Dialogue
12-King for A Day
13-Dialogue
14-One of the Millions/Pink Thing/Garden of Earthly Delights
15-Dialogue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTtFTHI7Or0

 

[Bob Magaw]

Dukes of Stratosphear

Mole From The Ministry, Magical Mystery Tour, I Am The Walrus send up (VIDEO 5 minutes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg2DakBCghc

Brainiac's Daughter, McCartneyesque (AUDIO 3 minutes)

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

 

[Bob Magaw]

Favorite song on XTCs English Settlement - Jason and the Argonauts (great sound engineering)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDNupK1RkdY

 

[El Floppo]

Favorite song on XTCs English Settlement - Jason and the Argonauts (great sound engineering)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDNupK1RkdY

third favorite for me, after 1: Senses working overtime, 2: All of a sudden. (3-way tie for third with Africa and Snowman)

 

[saintfool]

Favorite song on XTCs English Settlement - Jason and the Argonauts (great sound engineering)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDNupK1RkdY




 




 

probably the most interesting of the tracks but not my favorite. I think i am partial to "Runaway", "Ball and Chain" and "No Thugs in our House". Settlement is definitely a masterpiece and adds up to more than the sum of its parts. For my money, they're best effort is found on Mummer or (likely) The Big Express. BE is full of tiny little gems and is an album that is full of emotion with every song. "Seagulls..." is just a delight (a personal favorite too) and "Liarbird" is too. 

A little B-side track from "Oranges..." called "Living in a Haunted Heart" is maybe my favorite. I think it's exquisitely written and rendered. Just another example of their brilliance over so many albums. 

 

[SWC]

brandy by looking glass is all you need to know brohans take that to the bank 

 

[El Floppo]

I was always partial to Black Sea... language in our lungs at the top, but pretty much loved the album up and down.

 

[Bob Magaw]

probably the most interesting of the tracks but not my favorite. I think i am partial to "Runaway", "Ball and Chain" and "No Thugs in our House". Settlement is definitely a masterpiece and adds up to more than the sum of its parts. For my money, they're best effort is found on Mummer or (likely) The Big Express. BE is full of tiny little gems and is an album that is full of emotion with every song. "Seagulls..." is just a delight (a personal favorite too) and "Liarbird" is too. 

A little B-side track from "Oranges..." called "Living in a Haunted Heart" is maybe my favorite. I think it's exquisitely written and rendered. Just another example of their brilliance over so many albums. 

Goes to show how many great songs are on the album in that El Floppo and you came up with like eight songs between you, with no overlap.    

 

[saintfool]

Goes to show how many great songs are on the album in that El Floppo and you came up with like eight songs between you, with no overlap.    

let me just say that with perhaps the exception of The The, there was no band that I listened more to than XTC from the years 1984-1990. Sonic Youth and Nick Cave edged them out  around that time before surrendering the crown to Stereolab with "Transient..."

ETA - that timeline was not technically true. MBV and Pale Saints should be mentioned in that bit of personal history/taste. MBV, along with Stereolab, were the core of my listening habits at that time. SY, Cave and Pale Saints also kept me going too.

 

[The Future Champs]

.

 

[Bob Magaw]

Not '70s but pop, something new I like.

Everything Everything - Get To Heaven Album (Deluxe edition)              

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGfe1zVPjOM

To the Blade 0:00 Distant Past 4:20 Get to Heaven 7:56 Regret 11:37 Spring / Sun / Winter / Dread 15:06 The Wheel (Is Turning Now) 18:20 Fortune 500 23:50 Blast Doors 28:03 Zero Paraoh 31:35 No Reptiles 35:14 Warm Healer 39:57 We Sleep in Paris 46:07 Hapsburg Lippp 49:33 President Heartbeat 53:13 Brainchild 56:35 Yupie Supper 1:01:39 Only As Good As My God 1:04:00

Everything Everything - Spring / Sun / Winter / Dread (Official Video)  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3FO46D1dqs

Everything Everything - Regret              

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDSEtWt9u-A

Band bio/background

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_Everything

Sense Of Absurdity: Jonathan Higgs Of Everything Everything's Favourite Albums
Christopher Sanders , September 2nd, 2015

The Manchester indie band's frontman gives Christopher Sanders a tour of the formative records of his teenage years, and explains why they, along with Australia's longest-running soap opera, have made a lasting impression

http://thequietus.com/articles/18685-everything-everything-jonathan-higgs-favourite-albums-interview