XTC or Roxy Music

Uwho?

 

I'm just the opposite! Own everything by XTC, and nothing by Roxy Music. I admittedly haven't heard a lot of Roxy Music, but what I've heard I didn't like.

 

U2 aren't even the greatest band from Ireland, formed in the mid-70s, beginning with the letter U!

 

I wouldn't put Duran Duran in the same music sub genre as Echo and XTC started out sounding very punk sounding on their first two albums. Musically, at least through the first three albums for XTC, they share more than Echo and XTC. Not sure why the face palm but as a long time fan of both I hear more similarities than differences between The Clash and XTC than. The New Romantic Duran Duran. Lyrically both XTC and The Clash weren't shy about moving into politics or incorporating music outside of rock into their vocab.

As a long time fan of both Echo and U2 (bought the latter on release day in 1980 after reading Islands comment that they were the most important signing for the label since King a crimson while the former I bought a couple of months after their first release came out), the comparison is more apt even comparison their early sounds.

Comparing XTC to Echo is like comparing oranges and lemons.

 

X
T
C

 

Not from Ireland from the ENTIRE WORLD!

 

I only know a couple songs by XTC and am not overly crazy about either of them, whereas I dig a bunch of Roxy Music tunes.... guess who got my vote?

 

Roxy for the win!

 

Well, since people are posting XTC making a pastiche from the Beach Boys, how about The Dowling Poole doing it to XTC?

 

Not even close.XTC and The Kinks are the two greatest bands in the history of rock.

 

XTC by a mile but isn't the question XTC Vs Adam Ant?

 

I love Mummer; then again I also love Go2 as well as all the other albums.

Castaway is one of my all time favorite XTC songs.

 

I like XTC when I'm in the mood... not too often anymore as it happens. But Roxy Music are in a higher league altogether.

 

It seems there are 3 versions of Mummer, the original (vinyl) with 10 songs,
cd version with 6 B sides inserted the middle which destroy the flow of the album, as Holerbot6000 said, the Remaster where these songs are added at the end,
after 5 pages of thread and such a close match, I really think this was a very appropriate poll..

 

I don't know why Mummer doesn't get more respect. I think for those of us who love it, we were already fans when it came out, so we could see the progression and were appropriately delighted. Maybe, since most folks didn't 'discover' XTC until the 'Dear God' years, Mummer just got missed in the shuffle of so many excellent albums. I was on a Mojo board once though, where the consensus was that Mummer was the most hated album in the XTC oeuvre and that surprised me. it was mostly because, to the people on the board, too many songs sounded like 'Easy-Listening' music. Just because something is lush, that doesn't necessarily make it boring.

 

I'm sampling Mummer now, and honestly it has a kind strange atmosphere, but very nice,
so, I guess I have to check Big Express too..
there are some songs very similar to Talking Heads sound, maybe that would be a better poll
XTCvsTH

 

I could rave about the Big Express also but I think it gets more love from the fans. If you like the song 'Love on a Farmboy's Wages' on Mummer, then you will like 'The Big Express'. Some of XTC's most baroque (difficult/beautiful) pop on that one, but it still manages to rock a little harder than Mummer.

 

I love it, and its more electronic sibling the Big Express, but with the caveat that I think they are an acquired taste. The very things that make them so great --the degree of unpredictability and craziness in the arrangements and song structures-- are exactly why I wouldn't recommend them as a first intro to the band. And, each suffers from some synthetic production ideas that have dated very poorly.

I agree with Tristero that English Settlement is bloated. But it is still the best place to start. It's a perfect mix of their quirkiness and their accessible instincts. And it sounds like no other album by anyone. (Black Sea is about as good, I agree.)

 

And don't forget Black Sea. 'Travels in Nihilon', 'Rocket From a Bottle', 'No Language in Our Lungs', on and on. Another monster!

I remember when English Settlement came out in the States, they released a single LP version of it with FIVE songs left off, all of them essential. That sort of thing seemed to happen a lot during the 'New Wave' era. A big reason we had to start shopping for 'imports'...

 

See, I think that, except for the missing "Yacht Dance," they cut the correct bloat from English Settlement. But that may also be because I first knew it as a rather long single LP that had an impossibly high level of consistency and quality. The other missing, to my mind lesser songs being "Knuckle Down," the homely "Leisure," "Fly On The Wall," and "Down In The Cockpit." "Knuckle Down" is pretty catchy and almost as good, I'll grant you that.

I'd have preferred "Tissue Tigers" to some of these.

 

I love Mummer, and on some days it's my favourite album of theirs (I sort of think of it as their Village Green Preservation Society - the lovely pastoral album that happened to come along at their lowest commercial ebb), but it's certainly the most low-key thing they ever released. I think the sequencing of side two is a bit of a problem. 'Human Alchemy' is another of Andy's Big Issue songs, interesting arrangement, but kind of like a leftover from the weak side three of English Settlement (he'd soon be tackling his issues much more elegantly in song); 'Funk Pop a Roll' is a throwaway that doesn't leave much impression as a closing track; and I consider 'Me and the Wind' and 'In Loving Memory of a Name', while fine, weaker than anything on side one, except maybe 'Wonderland'. So the second side is quite a step down from the first in my opinion. But the good stuff on this album is some of the best they ever did. 'Great Fire' is my favourite XTC single, sweeping and passionate but totally idiosyncratic, 'Deliver Us from the Elements' is a psychedelic signpost to the Dukes, and 'Ladybird' is just about as drop dead gorgeous as songs can get. Two of Andy's perennial themes, spontaneous human combustion (cf. 'Rocket from a Bottle', 'Burning with Optimism's Flames', 'Miniature Sun') and economic barriers to domestic happiness (cf. 'Love on a Farmboy's Wages', 'Paper and Iron') find their finest expressions here.

 

I'd call 'Fly on the Wall' essential. For me, the bloat on the album is down to the awkward 'issue' songs Andy sticks on the second disc ('Melt the Guns', 'Leisure', 'It's Nearly Africa', 'Knuckle Down', 'Down in the Cockpit'). I appreciate the sentiments, and some of them offer interesting viewpoints on the issues (e.g. 'Leisure' - unfortunately it's a pretty clunky song musically), but he'd get so much better at tackling this kind of ambitious material in a more nuanced fashion later in his songwriting career. The cavemen feminism of 'Down in the Cockpit' is probably the most embarrassing lyric Partridge ever penned.

 

I agree that Mummer is one of XTC's best albums and one of my favorites. For me, XTC become fairly unappealing when they adopt an aggressive sound and Partridge starts bleating... on albums like Black Sea and Big Express. Their more cerebral, Beach Boys-esque and Beatles-esque psych-pop albums are their best. Skylarking is top of the heap.

 

XTC, but this is kind of comparing oranges and lemons

 

Roxy Music all the way for me, i like XTC but Andy's vocals start to annoy me after awhile.