Redpill me on this dudes. Is it XTC's masterpiece, a Sgt.

>>71673268
More Pet Sounds than Sgt Pepper but it's better than Pet Sounds regardless

>>71673275
This but it is not better than Pet Sounds

File: folder.jpg (19KB, 280x279px) Image search: [Google]

19KB, 280x279px

This album's just as good.

Musically, it's an amalgamation of the big psychedelic pop albums (Odessey and Oracle, Pet Sounds, Village Green, etc.).

HOWEVER. The production is VERY 80s (and not in a good way) and makes it sound kinda cheesy in a lot of places. Songs like Earn Enough for Us would be fucking great if performed by the Beatles in the 60s but on this album it just sounds really corny.

English Settlement is their masterpiece (Drums and Wires comes very close).

Chalkhills and Children is the best song they've done btw.

>>71673268
It's kinda both but still probably my favorite album of the 80s.

File: 220px-Dukes_25oclock.jpg (28KB, 220x220px) Image search: [Google]

28KB, 220x220px

>>71673268
if you want to hear their take on sgt pepper check this one out, the last song is literally i am the walrus

>>71673728
magical mystery tour i meant not sgt pepper

DUDE LET'S REDPILL YOU ON GOD WHO DOESNT EXIST BECAUSE OF THE PROBLEM OF EVIL AHAHAHA CHECKMATE THEISTS LMAO

>>71674387
it's still a good song

File: 1512629596_2525577aec.jpg (105KB, 500x375px) Image search: [Google]

105KB, 500x375px

>>71673268
>XTC's masterpiece
>not Black Sea

Skylarking is good and all, but come on son.

File: 1484631459256.png (162KB, 289x407px) Image search: [Google]

162KB, 289x407px

>>71673268
>Grass
>Season Cycle
>Earn Enough for Us

Masterpiece

File: AAA.jpg (18KB, 300x297px) Image search: [Google]

18KB, 300x297px

XTC's Masterpiece was everyhting they didnt do as XTC, or both albums by Dukes of Straosphear. Their songs were better when they didnt have some cocky producer or the record company breathing down their back.

File: 51LurGwIxvL.jpg (61KB, 500x498px) Image search: [Google]

61KB, 500x498px

True masterpiece right here

>>71674436
I wondered how many weebs discovered XTC through this, and how many thought it was some deep symbolism from Anno,.

Skylarking IS XTC's definitive album, as it has no bad/filler songs.
I never understood all the hype for Drums and Wires era XTC, that album has so many filler tracks, and Andy Partridge dragged out the ending to so many otherwise acceptable songs for minutes and minutes of him just saying valium-induced gibberish into a mic.
>High Tier
1.Skylarking
2.English Settlement
3.Apple Venus Vol 1
>Mid Tier
4.Nonsuch
5.Mummer
6.Black Sea
7.White Music
>Low Tier
8.Drums and Wires
9.Oranges & Lemons (Who the fuck thought it was a good idea to put the best two songs first and second on the tracklist!!??)
10.Wasp Star
11. The Big Express (waaaayy to 80's)
12. Go 2

>>71673615
>The production is VERY 80s (and not in a good way) and makes it sound kinda cheesy in a lot of places.

Probably the only reason you think that is the drums.

Todd's production is amazing. Lots of people don't seem to get that the cheesiness is basically intentional, yet they excuse it on every other XTC album because it's more obscure on those.

I've listened to Skylarking at least 150 times and I still find funny new things in the production, like that "soaring" sound effect on Supergirl.

Does anyone else find that they like Colin Moulding's songs better than Andy Partridge's? Maybe i like them because he only ever did 1 or 2 per album, so no chance to put a bad song on. Loved his Fretless bass work on Mummer

>>71675854
English Settlement is mid tier, it's got plenty of dumb shit in the middle like Leisure and Melt the Guns.

Nonsuch has a lot of filler.

Oranges & Lemons is underrated but it took me a while to realize it, the production's too much on it. Poor Skeleton and Scarecrow People for example are good songs that I dismissed for a long time.

Big Express has a few exceptional songs, though (Smalltown, Seagulls, All You Pretty Girls)

>>71675919
Andy's best songs > all of Colin's songs >>> Andy's lesser songs

>>71675854
>Who the fuck thought it was a good idea to put the best two songs first and second on the tracklist!!??)
King for a Day is the best song on the album.

>its the third track lol

>>71673268
I consider it their best, most cohesive albums. Albums like Drums and Wires and Black Sea provide some great tunes, but also suffer from filler. Skylarking provides a full experience, every song providing something worthwhile. Relaxing, psychedelic romps like the opening tracks, solid pop numbers like Supergirl and Season Cycle, moody minimalist stuff like Another Satellite, all great songs. There's nothing about it that struck me as particularly Pet Sounds nor Pepper-esque.

>>>>71675981
I agree with the filler comments, Andy probably just didnt have someone telling him, "should you REALLY be putting this on the album?" during the songwriting process. I DO like some songs on The Big Express, like Wake Up, Youre the Wish and I Remember the Sun, but the album as a whole has no direction to it, and the songs are a overproduced.
Personally, Mummer is my favorite XTC album. I love how calm the album is. Its like the whole band gave a collective sigh of relief that they didnt have to tour anymore, and the album is so pastoral sounding. Those instrumental interludes are WAY too long though. Favorite songs on Mummer would be Wonderland, Great Fire, In Loving Memory of a Name, Funk Pop a Roll and Gold.

>>71676012
Very succinctly put.

>>>>71676022
SHIT i totally forgot about that dude, i admittedly dont listen to O&L that much, but they're still too soon in the album

>>71676012
I can agree with that, XTC's signature songs will never be Colin's songs, besides Nigel of course. Andy was very out of the box with his songwriting, so his good songs were fucking AMAZING, but everything else was frustrating

>Why has no one mentioned that XTC writes the best bridges in the history of rock music?!

>>71676066
>Andy probably just didnt have someone telling him, "should you REALLY be putting this on the album?" during the songwriting process.

While that's probably true (Andy went through producers like most rock stars go through women), I think in this case it's actually just because the compact disc era came along and there was no reason not to include b-side material. Happened with both O&L and Nonsuch, but then label drama forced Apple Venus to get split up and most of the best songs ended up on Vol. 1.

Mummer is really quite good, probably only one true stinker (Ladybird) and some songs that kind of sneak up on you with how thoughtful and well-played they are (Human Alchemy). Critics often treat it like a dry run for their studio era but that's not true, those songs are great.

I also find it to be sequenced poorly, I did my own track list years ago and only then did I start to appreciate the album.

>>71676203
Whats your tracklist? Im always up for listening to Mummer again. IMO, the bad song/s on Mummer would be Me and the Wind, Deliver Us from the Elements and the instrumentals.

I like Nonsuch so much because it was their first truly well recorded album, minus the shitty MIDI instruments that everybody was putting on their records in the late 80s/early 90s.

>>71676087
>>71676150
For what it's worth, Colin's best songs are still incredible, better and smarter than most of their contemporaries. He's a very self-aware guy, his lyrics are a pleasure to read.

What would you say Colin's best song are?
for me it would be (in no particular order)
Nigel
Big Day
Ten Feet Tall
Smartest Monkeys
Meeting Place
Wake Up
Life Begins at the Hop
World is full of angry young men
Ball and Chain

>>71676254
Let me see if I can remember.

Beating of Hearts
Human Alchemy
Deliver Us from the Elements
Me and the Wind
Ladybird

Great Fire
Wonderland
Love on a Farmboy's Wages
In Loving Memory of a Name
Funk Pop a Roll

It was something like that. I know I moved Human Alchemy up to #2 and Farmboy's Wages near the end. It makes it weird because some of the songs no longer transition, but I think it keeps it from dragging near the middle/end.

>>71676331
I would definitely add Grass to that list.

>>71676373
I would put Grass on the list, but I think Summer's Cauldron/Grass is best heard as one song, co written by moulding partridge

>>71676331
Ten Feet Tall
Love at First Sight
Fly on the Wall
Wonderland
Grass
The Meeting Place
King for a Day
Boarded Up

>>71676418
I love Wonderland and Fly on the Wall, but i dont think theyre his BEST songs.
Forgot to add King for a Day

>>71676368
I'll give this a try. I only recently bought Mummer, and enjoyed many of the songs but thought it really started to drag.

Id post the two DoS albums at High Tier, as there are no bad songs on those albums

>>71676471
Wonderland I love because it's so sarcastic. Fly on the Wall I find very wistful somehow, not really sure why I like it.

>>71676476
Wonderland or Great Fire might need to be moved up a couple slots. I suspect the "theory" I used to create this mix can work in other ways; you basically just need to jumble it until you appreciate the slower/quieter songs. I suspect the specific order isn't too important.

I Bought Myself a Liarbird is the best XTC song
Prove me wrong

>>71677316
This World Over

>>71677329
Ballet for a Rainy Day

>>71677316
Great Fire

>>71673268
it's ok but overlong and overproduced
drums & wires is goat

Drums and Wires definitely has its problems but I can't help it being my favorite

>>71675786
>>71675687
I agree with these two statements. English Settlement is my favorite XTC album and I do love The Dukes of Stratosphere albums.

I'm also weirded out that an XTC thread has held up this long on /mu/. What's going on? Are they having a resurgence?

>>71677316
Respectable Street
or Supergirl, very close second.

>>71673268

the thing about XTC is that youll have these great hooks and melodies that are produced very well, surrounded by a lot of stupid sounding shit. its like ok we get it you think psychedelia is pastiche who cares its awesome make the damn music

>>71676331
Generals And Majors
Day In Day Out
Runaways
My Bird Performs
Wonderland
English Roundabout
Grass
Sacrifical Bonfire
Life Begins At The Hop
Limelight

>>71673268
I wouldn't put any of their albums close to the big Bs but Grass is one of the damn finest pop songs of the 80s.

>>71673615
This is one of the high water marks of todd rundgrens production chops. If youre not into todd i can understand not thinking its great cause he kind of was a pioneer of the ironic shitty on purpose production style

>>71677316
You're thinking of Complicated Game

oh nice, an XTC thread

>>71675687
I agree. As XTC, Apple Venus Vol 1 and Skylarking are my favorite of their albums, but the Dukes of Stratosphear stuff stands above everything.

Does anyone have a download link for apple venus volumes 1 and 2?