The Official XTC Thread
 

I can't believe there is no thread on this band yet!

Actually, the truth is I couldn't search for one, because you can't search for titles of only 3 letters.

Anyway, great band. Very clever music. Skylarking is one of the finest pop albums of the 80s that I've heard. Their new wave stuff owns too.

Any XTC love?

I wonder if we could move this to the indie section. Maybe it'd get more attention there.

C'mon, guys. No XTC love? What about Urban? He's from Swindon, isn't he?

I own Skylarking, but I haven't gotten around to listening to it yet.

One of my absolute favourite bands (with a well-earned place in my lastFM top 8). From what I've heard of them (5 records' worth of material) they just seem to effortlessly dish out some terrific melodies. Albums-wise it's all about English Settlement and Black Sea for me.

One of the first bands I ever knew about, my dad is a big fan.

Black Sea is probably my favorite album by them.

XTC are great. Skylarking is a masterpiece and one of my favorite rock albums. I'm not sure I'd consider it pop, though.

XTC is a very cool band and I agree that Skylarking is a pop masterpiece although Black Sea is probably my favourite. It actually took me a while to warm up to their sound but it was worth the effort.

Skylarking isn't pop. It's pop/rock and alternative pop/rock, but not purely pop.

Well I use the term 'pop' loosely here to mean any kind of music to which the pop template has been applied - in Skylarking's case, applying pop to new-wave/baroque/psychedelia/rock/whatever. If we look at it this way, there's not that much music which is pure pop, but you can apply the pop template to many kinds of music.

Anyway, enough splitting hairs over genres... let's talk about the awesomeness of XTC.

Surely. Favorite songs?

Mine are: All You Pretty Girls, Another Satellite, Are You Receiving Me?, Ball and Chain, Big Day, Chalkhills and Children, Dear God, Earn Enough for Us, Generals and Majors, Grass, Great Fire, Love on a Farmboy's Wages, Making Plans for Nigel, No Thugs in Our House, Respectable Street, Science Friction, Senses Working Overtime, Statue of Liberty, Summer's Cauldron, The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead, The Mayor of Simpleton, The Meeting Place, This Is Pop?, This World Over, Wait Till Your Boat Goes Down, and Wrapped in Grey.