Re: XTC & personal taste

[Greg Earle <earle@JPLOPTO.JPL.NASA.GOV>]

>I'd be surprised if there were as great a consensus on XTC as there is (or
>seems to be) on Kate, Peter, and the Beatles, but anyway...

Judging from your response, I'd agree ... :-)

If we ignore `Mummer' and `The Big Express' it looks like you've thrown
`Go 2' (the 2nd LP that you couldn't remember the title of) and `English
Settlement' on the bottom of the heap.  Well, so much for consensus as in
private email these were the two I recommended *most* of all.  Of course,
this is partly biased because the original `Go 2' included a free 12" called
`Go +' which contained 5 remixed-refractured-rescrambled versions of songs
on the LP (much in the manner of Andy Partridge's wonderful solo opus under
the `Mr. Partridge' moniker, `Take Away/The Lure Of Salvage').  I can still
remember them using `A Dictionary Of Modern Marriage' (version of `Battery
Brides') as the intro music right before they emerged on-stage for the
`Drums and Wires' tour.  In the case of `English Settlement' the difference
between US and UK is quite simply the UK double LP is a wonderfully flowing
masterwerk, and as usual the US repackaging is a horrible butchering (down to
a single LP!  Sheesh) with the fine granular cover replaced with this cheeky
bright lime green monstrosity.  Avoid at all costs.

If the double LP that contained the A sides and B sides of their mid-period
singles is still in print, then this too is to be recommended; as during this
time not only were XTC putting out magnificent singles but oftentimes the B
sides were even better than the A's - no one was touching XTC for great B's.
(The `Homo Safari' series in particular comes to mind)

Mind you, not that I have any quarrel with Jeff's choices of `Black Sea' and
`White Music'; just that my prioritized ordering would be a bit different ...

	- Greg