Music Review: The Fuzzy Warbles Collectors Album - Andy Partridge
Published September 30, 2006
I swear it's a coincidence, but I seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time this week talking about music from the seventies. (Once is bad, twice is inordinate as far as that pestilent sore of a decade is concerned) But it just so happens that there was some good music being generated in spite of the prevailing trends.
That's probably true of every decade when it comes right down to it, a ton of bad mainstream, marketable, management style music, and a little tiny bit of creativity. But for me it was the first decade that I got to experience that horror so it stuck with me more. The eighties were just as bad for there being a load of crap and some descent music, but I had come to expect that by then so I was so overjoyed to find anything half-way decent that I was able to ignore the dross. Eventually I just stopped listening to pop music and the problem was solved.
Anyway back to where we started before I was diverted so pleasantly. The mid to late seventies saw sort of a mini British invasion of pop music making it over to North America. Because it was the peak of the Punk period and the beginning of the New Wave period (how do you tell a Punk fan from a New Wave fan? A New Wave fan wears a pin of their favourite band on their jacket while a Punk fan wears a pin through their cheek) any band from The Clash to Boy George was classified as being one of the two.
This resulted in the gross mistake of people actually mentioning Boy George in the same breath as Joe Strummer as if they had something in common. One of the bands that received the misnomer of New Wave (I even heard them referred to as Punk one time which that underlined that DJ's woeful misunderstanding of the music on all sorts of levels) was XTC.
XTC were the epitome of the power pop band, turning out finely crafted songs like "Senses Working Overtime" and "Making Plans for Nigel." Musically they had far more in common with bands like The Kinks, The Beatles, and The Monkees than The Stranglers, The Damned, or The Clash. But since they all had shortish hair, British accents, and looked slightly eccentric they were labeled as New Wave over here.
Richard Marcus is a long-haired Canadian iconoclast who writes reviews and opines on the world as he sees it at Leap In The Dark and Epic India Magazine.
- Music Review: The Fuzzy Warbles Collectors Album - Andy Partridge
- Published: September 30, 2006
- Type: Review
- Section: Music
- Filed Under: Music: Adult Alternative, Music: Alternative Rock, Music: Indie Rock, Music: New Wave, Music: Pop, Review
- Writer: Richard Marcus
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I bought a copy of "Black Sea" last year, and it it still as fresh, new, and brilliantly produced as I remember it being. No slam on bands like Kaiser Chiefs or Franz Ferdinand, but I hope they acknowledge XTC's obvious on their sound.
Personally, I liked the songs Colin Moulding sang more than Andy Partridge, but their is no deny Andy's songwriting ability.
To point out an innaccuracy, only FW 1 through 6 have been previously released. Vols. 7 and 8 plus the Hinges CD are brand new.
Huge XTC fan myself, I have all of their cd catalog already. Something like this though, definitely appeals to the collector in me...keep this mint "just because" and continue to listen to the 'regular' recordings as always.
Richard - Since you've had the chance to listen to all the disks, could you give us some insight into the best of the 9 to buy or maybe the top 10 songs (in your opinion) that would be worth getting when this all gets on iTunes (the Ape site says it's already up but I can't find it). That would be very helpful. Thanks.
Patrick
I hate to disapoint you but that was a while ago and I only had time to go through the whole package once. I couldn't sit down and give you a list like you ask for without listening to the whole kit and kaboodle at least three more times.
Since the only way I can listen to them is on a tinny cdrom on my laptop - I received MP3s of the set not the actual set electronic media didn't rate getting the actual goods- I'm not really inclined to do that.
What I would suggest, especially since you have the options of downloading through I-Tunes for your I-pods is take the songs you know first of all, maybe a couple from each album, to get an idea of what it is exactly your getting.
I don't know if I-Tunes will differentiate between which are previously unreleased and which are demos etc (you can check the ape records web site for that sort of info if I-Tunes doesn't provide it) but check out the stuff you won't be able to find anywhere else as well -"Hinges" for example might be one to completly download because it won't ever be released alone.
I do reccomend going to the site and reading Andy's comments about home recording. His stories are great, and it will give you a lot of insight into how he developed the sound that XTC was and is still famous for.
Sorry I can't be anymore help Patrick, but good luck with it.
Richard
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I love XTC! A few years ago they came out with a brilliant "comeback" album, Apple Venus Vol. 1, and they did release one follow up, Vol. 2. While only a studio project and with only two members left in the band, I still look forward to new material from them, but I don't know if I'm going to shell out the money for this boxed set. I know they didn't tour much after Partridge had stage fright, or something like that, but I wish they could find some tapes of old concerts for release.