“The Big Express” was a huge commercial disappointment for both band and fans alike. This may have been in part due to the fact that the singles pulled from the album fared badly, and of the three only “All You Pretty Girls” made the UK top 50. This seems at odds with the good initial reviews the album received, hardcore XTC fans loved it, and even leader Andy Partridge was quoted as saying that it was some of the best song writing of his career. Having stopped performing live due to Partridge’s stage fright there was plenty of opportunity to concentrate on the production and recording process and David Lord and the band certainly deliver an intricate, multi layered performance.
Fans of XTC will have been used to Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding’s sense of sunshine English whimsy, and their career up until then had been an upbeat experience in leftfield Pop, sharply literate, and largely consistent. “The Big Express” still shows those signs, but only fleetingly and on the whole the album harbours a serious dark side which is portrayed in the difficult rhythmic forays of “Shake You Donkey Up”, “Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her, Kiss Her”, and “Reign Of Blows”. For this listener the songs seem too deep, too abstract to refresh and when one compares this work with the likes of other XTC albums such as “The Black Sea”, “Skylarking” or “Nonsuch”, it’s far less memorable. Listen to “Wake Up” and “The Everyday Story Of Smalltown” which capture the more traditional XTC and you have at least two songs that stand up to anything from their back catalogue.
“The Big Express” is for XTC completists only.
5/10
A1 Wake Up 4:40
A2 All You Pretty Girls 3:40
A3 Shake You Donkey Up 4:19
A4 Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her, Kiss Her 3:58
A5 This World Over 5:37
B1 The Everyday Story of Smalltown 3:55
B2 I Bought Myself a Liarbird 2:49
B3 Reign of Blows 3:30
B4 You’re The Wish You Are I Had 3:17
B5 I Remember the Sun 3:08
B6 Train Running Low on Soul Coal 5:10
“All You Pretty Girls”
“Wake Up”
You are wrong to imagine regular listeners of XTC were familiar with their ‘..sense of sunshine English whimsy’- as this was only really apparent from ‘skylarking’ on… although Mummer flirts with the pastoral side…
Shake U donkey & Reign of Blows are more like the XTC of BlackSea/English settlement (BIG Pounding drums, shouting & angular guitar work).
Big Express & Mummer always seemed like complementry lps in regard to XTC’s musical maturity- both experimental, but the former more industrial & the later more elemental…
Ram,
I completely accept the point you make. I guess my perception of the album is tainted by the fact that I didn’t purchase it at the time of release (I have no idea why). I can remember purchasing both “Mummer” & “Skylarking” on week of release and maybe my view is muddied by the fact that this wasn’t a chronological addition. It may be that I don’t favour the mix of pastoral and experimental and that may explain the reason why I didn’t enjoy “Mummer” as much as “Black Sea”, “English Settlement” and “Skylarking” which are probably more rigid in direction be it one way or the other. Indeed, I love the angular side of XTC and “Black Sea” remains one of my all time favourite albums.
You make a good point Ram, and thanks for your comment.
Thanks.
They were a musicaly varied group that is tricky to generalise-
Somewhere between Captain Beefheart & Donnovan…?LOL
“Go2″ was the lp that I first got at the time, then each new lp was a ‘favorite’ of the moment until Oranges & Lemons…
“English Settlement” has ended being the one I return to most along with the Waxworks/Beeswax compilation of singles & the ‘Dukes’ cd.
When I was about 10 I saw them on a young kids TV breakfast show in liverpool (playing ‘life at the hop’-?) & around a similar time the Gang of Four played ‘at home he’s a tourist’ to about 100 under 12year olds !!! Great stuff…
Ram,
Sorry for the delay in returning your comment and thanks for the memories. What’s the chances of seeing up and coming bands on kids TV nowadays ? I remember with great fondness a TV show called Revolver hosted by Peter Cooke which showed all the top punk and new wave acts of the time. My first experience of XTC was the 3D EP which a friend of mine had purchased in Wolverhampton. It was much sought after at the time and I had to order it to get my copy. We listened to it for months and “Science Friction” remains one of my favourite XTC songs (particularly Barry’s pschedelic keyboard solo).
Revolver, Something Else, Snub TV… all brilliant & all too fleeting-
There was hardly any decent music stuff on the box back in the late 70′s-mid 80′s but what there was was pretty essential! Now there’s tonnes of new music tv…most of which I have no intrest in due to its
lack of adventure/predictable ‘songs’ or airbrushed taste.
Up& coming bands on tv? Well you know-’Marketing’ etc has changed the whole musical landscape & mode of operation, so It may be a relife not seeing too much new ‘product’!
Really someone should do a regular ‘live’ (internet) showcase from a pub/venue for new groups/artists a handful of cameras in a room & audio recorded from the desk – easy stuff… I’m sure someone out there is doing it or something similar?
The mixed blessing of Internet will hopefully replace the abnormal low standard of TV & even Newspapers & news programmes- why bother with them when you can source the information from the same agencies as they do?!!!! or do even better by keeping up on youtube & the like.
The ‘modern’ record industry flourished & died in a relativly short period of time (approx 50 years) & the youth now aren’t bothered about the packing or medium of a song (something XTC records always experimented with)… but on the plus side performing LiveMusic has had to make ammends for the lack of record sales, so we will inevitably see a host of great old groups reforming to pay the tax etc…
So things have reversed in that the Live tours used to lose money to promote an lp- now the lp promotes the tour… except big gigs are naff…LOL… even in small venues more than half the crowd are waving mobile phones like religious artifacts.
& So it goes…
A.V.B.
Too true Ram, there’s no sense of ownership in today’s music formats and the song now has less relevance to kids who buy video games, DVD’s and phone apps. We are probably the last generation that understands the value of the package we purchase (d).
The internet has been both blessing and curse to modern music. Whilst it has introduced many bands and artists we would have never heard of through other mediums it has devastatingly devalued the product. The hard copy music release (artifact) is defunct and I can’t honestly see how it will ever return.
Its very strange in that there is now a much more accessable ‘world market’ yet specialist music sales (well, all music sales!) have diminished from say anything from 10,000-30,000 copies for a small (low chart placing) group to, the modern usual,1,000 or 500 copies.
I’m mostly involved in reggae these days & there will always be ‘records’ involved in ROOTS sessions but the i-pod & laptop are taking over from cds…
But as they say- there’s nothing better than having a bop with some snap, crackle & pop… although nowadays a Baileys is more preferable.
It’s amazing to think that 10,000 sales of a single 30 years ago wouldn’t have got a top 40 place, and yet now because of the de-valued nature of owning popular music it gets the artist a high placing. I still listen and purchase new music all the time and yet I never listen to music stations on the radio as the internet provides all the relevant music news I need.and I made a deliberate decision to stop watching and listening to the BBC because I hate paying the license fee.
Happily, there is still some great new acts coming through from time to time and that retains my interest and passion. Unlike yourself my listening habits are widespread (to be honest Ram…I think they always have been) but I still ocassionally get excited about a new band and trawling through a lot of crap makes it worth it.
There’s little money in the actual sales of ‘actual’ records, more can be recouped via download… music industry monies are mostly made from publishing.
A tune can sell few or no copies and make millions if it gets the right exposure, ‘Happy Birthday’ sung in a film makes thousands of pounds from copyrights whenever its performed by ‘anyone’- hence it’s rare or only in big budget films you’ll hear it in movies- ‘he’s a jolly good fellow’ or somesuch usually replaces it due to ‘Happy Birthdays’ expence!
As for the charts they were only ever marketing devices & as a true representation of actual sales just seem more crooked the more you know… Black Music (Soul,Reggae etc) is vast & influential in most cultures but the sales of many ‘classic’ tunes didn’t influence the ‘national charts’ due to the shops used for sales returns & the practise of ‘plugging’ tunes, something bigger companies had an advantage in.
The actual sales for a tune like ‘Money in my pocket’ sung by Dennis Brown should have given the tune a platinum disc, yet where did it get in the charts? (There are all sorts of other more underhand complications usually involved as well..)
By the way…You are amusingly mistaken to imagine my musical interests & tastes are not diverse… Everything except ‘Opera’ & ‘HappyHouse’ can be enjoyable to my ears-I just prefer music with a fuller resonance nowadays & nothing comes close to Roots Reggae!
& I’m not talking about DubStep, which is not Dubby or Steppers, just a bunch of pre-set knob fiddlers without a clue…
….also I still also listen to a lot of dirty old funk, flamenco & I’m rather partial to the joy & madness of Bossa Nova.
In the 70′s We nearly all grew up with rubbishy record players- the Bass Control just made the ‘gramophone/music centre’ rattle & distort more, so it wasn’t until I started playing in groups at 15 I really heard a bassline- Some people are still stuck using their ears to hear music, but with reggae (esp. when )played out you really FEEL IT… so a lot of modern rock/pop just sounds like unappealing adolescent whingeing or a rather tedious tantrum.
Anyone who really loves music will find endless treasures from the past- songs that last – whereas much of todays stuff is instantly enjoyable (mostly due to clever production tricks) but fades from the affections fast (due to a lack of genuine emotion maybe?).
Also- after listening to a hell of a lot of music over the years, it allows an insight into the abundant plagerisms that fuel & propel the entire music industry.
&So, What do you rate that’s newish?