Skip to main content

271. XTC: The Big Express (1984)

After the commercial letdown of Mummer, the boys in XTC swung for the fences on The Big Express. That album title isn't incidental. The album has a BIG sound. Mummer sounded like the work of a group bound to the studio. Though XTC's no-touring stance had not (and would not) change, The Big Express sounds like a set of songs made to be played in enormous open-air arenas.

And of course this is still XTC, so the songs, for all their bluster, are still idiosyncratic and quirky.

Colin Moulding gives us an arresting opener, the single Wake Up. Lyrically it's somewhat obtuse, with two verses about the work day, a final one about the scene of an accident (supposedly a recurring dream for Colin), and a chorus that's basically the title phrase delivered from a whisper to a shout. The guitars clang, the words come at a rapid pace, and a heavenly choir wraps things up. Colin's only other song, I Remember the Sun, is quieter and less assuming. It's a collection of hazy childhood nostalgia set in a jazzy form.

Andy's songs on The Big Express cover a wide range of emotions and styles. Single All You Pretty Girls is a lustful, singalong sea shanty. (The Everyday Story of) Smalltown sets vignettes of daily life and a staunch anti-urban sprawl message ("If it's all the same to you / Mrs. Progress / Think I'll drink my Oxo up / And get away / It's not that you're repulsive to see / In your brand new catalogue nylon nightie / You're too fast for little old me / Next you'll be telling me it's 1990") to wide-open pop songwriting. Andy also gets personal, taking on the temptation to cheat on his wife (the sporadically amelodic Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her; Andy did end up cheating, and marrying the other woman) and crooked managers (the scathing I Bought Myself a Liarbird).

But he does his best work when writing about he ravages of war, which he does twice on The Big Express. The first, Reign of Blows (Vote No Violence), is musically forceful but lyrically elegant. It's also sadly still applicable 26 years on. Witness lines like "So torture raises its head / Decked out in blue, white, and red" and "When death draws up in his car / And talks in terrorist tones / Remember violence is only a vote for the / Black Queen to take back the throne."

The second is definitely the band's finest achievement up to this point, and maybe ever. It's called This World Over, and it imagines a the aftermath of nuclear war through the eyes of a father surveying the wasted landscape with his mutated children who know nothing of the world before. Answering their questions, he lays blame squarely on an overzealous world leader with a "famous face" (a.k.a. Ronald Reagan) and his iffy motivations. I get chills at this bit, every time:
"Will you tell them about that far off and mythical land
And how a child to the virgin came?
Will you tell them that the reason why we murdered
Everything upon the surface of the world
So we can stand right up and say we did it in his name?"
Musically, it's minor key and melancholy, wisely letting focus stay on the lyrics.

Unfortunately, as wondrous as that song is, The Big Express also contains prime examples of Partridge at his most over-the-top. The psycho-county of Shake You Donkey Up and the chugging Train Running Low on Soul Coal both feature Partridge at his least restrained and most annoying. Neither is an especially awful song, but anyone who doesn't like XTC could definitely use them as compelling evidence.

Overall though, The Big Express is another fascinating album in a catalog full of them. But the boys' next move would prove to be even more audacious, surprising, and innovative.

Grade: B
Fave Song: This World Over

Comments

Euncle E said…
This is the ONE XTC album I am sorry to say I'm not familiar with. I must remedy this right away, but until I do I will suspend my XTC fan club card...Thanks for this.
9:49 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

REO Speedwagon: R.E.O. Speedwagon (1971)

REO Speedwagon got its start in the late 1960s on the campus of the University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana. The band grew out of a friendship between a students Neal Doughty (piano/keyboard) and Alan Gratzer (drums). Joining up with a couple of other musicians, they took the name R.E.O. Speedwagon. It wasn't long before they started getting gigs at parties and bars, doing covers of the hits of the day. The band cycled through several players in its first three years, with Gratzer and Doughty as the only constants. One-by-one they added the members that would form the first "official" lineup: singer Terry Luttrell in early 1968, bassist Gregg Philbin later that summer, and guitarist Gary Richrath at the end of 1970. Richrath was a native of Peoria, 90 miles northwest of Champaign, and had essentially stalked the band until they let him join. It was a good move, as he not only an accomplished guitarist, but also a songwriter. With Richrath the band ascended to the n...
Post a Comment
Read more

Stuck, or Obsession Cessastion

You may have noticed that things have slowed down around here. I had the summer off from teaching, and I spent it with my 7 month-old son. I gave myself permission to make this blog less of a priority. Well, "less of a priority" is putting it lightly. Initially, I considered an abrupt retirement. But then I reconsidered. Maybe the proximity to Brett Favre is causing this. If you're a long time reader, this is probably not all that surprising to you. Since 2007, it has become an annual ritual for me to soul-search about my waning interest in music. First I blamed an inability to express myself and a lack of quality music . Then in 2008 I cited new technology and the death of the album . Last year I wrote about how my changing life priorities hindered my ability to seek out new music. I've done a lot of thinking about it this summer and in truth I believe this was all just dancing around the issue, a slow realization of something I didn't want to admit to myse...
7 comments
Read more

Billy Joel: Greatest Hits, Volumes I and II (1985)

As you may know, I'm something of a connoisseur of compilations. I have three guidelines that I like my greatest hits to follow, though I am open to these rules being disregarded in certain cases. It's not an exact science. Billy Joel's 1985 Greatest Hits Volumes I and II (an odd title for a set that was never sold separately) is proof of that.  It mostly follows the rules. The songs are in chronological order. There are no remixes, just a couple of single edits; there are two live songs, but those were actually were the versions that charted. And there are two new songs - we'll get to them eventually - but both ended up in the Top 40, so in retrospect that was a good decision. My mom bought the double LP when it came out and then dubbed it to a tape that lived in her car for at least three years. It and An Innocent Man were part of the soundtrack of the second half of my first decade of life. So I have a hard time criticizing something so ingrained in my consciousne...
Post a Comment
Read more