Drums and Wires (1979)

7/10

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Great nervous guitar pop, but man, Andy Partridge really could not write lyrics at this point. "I used to be an iceman / living in iceman town!"? Seriously.

Black Sea (1980)

9/10

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Dance-rock with giant guitars and even gianter drums. This is what Franz Ferdinand would try to do 25 years later, 'cept they weren't nearly as good at it.

English Settlement (1982)

6/10

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The first disc gets a 9, the second gets a 2. Average that out and you get 5.5, and round up, leaving us with a rating of 6. I've told you nothing about the music here, but I've been very methodical about it!

(seriously, though: first half of this is the best stuff XTC ever did, but then the second half is pretty much worthless except for "Fly on the Wall". a very classic example of "they made a double album even though they should not have", but at least they sequenced it such that it's easy to ignore the bad stuff!)

Mummer (1983)

8/10

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Mummer? I 'ardly know 'er!

...

Okay, now that everyone with more than four brain cells has left, let's talk about this album. People don't like it, and I don't understand why? Or, I do actually: XTC weren't really ready to become a studio-only band yet, and so there's a lot on here that sounds kind of artificial (especially "Funk Pop a Roll", the album's one attempt at rocking) (that song's really good though). But seriously, there are some great tunes on here; I'm especially fond of Andy's jazz-folk beauty "Ladybird", and Colin's big single "Wonderland", which is a slice of synth-exotica so delicious it coulda been on Paraiso.

The Big Express (1984)

6/10

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Wildly uneven. This one has some of XTC's best songs ("This World Over", "The Everyday Story of Smalltown") but also some of their worst ("Shake You Donkey Up", which honestly y'all need to listen to, it's so bad).

Actually, thinking about it, all XTC albums are kind of uneven--they always tried a bunch of new things, and quite a lot of them didn't work. The best XTC records are the ones where the bad parts aren't actively off-putting. And unfortunately I feel like XTC were trying to prove that not touring hadn't turned them into softies, and they decided to do it by making a bunch of loud clanking noises, which were definitely off-putting.

Skylarking (1986)

9/10

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Partridge once called this album "a summer's day baked into a cake", and by golly that's a much better description than I could ever write.

The Dukes of Stratosphear - Chips from the Chocolate Fireball (1987)

9/10

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XTC in psychedelic drag. This might be a goof, but I'm here to tell you that most of this stuff can go head to head with the stuff it's emulating and hold up just fine. "The Mole from the Ministry", "Shiny Cage", and "Brainiac's Daughter" could've been on Magical Mystery Tour, "Pale and Precious" could fool anyone into thinking it was a Smile outtake, "You're a Good Man Albert Brown" might have been one of the Kinks' more nostalgic numbers, the Byrds would have killed to write "You're My Drug", "Bike Ride to the Moon" and "Have You Seen Jackie?" would make Syd Barrett proud, and "Vanishing Girl" is one of the best pop songs written in any decade.

Oranges & Lemons (1989)

5/10

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Advice to young lovestruck nerds: please resist the temptation to put "The Mayor of Simpleton" on mixtapes you make for girls. Yes, I know it's a great song, but it's really not advisable to bust out that level of whimsy until much later in the relationship. Also, don't put any other songs from this album on mixtapes either, they aren't all that good. Also, don't make mixtapes for girls in the first place, you're just asking for heartbreak.

Nonsuch (1992)

8/10

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I somehow forgot to rate this!!!

This one is another album that I basically listened to on repeat during a pivotal moment in my life. More than breakup songs, but not quite divorcecore.

Apple Venus Vol. 1 (1999)

10/10

❤️⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐❤️

A sumptuous orchestral meditation on the cycles of life and death inherent in nature, human civilization, and the lives of each individual. So many good ideas on this album my head's spinning.