a b Bernhardt, Todd; Partridge, Andy (4 March 2007). "Andy discusses 'All You Pretty Girls' ". Chalkhills. s Apple Venus was originally intended to follow in 2020, but the project was ultimately canceled due to the source material being woefully incomplete. The Big Express is the seventh entry in the band’s “ Surround Sound Series” reissue campaign that began in 2013 with 1992’s Nonsuch. These releases have long been championed by immersive music fans due to their comprehensive and affordability nature, with each of the two-disc sets containing a Blu-Ray disc with new stereo & 5.1 surround sound renditions by mixing maestro Steven Wilson. music’ is a phrase that seems to conjure up some very negative images nowadays. Yet as all Louder Than War readers will know, this was actually a hugely creative period in British music with a range of outstanding albums delivered. One of the most underrated in my opinion, and one that never dates because it floats above any genre categorisation, is XTC’s The Big Express. It doesn’t need this article to make the case for this band being our most undervalued, the evidence is repeatedly clear in a string of classic, innovative and hugely influential albums. It’s 30 years this week since The Big Express was released, in some ways a product of its time, but in many others, completely timeless.

Dave Gregory – guitar, Yamaha CP-80 electric grand piano, Mellotron, Prophet-5 and Roland JX-3P synthesizers, E-mu Emulator Larkin, Colin (2011). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th conciseed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0-85712-595-8. Mummer had sounded flat and slightly lifeless but for The Big Express and in keeping with the themes prevalent on the album XTC opted for a harsher, mettalic edgy sound that recalled earlier works like Go2 and Drums And Wires yet managed to still sound unique, exciting and new. Thanks to it's production and choice of subject matter The Big Express may well be XTC's artiest album, a fully formed concept whose musical arrangements and production perfectly mirror it's lyrical content. Although the LP reached a higher chart position than Mummer, [53] it sold a lesser number of copies. [54] The album spent two weeks on the UK charts, reaching number 38. [55] In the US, the album spent 7 weeks on the Billboard 200 album charts and reached its peak position of number 178 in December 1984. [56] The Big Express was XTC’s seventh studio album, originally released in October 1984 through Virgin Records.A year earlier in 1983 XTC had released the pastorally triumphant Mummer, an album that still serves as the perfect foil to The Big Express, Venus to Mars in the Solar System of the XTC catalogue. Drums have always been so essential to the XTC sound and Pete Phipps had stepped in for Mummer and kept the stool for The Big Express, and what a performance he turned in. There is a distinct hammering beat throughout the album, with the drums seemingly higher in the mix as the sounds conjure pictures of this great steam engine powering through the mid-80s landscape. This image is reinforced by the cover shots of the band dressed as engine drivers and a wheel-shaped sleeve design that I misguidedly thought at the time would be rare.

In late 1983, XTC released the holiday single " Thanks for Christmas" under the pseudonym Three Wise Men. It was produced by David Lord, owner of Crescent Studios in Bath, who impressed the band with the story that he had turned down an offer to arrange the Beatles' " She's Leaving Home" (1967). [11] He met Partridge while working as an engineer on The Naked Shakespeare. According to biographer Neville Farmer, Lord was "a world's away from XTC", having turned down the Beatles offer because he believed the Beatles were not serious musicians, and "made a deep Partridge, Andy; Bernhardt, Todd (2016). Complicated Game: Inside the Songs of XTC. Jawbone Press. ISBN 978-1-908279-78-1. XTC in 1984 were not the chart-busting force they had been from 1978-1982 when their brand of angular but highly infectious pop regularly graced the charts. What many critics consider their finest album, the excellent English Settlement, had been released two years previously but since then there had been a few changes. a b c d Bernhardt, Todd; Partridge, Andy (14 June 2009). "Andy discusses "Train Running Low on Soul Coal" ". Chalkhills.

never miss a release.

Farmer, Neville (1998). XTC: Song Stories: The Exclusive Authorized Story Behind the Music. London: Helter Skelter Publishing. ISBN 190092403X. Bernhardt, Todd; Partridge, Andy (16 March 2008). "Andy discusses 'River of Orchids' ". Chalkhills . Retrieved 29 October 2018.

I Bought Myself a Liarbird" is about Ian Reid, the band's former manager. [40] The title is a pun on " lyrebird". [1] In the 1998 XTC biography Song Stories, the song's entry simply states: "Due to a legal arrangement with their former management, XTC is unable to discuss the lyrical content of this song!" [39] "Reign of Blows" [ edit ] impression on Andy. He hadn't had a musical guru before now. David Lord could hold his own in any musical conversation and piqued Andy's interests in unexplored musical areas." [12] Moulding was not as effused and said he was unable to relate to Lord on a musical level. [13] XTC subsequently negotiated a deal that allowed them to work as much as they want on their next album at his studio. [8] In April 1984, about a month into the new album sessions, the group learned that ex-manager Ian Reid had incurred them an outstanding value-added tax bill of several hundred thousand pounds, and they immediately pursued litigation that would last for the next five years. [14] David Lord adds: "This story about me turning down the Beatles as 'not serious musicians' is nonsense! I think it grew from something I told Andy once - as a music student in the days when 'Sargeant Pepper' was being recorded, a number of us were invited to be part of the cheering crowd at Abbey Road; sadly I was already committed elsewhere and couldn't make it! That's all!" There's always one isn't there? But I think I can line up the world's underground army of XTC fans and find that the majority of them would find some form of agreement with that statement here. Exactly how they would explain it would vary, as for some it would be the tough rewarding one, and others would see it as a fussy messy dud. Certainly at the time in 1984 the critical opinion was like the latter, and the commercial opinion was that it sold poorly. In both regards this mirrored Mummer's fate before it, though the two albums are really very different. Honestly I still can't really figure out why people have anything against poor little Mummer. But Big Express? Aw, this time I get it. The Big Express is quite possibly XTC's most polarizing LP, unlike much of their work from that dreaded decade the 80's The Big Express actually sounds like a quintessential 80's album, all fairlight synths and Linn drum machines, yet it also remains quintessentially XTC, however it's harsh, metallic, abstract production manages to make it sound fairly unique when compared to other records made in 1985, the album seems to be a celebration of the industrial age and more pertinently the passing of the steam train that Swindon, their home town, existed for and the subsequent loss of income and personality that would engulf such a place due to it's passing. This 80s sound puts off a lot of fans but dig deeper and The Big Express reveals itself as one of XTC deepest albums. If Mummer had been a tentative step towards experimental studio based recordings The Big Express is a full on aural assault.a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Gregory, Dave; Moulding, Colin; Partridge, Andy (November 1984). "Recording The Big Express". One Two Testing (16). Bernhardt, Todd; Partridge, Andy (11 May 2008). "Andy discusses 'Rook' ". Chalkhills . Retrieved 30 October 2018. Christgau, Robert (25 June 1985). "Christgau's Consumer Guide". The Village Voice . Retrieved 19 June 2011.