- Drums and Wires (Bonus Track Version) · 1979
- Dear God - EP · 1986
- Black Sea (Bonus Track Version) · 1980
- Nonsuch · 1992
- English Settlement · 1982
- Drums and Wires (Bonus Track Version) · 1979
- Oranges & Lemons · 1989
- The Big Express (Bonus Track Version) · 1984
- Drums and Wires (Bonus Track Version) · 1979
- Drums and Wires (Bonus Track Version) · 1979
- Oranges & Lemons · 1989
- Nonsuch · 1992
- Nonsuch · 1992
Essential Albums
- After four albums of skittish and meticulous New Wave pop, Andy Partridge pushed his band to create English Settlement, their first double album. It is an exceptionally ripe collection of ideas: one moment a jittery anti-violence chant (“Melt the Guns”), the next a double-speed pastoral skank (“English Roundabout”). He also toned down some of their trademark dissonance for chiming ’60s guitars, particularly on the stunning single “Senses Working Overtime”—a song about his impending nervous breakdown—and the unsettlingly sweet warning shot “All of a Sudden (It’s Too Late).”
Music Videos
- 1988
- 1981
- 1980
Artist Playlists
- From twitchy punk noise to pastoral psychedelia, this is pop.
- Countless bands owe their sound to these quirky post-punk radicals.
- Wonderstruck melodies and languid psychedelia.
Singles & EPs
Appears On
- The Dukes of Stratosphear
About XTC
XTC’s journey from prickly art-punk mavericks to purveyors of brilliantly Beatles-esque pop is one of the most fascinating taken by any band to emerge in the late ’70s. It’s all the more remarkable that this route includes one of the New-Wave era’s most idiosyncratic hits in 1979’s “Making Plans for Nigel”. One reason for their musical scope is the presence of two equally gifted singer/songwriters in guitarist Andy Partridge and bassist Colin Moulding, who, after a couple of false starts with other bands, formed XTC in Swindon in 1975. Incorporating their shared interests in power pop, dub reggae and psychedelia into their otherwise disparate sensibilities, they created a series of audacious and inventive albums that included their 1979 breakthrough, Drums and Wires, and 1986’s beatific yet biting Skylarking. Though the duo’s partnership dissolved in the wake of XTC’s two-volume Apple Venus in 1999 and 2000, the band’s influence is clear on a variety of artists, especially Blur, Pulp and other Britpop acts who strived to match their wit and audacity.
- FROM
- Swindon, Wiltshire, England
- FORMED
- 1984
- GENRE
- Alternative