XTC – White Music (1978)

During the latter part of my university years (1978-1981) XTC were probably my favourite band. I saw them play on an early date with a new girlfriend, and was blown away by the energy and creativity of the music - clearly these guys were already post-punk. The truth, as for many, is that a decent rock band, a couple of years old, had used the punk genre to strip down the sound, refine an image and present it just as record companies were looking for exactly this.

Of course I had this album soon after release, and played it to death (although it wasn't until Drums And Wires that the penny dropped for me), yet it's only now that I've finally got round to replacing it on CD. This is a 1987 re-release from Virgin, so early in the CD era, and has one massive flaw.

Record companies wanted to persuade us to buy album which were only ten years old on this new format, so used the gimmick of bonus tracks - this contains the Science Friction EP and a couple of other singles. And that's fine, provided you tag them on the end. Virgin, having been kicked in the head by a horse, chose to plonk the seven bonus tracks in the middle - halfway between the vinyl's A and B sides. I'm expecting this to intrude massively on my enjoyment of an old friend, and as you can tell, I'm quite grumpy about it. Apparently, on post-2001 releases, Virgin saw the error of their ways and placed these tracks at the end of the album.

But on to the music. The opening bass riff of Radios In Motion followed by the guitar thrash, is a fine opening and a great song, morphing into the jerky, jangly Cross Wires - one of Colin Mouldings' early forays into songwriting, almost sounding like Colin imitating Andy - a likeable and infectious number. Then it's the fun and bouncy This Is Pop, the first single from the album, inexplicably not a hit. The second Moulding composition, Do What You Do, follows, quick, cheery and just dandy. Then comes the classic, Statue Of Liberty, again a nailed on hit single in a sensible world, until banned by BBC Radio 1 for the lyrics "In my fantasy I sail beneath your skirt". It's just a great pop song, the sort which seemed to ooze out of Andy Partridge effortlessly at this point. The first half concludes with a cover of Dylan's All Along The Watchtower (or more likely a cover of the Hendrix cover). It's as good a version of this song as I've heard, with Partridge's strangled vocals and harmonica, underpinned by Barry Andrews' keyboards, while Mouldings' relentless bass riff and Terry Chambers' effortless drumming hold the whole song together.

Let's have a little breather for the bonus tracks. There are the three songs from the band's debut 3D EP - the fantastically futuristic Science Friction, a sneer at the out of date lady in She's So Square (describing someone from a mere ten years earlier - showing how fast trends moved in those days), and the likeable, if novelty Dance Band. There are the B-sides from the band's first three singles (Hang On To The Night, Heatwave and Instant Tunes), the band wisely not throwing away their best material on B-sides, and Traffic Light Rock, a throwaway rock'n'roll number, done in jerky XTC style.

But back to the original album's second side. It's a bright and lively start with the wonderful Into The Atom Age, ("Hey, does anyone remember what happened to string?") but realistically, this is the highlight of this second half. I'll Set Myself On Fire is a plodding number, while I'm Bugged takes the fractured XTC sound to the limit. New Town Animal In A Furnished Cage makes more of an impression although it feels slower than I remember it, and not as vibrant. Spinning Top has an almost Latin dance quality to it, and it's pleasant enough, leading to final track at a much livelier pace, Neon Shuffle, rounding off the album nicely, after a couple of quite ordinary songs.

It's a great debut, possibly not giving too many hints of the twenty five years of great albums and songwriting the core duo of Partridge and Moulding would gift to us, but certainly displaying a maturity and sensitivity which showed this wasn't just another punk band riding the zeitgeist.

Link to album tracks

4* - a fantastic debut album - even if everything here hasn't stood the test of time, so much has.