"Black Sea" has to be my favorite XTC record. For it’s huge drum sound (even bigger than on Drums and Wires), snakey, dueling guitar figures (which would all but vanish by Skylarking), and overall heft of good material. Heck, even "sgt. Rock" is a pretty good song. But, opener "Respectable Street" is pure perfection. "Sunday Church and they look fetching. Saturday night saw them retching over our fence."
Not coincidentally my first XTC purchase?

I’m so happy to see Andy and the Warbles getting some love here – thanks Frank. This is an absolute gold mine of great music. Sure, there are some throwaways, but so much of it is excellent. Even a number of the throwaways, such as "That Wag", from one of the early Warbles discs, are worthwhile, for comedy value alone (Partsy with dead-on imitations of Robert Smith and Dylan). I don’t think you’ll be disappointed by discs 7 and 8 – the quality remains high. Give a listen to "I’m Unbecome" from disc 7, for example. What a gorgeous tune!

It’s very tough for me to pick a favorite XTC album. Drums and Wries was the first one of theirs that I bought and I immediately loved it, so it’s tempting to say that. However, if it comes down to the one I’ve played the most over the years, it’s gotta be Black Sea. I agree with Brent regarding its drum sound (courtesy of future Police and Phil Collins producer Hugh Padgham, who was the engineer and Steve Lillywhite’s assistant along with the producer of English Settlement) and I agree with Tony that it may be Andy’s finest set of songs. Colin is also great on it, though. "Love at First Sight" has always been a favorite of mine along with the more oft-cited songs.

On a different day, I could pick English Settlement for its diveristy, excellent production or for "No Thugs in Our House" alone (not to mention the lyrics of "Snowman"). "Senses Working Overtime" is my ringtone, so obviously that’s a big favorite here, too.

The other ones I’ve gone to the most over the years are Skylarking and their last album, the hugely underrated Wasp Star: Apple Venus Volume Two. Pretty much everyone loves Skylarking, so I won’t talk about it too much here, but as for Wasp Star, I could never figure out why more people didn’t embrace it. It was by far their best album since Skylarking (which I know isn’t saying that much, but still) and far better than the inconsistent Apple Venus, Vol. 1. Perhaps I say this because I prefer the more rockin’ XTC to the more orchestral one, but how can you argue with songs like "Playground," "Boarded Up," "I’m the Man Who Murdered Love" or "We’re All Light"? Also, it’s notable for having 2 great Colin songs ("In Another Life" and "Standing in for Joe"), by far his best songs on an XTC album since "King for a Day" on Oranges & Lemons.

Thanks for posting about my all-time favorite band.
I’ve been a fan of XTC ever since a promo copy of "Drums and Wires" came across my desk at a college radio station in ’79. So much so that I named my son Collin(wife’s spelling and she didn’t really like the name Andy)and also visited Swindon(!) on my trip to England in ’87.
My favorite album is hard to choose, as they’ve released so many great ones.
However, if pressed, I’d have to say "Skylarking", mainly for the way the whole album flows together, especially with the addition of ‘Dear God’. The results are even more amazing when you consider the animosity that was present between the band and producer Todd Rundgren.
"Black Sea", "English Settlement"(the two-disk, of course) and "Oranges and Lemons" are next in line.
Like you’ve mentioned, even their weaker albums are head and shoulders about most groups best offerings.

Black Sea, definitely! It was the first of their albums to capture my ear (specifically "Burning With Optimism’s Flame," which at that time aired regularly on Frank O’Toole’s radio show on WFMU in East Orange, New Jersey), and to my mind, is one of the great pop albums of all time. Brilliantly loud production by Steve Lillywhite (Terry’s drums just EXPLODE), biting lyricism, excellent vocals by Andy…just perfect. English Settlement is a close second with some fabulous songs, but in retrospect, it was the harbinger for the solipsistic mannerism that gradually crept into XTC’s music over the ensuing decades. With Black Sea, Andy, Colin, Dave and Terry were at the top of their game, poised for the worldwide stardom that, alas, eluded them.

Thanks for this excellent post! As many of your readers have noted, choosing a favorite XTC album is no small task — close, in fact, to having to choose a favorite child. But, if pressed, I would have to choose ‘English Settlement.’ So many great songs! The music is more varied than their earlier works, but they are still writing great topical material. Favorite songs include ‘Senses Working Overtime,’ ‘No Thugs in Our House,’ ‘All of a Sudden,’ ‘Knuckle Down, and ‘Fly on the Wall’ — and my absolute two favorites on this record, ‘Melt the Guns’ and ‘It’s Nearly Africa.’ Add to that the great b-sides and the material on the ‘Drunken Jam Session,’ and you have a sense of an amazingly creative free-for-all tempered by a perfectionist’s sense of craft.

Close seconds for ‘Skylarking’ (with ‘Mermaid Smiled’ or their best song of all ‘Dear God’) and ‘Oranges and Lemons,’ for reasons others have mentioned.

Thanks again!

I’ll go with Oranges And Lemons because of its great depth. It covers so much ground and has some of the band’s best songwriting, including ‘Chalkhills and Children’ which was a regular feature of my mixtapes for quite a long time. And almost every person who got one of those mixtapes wanted to know what that song was and where they could get it.
But as for my favourite XTC song that isn’t one of the usual suspects, I would have to go with ‘Your Dictionary’ because it is the cleverest bitter song I have ever heard. Andy spits out the words with such venom that I almost feel guilty listening to something so personal.
They are quite simply a great band and I can’t think of a better way to spend ten or so hours than working my way through Fuzzy Warbles….

wow, great answers everyone – thanks. My XTC collection is pretty slim, I’ve got everything from Skylarking on but only "The Compact XTC" to represent the earlier years. It’s a great collection when I want something pocket sized but you’ve persuaded me to start digging out the full-lengths. Thanks.

And to Matt – I actually always rather disliked Wasp Star because the guitar tones, which Andy Partridge recorded almost entirely with a POD, sounded too synthetic to me but as I listen to it now it doesn’t bother me nearly as much and the songs are indeed great. I still prefer volume 1 – I recall writing a review for my university newspaper declaring it a classic for all time alongside Sgt Pepper and Pet Sounds (I was young, leave me alone) – but have probably been too dismissive of the companion album.

Doesn’t mean I’m going to bother with Homegrown or Homespun, though.

My favorite XTC album is the much-maligned The Big Express, from the band’s often-misunderstood and under-appreciated middle period. I’d guess that many listeners, even XTC fans, have trouble getting past the overall sound of the album. The production style sounds dated at first gloss (particularly the drum sounds), but repeated listens can be rewarding, revealing the the material itself works best in the context of this style. It’s the sound of XTC returning to the jumpy, jerky new-wave style of the earlier albums, with the benefit of the lessons learned from the pastoral pop of Mummer and English Settlement.

Songs like "Shake You Donkey Up", "Wake Up", and "You’re the Wish You Are I Had" could not have emerged fully formed as they do here except at this juncture in their career. They have a maturity not found in the earlier albums, but they still have a soupcon of the nervous energy that was extinguished completely the following year by Skylarking, the beginning of a new period and direction for the band. This isn’t what makes it essential, though – the important thing is that the songwriting is fun and interesting, coming from a singular place, and the melodies are consistently good and often superior, if you can overcome sound biases and really give in to them. Also, it has the best song titles of XTC’s whole career – you can’t beat "Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her" and "Train Running Low on Soul Coal".

Good lord! To pick just one would be like Sophie’s Choice!?! XTC were a huge part of the soundtrack to my teenage years, so I’d agree with all of the above….Black Sea, Skylarking, the Dukes… However, the 2 Apple Venus volumes are my picks only because how great it was to hear new, official releases from them after all that silence…

My favorite XTC album is Skylarking, the most audacious and shining swirl of notes, chords and poetry ever captured, an album that quite literally changed my life. That’s a cliché but I use it unashamedly. Skylarking saved me from the dreary Nine Inch Nails and Orgy and, yes, Korn records I’d held so dear until the first swelling strings of "Summer’s Cauldron" wept into my ears. There simply isn’t a bad song, a wrong note, an awkward phrase on the entire thing, and I listen to it for the most part as a whole. I don’t think in all of recorded music there is as perfect a lineup than songs 3-8, five exquisite gems one after the other. These songs practically knocked the wind out of me upon my first awed and confused listen. “Another Satellite”, perhaps the album’s highlight, is Andy Partridge’s magnum opus. It echoes through the brain, defying gravity, wrapping you in the cold, alien woe of a ruined relationship, a plea for some sort of understanding of the black acid beast, Love. After the disappointing “Mummer” and “Big Express”, “Skylarking” was a revelation, a beacon in the plastic and synthetic mid-eighties that it crawled out of like some primordial swamp creature. XTC is criminally underappreciated, and “Skylarking” is proof of that. I’d love to win the Fuzzy Warbles collection (I would have gotten one for myself but I’m living off student loans at the moment and Uncle Sam would probably wag his gnarled finger in my face for buying CD’s with taxpayers’ money), but even if I don’t thank you for posting these tracks, and thanks for giving me the chance to serenade Andy Partridge.

Drums and Wires would be the fave of theirs. I love that you can take in the individual tunes by themselves or in the greater context of the album. I also quite like the production and general era of the band’s work at this period in their lofty career.

I’m going to have to cheat here, you leave me no choice. This is 2006 and thanks to technological advances my personal compilation of hits from EVERY album is my favorite.

"… leave me a comment telling me what your favourite XTC album is and why"

I call it "My Best of XTC burn". Trust me, this album is the winner. It even includes Andy’s cover of "Strawbery Fields Forever". Thanks to .MP3’s I’m not limited to 12 songs on this compliation either. Nobody else has it so I realize it’s not a fair answer. But it’s the most kick-ass album there is.

Times have changed since falling in love with and buying "Skylarking" on vinyl. If "Dear God" hadn’t hit 91X FM in San Diego I may not have fallen in love with this band. I’m a Todd Rundgren fan coincidently and see it as no coincidence this album was the one that really put them on everybodys radar.

"Skylarking" celebrating it’s 20th anniversay this year was enginered to be and IS a great album to come back to over and over again. Specifically answering the question posed by the writer (Frank?) it’s "Skylarking" because it was the begining of a fantastic journey that I hope ends no time soon. But follow me here with the additional reasoning…

Being the huge Beatles fan that I am, and hearing audible influences and that English accent which may be most prominent on this album, I became intriged and a bit compulsive in my consumerism buying up EVERYTHING they had put out up to their most recent.

AND I became short of breath when ever any new album thereafter was released and was first to buy everything thereafter right on release date.

I have felt this way about NO other band and have only bought everything ever put out by the following others:

The Beatles
The Who
(Disclaimer – all Vinyl. My collecting was pre-CD.)

So obviously in my mind XTC is as huge as The Beatles and The Who. And despite my love for a ton of late 60’s early 70’s rock only these three bands were worthy of seperating me from my hard earned cash in order to have a complete collection.

In my research of prior XTC work I learned of their acid alto-ego work as
"The Dukes Of Stratosphear" and have "25 O’Clock" proudly displayed in my music room along side a promotional poster for "Oranges And Lemons". The artwork on these sooth my pyschedelic soul. For the record I view The Dukes as XTC and do not differentiate the two, so you’ll see that my favorite album contains works from both.

To this very day I am excited to turn people on to this facinating album. I would say "Chips from the Chocolate Fireball" would fall into my number 2 slot for proper released albums despite not being XTC offically. I noticed others throwing in comments about more than one album so just following suit.

Ok ladies and gentlemen, here is the play list for "My Best Of XTC Burn",
the greatest album on the planet:

General And Majors
You’re My Drug
Making Plans For Nigel
Dear God
What In The World??
Senses Working Overtime
Grass
Bike Ride To The Moon
Respectible Street
Earn Enough For Us
Sgt Rock
The Mole From The Ministry
Wake Up
This World Over
Runaways
Vanishing Girl
Towers Of London
Stupidly Happy
You’re A Good Man Albert Brown
Wonderland
The Ballad Of Peter Pumpkin Head
The Disappointed
My Love Explodes
The War Dance
The Mayor Of Simpleton
Garden Of Earthly Delights
King For A Day
Merely A Man
Pink Thing
I’d Like That
Green Man
Frivolous Tonight
Strawberry Fields Forever
All Along The Watchtower
Have You Seen Jackie
In Another Life
Standing In For Joe
Season Cycle
Thanks For Christmas
Happy Families
The Meeting Place
Big Day
Brainiac’s Daughter
Playground
My Brown Guitar
Little Lighthouse
I Remember The Sun
25 O’Clock
Spiral
Pale And Precious
Running Low On Soul Coal
Beating Of Hearts
Collideascope
Shiny Cage
Boarded Up

I leave "Borded Up" for last. It makes me cry when I hear (Collin?) whispering "bye bye Beatles". And fear the song is XTC saying goodbye and no more. I hope they decide to continue for another 30 years. I, for one, will continue to buy everything they put out.

With sincere gratitude for all Andy and crew have done with their intelectual lyrics and unusual chord progressions mixed with Beatlesque and Beach Boy undertones a heartfelt THANK YOU from this fan. Count on me to continue consuming anything you put out!

This is probably not a popular choice for most, but my "desert island" CD (and, coincidently for the purpose of this contest, favorite XTC CD) is "Oranges & Lemons". It was my gateway album… XTC had entered my teenage musical radar with Skylarking but I was too far into heavy prog rock to pay them much attention. Then this curious video came on MTV once with a gorgeous chick in black leather and some middle aged-looking sods struming old guitars. Very nice tune, reminds me of the Beatles.
Chumming through a now-closed video store’s section of bargain basement priced CDs, I came upon a copy of Oranges & Lemons. What a great cover… 60’s pop art personified! As the ball & chain of my musical taste was starting to chafe, I did something I had never ever done before (or done since) and purchased the album on the impact of the cover. Anything that is this pleasently stimulating and happy to look at must sound okay inside, eh? Besides, it was only $6.
What was inside, from the first rising whine of notes from a distant ancient land, was a music revolution. Putting aside for a moment the extremely polished and fussy production (which, in retrospect, squeezed a little to hard on some of the fruit inside) where some of the greatest SONGS I’d ever heard. Did live human beings still write like this? Where did these musical anthropolgists discover these melodies? How did they twist songs of love into laments; ignorant pleas of such sublime intelligence? The craftmanship, the joy, the sheer pop brains raised the bar of what an album could be for me.
I love this CD. I listen to every track intently and completely. And I will do so over and over again for the rest of my life.

Damn, I thought I’d be the only one to vote for the generally unregarded "Nonsuch," and for the same reasons that Michael listed above. Its an album of great depth and swirls of emotion and creativity. The only let-down is "Bungalow," as dreary and maudlin as only Moulding could make it. XTC shooting themselves in the foot once again. Skip that track and the rest is superb.

God, I love XTC.

It’s hard to put my finger on exactly the reason why…but I don’t think that anyone else had just the same combination of clever lyrics, catchy pop-tastic melodies, and a chameleon-like sense for re-inventing themselves. And just when you think they’re done…they come out of the blue with a new incarnation. I really hope they continue to make music in one form or another in the future.

As for my favorite album, that is really difficult. I’d have to go with "Oranges and Lemons". I remember when it came out that it was praised (and reviled) for having a ‘Beatles-esque’ vibe. I think every song on that disc is rock-solid. ‘Garden of Earthly Delights’, ‘The Mayor of Simpleton’, ‘Hold Me My Daddy’…the list goes on and on. It maybe the perfect pop album…I can’t help but smile whenever I give it a spin. XTC has that effect on me…