Artist: Duo
Career: formed in 1976
Language: English
Genre: Classicist pop
I have an irrational dislike of XTC and Andy Partridge, so my first attempt at a review was going to play into that. Fine, he doesn’t sing like a nagging two-year old anymore, but he’s still got the emotional maturity of one. Do we really need more songs about playground bullies, penis metaphors and maypoles from a forty (50?) year old man? And when he hits those ‘Let me worship at the church of women’ ad libs on ‘Church of women’ you squirm at the unpleasant sight of an emotionally stunted, seedy, single middle-aged man. He’ll probably claim it’s a character study. Yes, it is, Andy, of you. And Colin isn’t much better, still singing about ‘Beatleband’.
But I have a hard time accepting what my ears are telling me after a couple of spins. Who cares about the bully/school of humiliation-lines in ‘Playground’ when your attention is all focused on the divine bass and drums interplay on the track, and the wonderful female backing chorus? And that’s followed by the irresistible riff of ‘Stupidly happy’, which thankfully runs through the entire song without silly middle eight. And ‘In another life’ with its smart chord changes –it’s pretty close to emotional impact. And so I sing along to all this squirmy stuff. Melodically it’s just undeniable (damn!). Really, it’s like an album full of ‘Maxwell’s silver hammer’s. But then again…no matter what, that’s still a Beatles song and I still love it more than most things on this earth. And this album may not sound like 2000, it’s more like ‘Flowers in the dirt’, but it could be a better ‘Flowers in the dirt’ than ‘Flowers in the dirt’.
I guess I’ll have to limit my dislike of Andy to a purely personal level.
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