Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Surely one of the greatest albums ever, 29 April 2005
As someone who wasn't born when this album came out, i fell accross this as they were listed as an influence on a number of currentbands, perhaps most notably 'Dogs Die In Hot Cars'. However, how happy I was, Partridge as a purveyor of perfect pop must be up there with the very best, his songs are funny, touching, and impossibly catchy. For me this is his and the rest of the band (particularly Moulding)'s best work, and what's more it's a double album, though it's no white album, there are 2 great albums here not 1. That's not to say that the body of work's not coherent as a whole, it is not an album of two halves. What of the songs, well, it's a feast for the ears, just so many awesome tracks, and here i feel i have to agree with the other reviewer's comments, that you find yourself asking yourself if each song is in fact the greatest pop song ever. Personal favourites would be 'Ball and Chain', 'Jason and the Argonaughts', 'No Thugs In Our House', 'All of a Sudden', 'Snowman', but there is not a single track i don't enjoy and which would be a standout on the albums of today's imitators.I only hope that as they continue to influence others so more people will discover this album, and the many other great XTC albums, and they might achieve the retrospective acclaim they deserve.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Make your senses work - Overtime!, 19 Jun 2001
Everyone with an interest in good music remembers Senses Working Overtime. Believe it or not - it's not the best track on this record! Although it's difficult to pick a best track to be honest - if you liked Making plans for Nigel, try Knuckle down.If you liked Generals & Majors, try No Thugs In Our House. If you're a Drums&Wires fan, try Down in the Cockpit. Its all here! This album is a veritable dictionary of XTC - all their musical guises are present. Look at it like this, buy the brilliant single - Senses Working Overtime, and get a free 14 tracks thrown in! The price is worth it even for that one song.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Everyone should own this record., 19 Jun 2002
This is the album that marked the end of one XTC era and the beginning of a new, exciting, bold period for the band. Andy broke down while touring to promote the album and wouldn't tour again - which prompted Terry Chambers to get fed up and emigrate to Australia, leaving the band to hire a different drummer for consequent albums and free to march a dizzying path through numerous styles of music over the next twenty years.I bought this album on its release twenty years ago because I had liked Sgt Rock and Making Plans... This album utterly entranced me like no other album ever has. Partridge and Moulding write brilliant, thought provoking, intelligent songs bundled up in the most enthralling, original and enduring arrangements of pop music you could imagine. And yes, they are still doing it today. Everyone in their mid to late twenties and older will know the joyous single that reverberates to Dave's beautiful black twelve string Rickenbacker and Andy's proclamation of the joy of being alive in Senses Working Overtime. Few people will know the other songs that treat you to an hour or more of a multitude of aspects of living life in England. Not the United Kingdom, but decidely England. Post Kinks, pre Blur - or maybe the Kinks are pre XTC and Blur are post XTC. All three quintessentially English, non more consistent that this quartet from Swindon who -in this album - take us through destroying homes in the name of progress; children running away from their violent parents; the debilitating effects of long term unemployment; the woman who was so cold and unemotional through to the joys of life; seizing the moment of being alive; the fragility of love and so on and so forth.
I have heard people say the album is starting to sound a little old now; it's hard for me to say because I know it and love it so so well. Even if it is sounding a little dated it's still an album to fall in love with. Go on - have an affair.
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