Big Express [Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered]

XTC | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 6, 2002)
• Original Release Date: 1984
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
• Label: Caroline
• ASIN: B00005ATHG
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #90,275 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #51 in Music > Indie Music > Alternative Rock > New Wave

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Even hardcore fans remain ambivalent about this least organic and most dogmatic of all XTC albums, and this is the last place anyone should start building their collection. The Big Express has some strong tracks to offer, notably the Police-inspired nuclear-war lament "This World Over" and the bubblegum sea shanty "All You Pretty Girls," which sounds like "What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor" as performed by the cast of The King and I. For the more persistent and inquisitive, this 1984 collection features some challenges in the shape of the twitchy Captain Beefheart-at-the-hoedown "Shake Your Donkey Up" and "Everyday Story of Smalltown," which evokes Ray Davies in its lyrical observations of dawn milk rounds and laborers commuting to the Swindon railworks on bicycles. --Kevin Maidment

Product Description

Remastered reissue of 1984 album. Virgin Records. 2001.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Is it noisy rubbish? Or a noisy masterpiece?, January 3, 2005

By 

B (Rochester, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Big Express (Audio CD)

"If Mummer was a gentle chug through the countryside, then The Big Express is a loco derailing itself in the rusty goods yard. An altogether more industrial affair. Slashing electric guitars, sheets of steel bass and diesel oil drums. An iron opera, steam powered and brick encased."
(Andy Partridge)

That description couldn't be more perfect, actually. Thanks Andy! Now, the songs:

"Wake Up" is a fantastic opener (love the syncopated riff); part of it wants to chop yer ears off, part of it wants you to dance.

"Shake You Donkey Up" is a raucous hoe-down; like three brits in overalls, drenched in pig slop. Country-Blues guitar riffs, loud "yeee-hawww"'s, and even a fiddle! What more could you ask for?

Other highlights on the first side include the bubblegum sea chanty "All You Pretty Girls", the poignant post-nuclear holocaust ballad "This World Over", and "Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her, Kiss Her", a sort of seafoam-molasses psychedelic reggae shuffle (loaded with lots of eerie synthesizer effects and great lyrics)

Side B opens with the insanely catchy "Small Town", pure brit-pop, ten years before Blur made it popular again.

Then, there's "I Bought Myself a Liarbird" (a nice little slam-dunk to a greedy manager), "Reign of Blows" (an awesome caterwauling mess of blues, pop, and rock with tons of reverb and other cool effects), "You're the Wish You Are I Had" (cocktail jazz + dream pop chorus), "I Remember the Sun" (wistful, Steely Dan like jazz rock), and the deranged, tempo-shifting closer "Train Running Low on Soul Coal".

There's also a few bonus songs at the end (or, in the middle if you have the earlier version). "Red Brick Dream" is the best of the crop - a hazy brew of pea-soup thick dreamy psychedelia.

Don't give up after one listen. It's loud, yes. But there's lots of great hooks buried in this thing. One of XTC's most rewarding and best albums.

Best Songs: Seagulls Screaming.., I Bought Myself a Liarbird, Reign of Blows, You're the Wish You Are I Had, Train Running Low on Soul Coal.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Big Express, January 26, 2004

By 

Mr. S. St Thomas "suckerfly" (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Big Express (Audio CD)

I'm pretty sure this was the second album I purchased by XTC, after I found out that Oranges & Lemons was absolutely brilliant. I liked the cover of Big Express - it just looked interesting.

Now by most reviews, XTC fans have a hard time with this one (good thing I rarely listen to the fans either), because after I heard The Big Express, I had to own everything they ever put out, and I mean everything. I was absolutely caught, hook line and sinker. For one, its producer David Lord, produced one of my all time favourite 80's albums by one of my all time favourite artists, Peter Gabriel. So XTC had one thumbs up from me just on that. But more importantly, it was the songs that stood out on how very very good they were, how much they said and did in 4 or 5 minutes, and how it left you feeling. Like you discovered the band that should have been held up there like The Beatles, but never did. The Band That Time Forgot, XTC.

First off, I'm not saying Moulding and Partridge will suit everyone's tastes. Their singing style might turn some off, but after you get used to it, you realise they are actually perfectly suited for their own compositions. When other artists have covered them, it just doesn't sound right (except for Ruben Blades cover version of . . . . ), and probably the 'sweetest on the ear' is Moulding. And on Big Express he writes two fantastic songs, 'Wake Up' and 'I Remember The Sun'. (Ok, I'm a Moulding fan by proxy, but he's a great songwriter, no more no less than Partridge is). And on The Big Express, what Moulding started doing on Mummer starts picking up steam (sorry!). He starts changing his sound and song topic, each suiting eachother, never moreso than on 'I Remember The Sun'. It is an awesome piece of songwriting, and I think probably the best song on this album (if we're talking 'best' ????) 'I Remember The Sun' is worthy of any Beatles or Kinks album. In some instances, its much better.

The XTC comparisons to McCartney (though they cite him as a major influence) fall apart when you get to XTC lyrics. There is no possible way McCartney writes lyrics like Moulding or Partridge, their style suiting Ray Davies of the Kinks much better and closer. They are storytellers, and their songs are as visually precise as they are literally. The album is about hometown life and growing older, and they paint this picture much richer and with more emotion than 'Penny Lane' offers.

From Partridge you get tales of smalltowns and unspoken love. Of a world destroyed by human destruction, and the sad tale of why. About ex-managers and fame, and certain men who treat women in a way that will get them kicked. Each Partridge song lends itself to an illustration to accompany it, they are so visual in their characterisation of human foible and success.

Though this is a noisy album, and some songs get a little buried by the barrage of electronics, it still doesn't hide the actual song and what it has to say. On 'Train Running Low On Soul Coal' all those whistles and stops tell the tale just as much as the words, and though some may feel this could have been done just as easily without electronics and gadgets, The Big Express is what it is, and what it says it is. The small little grasshopper than can be found on the front cover (about to be rolled over by this big wheel) is just as much an accidental metaphor for what was happening to XTC at the time, and this album captures it in every sound, every groove, pretty much every note.

There are tons of songs left off of this album that Partridge's Fuzzy Warbles project is seeking to release, and one of my favourites has always been 'Work'. No one else in the band liked it, but I would have been pushing for that one had I been around to lend a hand.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars XTC masters the studio sound, June 3, 2000

By 

Rich Bunnell - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Big Express (Audio CD)

...sort of. They haven't progressed to making the shiny, flawless pop that would be shown on their later albums, but instead pounded out an abrasive, messy album that brings to mind a studio-based version of "Black Sea". And it RULES. The singles "Wake Up" and the gorgeous "This World Over" are two of my favorite XTC songs, and there's also some clunky, kickbutt material in "Seagulls Screaming," "Shake You Donkey Up," and the magnificent closer "Train Running Low On Soul Coal." The bonus tracks this time around are pretty weak, and most of the album doesn't gel at all, but I don't really care, because it RULES. Out of the 11 songs that make up the actual album, not one is a duffer, and all are nearly perfect. Buy it, even though no one else seems to like this one as much as I do.