The Big Express

by XTC

The Big Express cover art
  • Type: Album
  • Released: 15 October 1984
  • Label: Virgin
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Length: 53:45
  • Community rating: 3.93/5 from 8 ratings

Artists on this release: Annie Huchrak, Ben Turner, Stephen Saunders, Stuart Gordon, Dave Gregory, Pete Phipps, Colin Moulding

Album Notes & Community Reviews

XTC returned to their hometown of Swindon to craft a highly conceptual, incredibly dense, and rhythmically complex art-pop record heavily inspired by industrial machinery. The album integrates heavily sequenced drum machines, clanking metallic samples, and Andy Partridge's highly anxious, satirical songwriting into a uniquely quirky, progressive new wave landscape. 'The Big Express' is a fiercely melodic, energetic, and meticulously constructed studio achievement.

Genres

Descriptors: melodic, satirical, political, sophisticated, ambitious, guitars, rhythmic, synthesizers, witty

Tracklist

  1. Wake Up (4:40)
  2. All You Pretty Girls (3:40)
  3. Shake You Donkey Up (4:19)
  4. Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her (3:50)
  5. This World Over (5:37)
  6. The Everyday Story Of Smalltown - 2001 (3:53)
  7. I Bought Myself A Liarbird (2:49)
  8. Reign Of Blows (3:27)
  9. You're The Wish You Are I Had (3:17)
  10. I Remember The Sun (3:10)
  11. Train Running Low On Soul Coal (5:19)
  12. Red Brick Dream (2:03)
  13. Wash Away (3:01)
  14. Blue Overall (4:33)

Credits

  • XTC - primary artist, producer
  • The Design Clinic - assemblage [sleeve assembly]
  • Andy Partridge - design [sleeve design], songwriter [all songs written by], vocals, electric guitar, drum machine [linn drum], harmonica, graphic design, drum machine electric guitar harmonica, vocal
  • Ken Ansell - design [sleeve design], graphic design
  • Pete Phipps - drums
  • Dave Gregory - electric guitar, piano, mellotron, synthesizer [synthesisers], electric guitar mellotron piano synthesizer
  • David Lord - mixed by, producer, arranged by [choir]
  • Phil Thornalley - mixed by
  • Gavin Cochrane - photography by [sleeve photography], photography
  • Stuart Gordon - violin, viola, guest viola violin
  • Colin Moulding - vocals, bass guitar, written-by, vocal
  • Annie Huchrak - choir
  • Stephen Saunders - euphonium
  • Ben Turner - mastering
  • Glenn Tommey - additional recording

More from XTC: full discography