Apple Venus Volume 1

XTC, we finally meet. Now, before I get to the album, let's discuss the list of top 3 worst things XTC members did. Number 3: Andy Partridge bought a rubber shark to fuck it. He fucked a rubber shark. That's it. Here's a quote from an interview: Andy: "Right, although the nearest I could get was my rubber-shark story. That was my notorious way of not being unfaithful when I was on tour." The interviewer: "Come again?" Andy: "It was the best blow job I ever had. I bought it at a Woolworth's in Melbourne, Australia, on tour. I saw this soft, rubber shark about a foot long and thought, "Wow, if I stuck my dick in that, it'd feel really good. I could be faithful and not tempted by all these women now that I'm married." So I thought, "I'm gonna buy this rubber shark and fuck it." I bought the shark, and it felt great. You'd get some suction going, a vacuum effect, just terrific. I used to wedge it under a cushion or a chair and fuck this rubber shark. My suitcase was full at the time, so I had to buy an extra box to take it around. I remember going through New Zealand with it and the customs agent asking me, "What's in the case, mate?" I said, "Well, it's a rubber shark." "Wise guy," then he'd open it up and it'd be a rubber shark. It was great." The interviewer: "Did it have a name, this shark?" Andy: "Sharky. [Laughs] Although after a while that stopped, because then I'd think of Feargal Sharkey. The last thing-literally-you want to be thinking of when you're blowing your wad is the lead singer of the Undertones." Interesting. Number 2: Some other member cheated on his wife the same tour Andy fucked a rubber shark. I don't have any quotes, a friend told me about it. Number 1: I will let a quote from Andy speak for itself: "All right. Um, memorable? This is a terrible confession. When I was a kid of about 11 or 12 years old, I came up with a concept of "something licking your penis". So I came up also with the concept of a dog licking my penis, so to lure the dog, I crushed a biscuit in my hand, rubbed the essence of the biscuit on my penis to attract the dog. When no one was looking, I stuck out my penis with biscuit essence rubbed on, and instead of slavering and licking, the dog started going snap, snap, snap, snap (much laughter here) and I withdrew my penis immediately, never to try anything again of such a nature. So that's possibly my most memorable encounter with an animal." Alright, thanks for sharing, Andy. Now, the album!!! Second to last XTC album. It's a great album. 4/5. Thank you.

This is not XTC’s most groundbreaking work, nor one I would have chosen for this challenge, but after having listened to them for decades, this intricately crafted late-career masterpiece is the album that I come back to most, and enjoy more every time.

не мое вообще

Este me ha gustado mucho, tiene mucha textura e instrumentación que hace que perdone un poco lo corny de las letras.

Had the vibe of "The Beatles at home", I was pleasantly surprised by this one. Nothing spectacular but I did enjoy it.

Interesting. The first song made me think it might be more interesting than the full work confirmed.

Very strange album. Didn't love the first song but I got more into the album as it progressed. You really don't know what to expect from one song to the next.

Really into this!! It was XTC

I only know XTC for Dear God, so I wasn't actually certain what to expect from this album. It started off on the weird end with River of Orchids, but I liked it. Several other songs fall into the weird but enjoyable line, including Easter Theater, Greenman, and I Can't Own Her. By the end, I really liked this one. Not like five star liked, but I may give it another listen sooner rather than later.

I discovered XTC when I was in high school, first buying Oranges and Lemons on tape and listening to it incessantly on repeat in my car (which didn't have a CD player). I got to them through the TMBG pipeline, as a lot of my fellow TMBG fans, with whom I communicated on message boards and newsgroups, were also into XTC. I discovered the band during their strike from Virgin Records, so the newest release was 1992's Nonsuch and there was no clear sign that the band would ever release new music again. When AV1 was announced in 1999, it was super-exciting: this band we all thought might never release music again was suddenly back in play and the album was met with excitement from fans, as was its follow-up, Wasp Star. Unfortunately, that was it for XTC, but it was great to see them back in action, even if that action was short-lived. So this five stars is based a lot on my own emotional attachment to the album. And I think Easter Theatre is as good a song as The Beatles ever wrote. If you're inclined, Andy released a track on how he wrote Easter Theatre, which you can probably find on YouTube and it provides a neat look behind the curtain of this particular songwriter and his method

Very surprising, was only familiar with ‘Making Plans for Nigel’ and ‘Senses Working Overtime’ (which I never would’ve guessed were even by the same band). But I love this record, such a refreshing sound.

didn’t love :(

I can't say this was a particularly worthwhile or enjoyable listen. I thought about two minutes of it were interesting-and-good, another two minutes were interesting-and-bad, and the rest I couldn't understand why on earth this is something I would need to hear before I die.

Not for me at all - I’d go as far to say I thought it was crap.

Help

Middling late 90s UK art/pop. There's some intricate instrumental layering happening throughout, but it personally grew tiresome for me about 1/3 of the way through. Not entirely my cup of tea, sorry lads. The best composed song, IMO, was "Greenman" - which is unfortunate because all I could think of is Always Sunny, lol.

It's been well over a year and a half since I listened to Skylarking, and I thought it was a good orchestral pop record that showed XTC taking influence from late '60s psychedelia. The group experimented further with psychedelic flourishes, though they had to deal with a five-year squabble with their label, Virgin Records. XTC ended up breaking free from their contract with Virgin and got to work on a new record on Cooking Vinyl. The band would divide this new project into two parts: one full of rock songs, the other full of "orchustic" songs accompanied by a 40-piece symphony. Along the way, sessions grew troubled, and mid-recording, guitarist and keyboardist Dave Gregory left the band, frustrated with Partridge. After all that turmoil, Apple Venus Volume 1 saw the light of day. How does it hold up? Well, I will say "orchustic" is quite the portmanteau to describe this first volume, because it is a collection of acoustic songs with orchestral accompaniment. Partridge paid close attention to how well these compositions needed to pop and bounce from his intricate acoustic guitar melodies, with soft accompaniment from Colin Moulding's bass. That said, Moulding penned the most uptempo tracks, between the grandiose showtune "Frivolous Tonight" and the adventurous Beatles-esque "Fruit Nut". Along the way, the London Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Gavyn Wright, provided much-needed whimsy with their arrangements, evoking the psychedelic influence the group craved. Adding to that whimsicality are the lyrics, where Partridge and Moulding split the difference between exploring paganism and the former's life events. "Easter Theme", "Knights in Shining Karma", "Greenman", and "Harvest Festival" are particularly effective in indulging the mythology and fantasicism of pagan culture, with a certain romanticism for the Middle Ages. "Harvest Festival" also blends into Andy's life, as he participated in harvest festivals in his youth. Though probably the most revealing for Andy were the songs he penned about his dissolved marriage with his first wife on "Your Dictionary" and "I Can't Own Her", where he clearly wanted to move on. At the very least, there is some optimism expressed about Andy's future, with the love song for his future wife, Erica Wrexler, on "I'd Like That", and closing on "The Last Balloon" with the hope that brighter days are ahead for him and his children. All that said, I don't consider this a perfect record. The opening track "River of Orchids" was a stretched-out buildup to "I'd Like That" and the subsequent pagan exploration, but the song itself didn't stand well on its own. Also, for as much as Moulding's contributions added to the overall whimsy, they felt incongruent with Andy's tracks, especially with "Fruit Nut" placed between the two tracks exploring Andy's dissolved marriage. Overall, Apple Venus Volume 1 delivered on the "orchustic" arrangements and continued fantastical nature of XTC. The second volume of the project, the collection of rock songs, was released the following year as Wasp Star, and then XTC would be no more as Partridge dissolved his creative partnership with Moulding. Everyone who had been in the band is still musically active, which is the best that could have happened out of such an ending.

This is some uninspired derivative generic pop.

Достаточно приятная музыка для фонового прослушивания, но она настолько незапоминающаяся, что мне даже трудно назвать песню, которая лучше других. Окей, по крайней мере это точно не раздражает. Лучшая песня: The Last Balloon

What a garbage album. Sounded like a throw Paul McCartney album that shouldn’t have seen the light of day. Amateurs lyrics and not interesting sounds

make it stop

Heard this one a lot back when it came out. It holds up well. Still XTC never seems to have an LP with out some duds. Same.

Nice to listen to but boring.

Forse non la capisco io… Your dictionary mi piace. Lyrics divertenti e ironiche, chitarra e strings un po’ vibe rem e Bella chord progression.

sehr spezielle mischung von musikbgefällt mir es bringt mir den vibe flower power und auch andere musste es 4 mal hören um das album zu verstehen

Odd. Interesting. I guess I see why it’s on the list, but not sure I’d return to it. Not horrible, but not great. Almost felt like it was trying to be different just to be different.

I take back everything I said in my previous reviews. Creativity is bad. Every artist should just make generic 70s soft rock, so they don’t accidentally do something like this. There were a few fleeting moments near the middle of this album where the style worked and I could see the vision. The problem is that there were far more moments that made me question the validity of music as an artistic medium.

Peacocking! ⭐

meh

Greenman was ok, the rest was just a bit too lightweight for me. Not my sort of thing, but not unlistenable. 2/5.

Folk, Pop, Rock, 1999 -> 2

Its interesting, but sometimes a bit goofy. I'm not familiar with this band yet, but it seems this is a late era album from them. I am interested to check out the earlier work from this

very. very interesting

Otro de XTC? No es un disco cualquiera, forma parte dle proyecto Apple Venus que iba a ser doble y se editó en dos partes. Venían de la polémica con Virgin por temas financieros (les habáin estafado) y aquí se largó Gregory, pero este disco condensa lo mejor de los XTC, para muestra I´d like that que lue hubiera gustado firmar a un tal Macca. Easter Theatre es otra gema, escuela Beatles y Beach Boys de alta costura. Knights in Shining Karma otra delicia acústica y Frivolous Tonight ya te hace volar. Your Dictionary es en mi opinión la mejor del lote, merece la pena el disco solo por ella. Fruit Nut y Harvest Festival, más Wilson o Lennon, me gustan menos. Cierre con The last balloon, magistral. En los 90 solo los High Llamas del ilustre Sean O'Hagan (Microdisney o Stereolab) podían hacer cosas así. Una golosina para cualquier oído. Portada y título homenaje a la mujer.

Album extraño, malo

First two tracks were awful, it got better after tho. Fav track: Easter theatre. Generous 3

This has some cool moments.

Based on my recollection of XTC from my college days, I went into this with high hopes. Shortly into the album I realized I confused the band with the drug.

2.5 really

It’s too calm almost put me to sleep

Quirky! Some fun parts but also some very boring tracks.

Pop, symphonic pop, orchestral pop, alternative pop.

I really like the music, I love the use of the orchestra. It felt like sometimes the vocals compliment it, but sometimes they felt jarring and there are points where the lyrics are so clumsy I can’t tell if it’s deliberate. The music is enjoyable enough that the lyrics didn’t really bother me, but I’m not sure I’d want to come back to the album. Fav song: Greenman – also liked The Last Balloon and River of Orchids Least fav: Frivolous Tonight

Some ok music with some of the worst lyrics I’ve ever heard. Genuinely feels like a parody album at times. Once I noticed I just kept hearing it. Specific rating - 2.2 Fav song - I can’t own her Least fav- your dictionary

The lyrics and vocals feel so disconnected from the music. If I completely tune out the words I quite like some of the songs but I genuinely can't figure out why this is on the list when some of the lyrics are so shit. It's a shame because I think the music itself is good. Favourite song: I'd Like That Least: Fruit Nut

Awful

muy abajo, no se si será el día pero me parece aburrido y nada destacable, nomg

i didn't like this one - it's getting a 2 but could drop to a 1. the only song i maybe liked was "greenman", but i just kind of hated how corny some of the lyrics were (like in "your dictionary"), how corny they sounded (i just didn't like the tone of the vocals), and the lack of instrumentation at times.

Couldn’t listen but want to count it

Album #222: XTC – Apple Venus Volume 1 ⭐⭐⭐ Paul McCartney is a garden gnome, and he wants to make love to the earth on this XTC album. This thing was cruising towards a two-star review. I disliked the pretentiousness of it, the tweeness of it. Some of the songs were just awful. The lyrical tone is dreadful. I don’t know how to describe it, but it just seems like posh English upper-class, in-my-garden bollocks. The worst offender is Frivolous Tonight. That song is like Coronation Street: The Musical. How is this something you need to hear before you die? So it was going pretty badly. But when I got to The Last Balloon, I thought it was actually quite a touching song. A sombre tune with really good lyrics, probably the best on the whole album. And it made me reflect. To me, every song with strings felt like Eleanor Rigby over and over again. But was it really like that? Eleanor Rigby is a great song, but whose favourite Beatles song is Eleanor Rigby? So I thought maybe I’d give it another go. And I did. And it’s fair to say it’s a grower. A lot more stood out on the second listen. The strings are gorgeous. The lushness and beauty of the production are really, really good. I hate the guy’s lyrics, but he does have a knack for vocal melodies, and there are hooks on it. Greenman is such a layered and dense tune. And River of Orchids, the opening track, is beautiful. So the tone of the whole thing is rich, in-your-garden stuff. It’s a gardening album. An arthouse album about gardening, basically. The guy just loves his garden, loves his fruit, loves his nuts. One final note: I really dislike the album cover. This highly suggestive peacock fan of an album cover. Now, I don’t know if it says more about me for what I’m seeing there, but I know what I’m seeing, and I thought it was a step too far considering the tone of the album. Anyway, not a great one, but not a bad one either. Won’t come back to it.

Really fun and not at all what I expected. Kind of like if Paul McCartney went punk which would be just my kinda thing tbh.

Was on 2/3 border for me. Enjoyed some of the orchestral arrangements (particularly on the first couple and the last) , but overall I found a lot of the underlying songwriting a bit ‘McCartney/Wilson by numbers’, or that the lyrics were so conspicuously bad that they ruined decent musical ideas for me.

Rather enjoyed this.

I could see this rating going up with repeat listens as there's a lot going on here. But this is it for now.

If The Beatles and Brian Wilson got together to make a baroque, symphonic pop album it still wouldn’t be quite as odd as this. I like it.

The hell

This was zanily refreshing. It confused and enlightened me in a very unconfused, unenlightened but enjoyable way. Makes sense, right?

so unfortunately, I listened to this. i dont like this very much. its like a high school orchestra did the music for a 2000s emo rock guy. too much trumpet. or maybe every song is the emo guy in a *different* high school musical. "Your Dictionary" is unfortunately the best song. its not a good song its just funny and real af. is this supposed to be bad?? in that case its pretty good.

It's kind of like Devo and Ween, but I don't really like it, even though those are 2 of my favorite bands.

I’ve never been so bummed out listening to a song called Greenman, and not in the good way.

I love XTC, but I find Apple Venus Vol. 1 to be a bizarre inclusion. Surely, after Skylarking, you’d want to include English Settlement, Drums & Wires, or Black Sea first. I love the opening of the record, and “I’d Like That” and “Easter Theater” are excellent tracks. But there are also some weaker ones, like “Your Dictionary” or “Frivolous Tonight” that veer toward self-parody. Slickly produced, elegantly crafted, but imperfect and far down my list of essential records by XTC.

Forgettable

Sonically interesting with a lot of neat instrumentation, and I could potentially see it clicking with me one day if I were to revisit it a few times, but it not working for me right now.

Ok, nothing more. ★★★

Idk didn't vibe that much with it Production I gave it a 5 Enjoability: 3 Songwriting: 5 - found Your dictionary interesting for sure, a dig at both his wife and religious people who fail to comply with love thy neighbour - which is sad to see and hear the church hurt as well Cohesion: 4 Songs liked: 3/11

Normally I don't distill my review down to a single word, but in this case I will. Shit.

At first I was considering a 3, I liked Greenman. But once we got to Your Dictionary I was like woof this is too cheesy I can’t.

I don’t think I’ll be a fan of Steven Wilson’s favorite band of all time, XTC, at least with Apple Venus Volume 1. 2.5/5, but more like a 2 than a 3. River of Orchids: 2 I'd Like That: 3,5 Easter Theatre: 3 Knights in Shining Karma: 3,5 Frivolous Tonight: 2 Greenman:2 Your Dictionary: 2 Fruit Nut: 2 I Can't Own Her: 3 Harvest Festival: 2 The Last Balloon: 2

🌳🍂🍓🍄‍🟫🪶

idk just felt a bit boring for me, nothing too interesting

Was totally insuferable at first but the weird little melodies kinda grew on me by the end

This was bad, boring, and uninteresting. Then I heard "Your Dictionary." An abomination and an affront to music. Awful, hated it.

I mean whatever

Boring.

***An ok album

this was rough for me

Kind of bizarre but I think I liked it. Your dictionary was particularly funny and worth it

I love earlier XTC, but this is oversaturated with hooks to the point of being uninteresting to me. 2.5/5.

The first song on this album is really an assault on the ears.

Decent.

Green man makes me feel like a safari

I really enjoyed this because it's very different to what I'd usually listen to. I don't think I'm ever likely to choose to put it on again though. It's very good at what it does. It put me in an odd mood, kinda floaty and a bit detached from everything. Not entirely a bad thing, but it feels strange.

Weird, not always in a bad way, not always in a good way. 2 leaning 3, giving it 2.

I enjoyed this more than I expected to, given the band's prog leanings. Nice harmonies and orchestration, and a joyful feel.

Jazzy très sympa et j'aime bien XTC

Really really weird album. Fruit Nut really underrated song i loved it. The whole album feels like a mixing of classical to jazz to rock to modern digital music

Something relaxing to listen to while you're getting ready to start your day ✨✨

Ass

It was upbeat, happy and kind of different, but this far into the project things don't surprise me anymore. It all kind of melds together and this does the same. Nothing amazing but fine if it came on.

This had some cool dreamy moments and was a pretty unique collection. I didn't love it, but it was enjoyable enough.

I had to check that I hadn't accidentally shifted to an unknown Paul McCartney album in a few places. I admit I may have overlooked XTC based on the literally awful band name, but they surprised me on this album. Keep in mind, it's hit or miss like any other; there are definitely a few Jethro Tull Lite kind of tunes too....

Baustelle, Gerstetten, Deutschland. Gar nicht meins.

I don't know much about XTC but given some of their stuff I've heard over recent years I was looking forward to this. I was a bit disappointed to be honest - it wasn't like their early stuff and was a bit too reminiscent of The Beatles for my liking.

Probably my favourite band. This is the dying embers of the XTC fire that burned brightly for many, many years. There is still great beauty in the glow of a dying fire….this is a beautiful album with orchestral backing turned up to 11. There are sublime songs on here. It’s pastoral and Beatles influenced for sure, but that’s no bad thing in my book. I adore this album. 5

Love XTC

Well now, this was quite interesting. I wasn't expecting to enjoy an XTC album so much. It really ticked the symphonic rock checkbox, didn't it? The opener drew me in and it kept me engaged throughout. A great discovery.

Only heard few tracks but I'm liking it so far.

3/5. The production of this album was very fascinating to me, made the whole record feel very adventurous. Whether that be the bizarre horns of opener “River of Orchids” or my personal favorite on here “Greenman” which feels like it would fit right in a movie somewhere. my biggest complaint with this album is the lyrics, which are very clunky. The worst offender is “your dictionary” whose lyrics are hilariously bad. On the whole I’m glad I listened to this, though there’s enough misses in the tracklist to where I wasn’t fully in love with it.

Quirky. Nice.

Het is oké