XTC - White Music

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The debut album from Swindon's XTC - reissued and remastered on 200g vinyl.

This is how Andy describes the sound he was looking for in its January 1978 released debut. The release date is worth noting. It signaled that this year’s models would approach music more expansively - abandoning the constrictions and the monochrome certainties of 1977’s scorched earth punk for a more colourful inquisitive alternative. Along with XTC, Virgin would, in 1978, issue debut albums from Magazine, Devo, Penetration and, significantly, as the year came to a close, Public Image Limited.

Containing more energy than a fully functioning power plant, White Music’s pop via punk was more like ? and the Mysterians channeling the Stooges and the Lemon Pipers than Brit Punk, the playing was tight (yes, the band could play), the tunes were strong, the lyrics clever, John Leckie’s production kept the sound direct and ‘in your face’ (or should that be ears?) and even the sole cover version on the album was, in that period, a brave choice; a Dylan song and not just any Dylan song but a trippy, dub influenced ‘All Along the Watchtower’.

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