page_title: XTC
section_title: Mummer and faltered popularity
hierarchical_section_title: XTC / 1982–1992: Studio years / Mummer and faltered popularity
caption_attribution_description: Happy birthday to Andy Partridge! You've written more great songs than I can even imagine! @xtcfanclub @xtcfans #xtc #andypartridge
context_page_description: XTC were an English rock band formed in Swindon in 1972. Fronted by songwriters Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding, the band gained popularity during the rise of punk and new wave in the 1970s, later playing in a variety of styles that ranged from angular guitar riffs to elaborately arranged pop. Partly because the group did not fit into contemporary trends, they achieved only sporadic commercial success in the UK and US, but attracted a considerable cult following. They have since been recognised for their influence on Britpop and later power pop acts.
  Partridge and Moulding first met in the early 1970s and subsequently formed a glam outfit with drummer Terry Chambers. The band's name and line-up changed frequently, and it was not until 1975 that they were known as XTC. In 1977, the group debuted on Virgin Records and, for the next five years, were noted for their energetic live performances. They aspired to be "completely original" and refused to play conventional punk rock, instead synthesising influences from ska, 1960s pop, dub music and the avant-garde.
context_section_description: During the middle months of 1982, Partridge spent his time in convalescence and writing songs. He later surmised that relinquishing Valium inadvertently gave him a new sense of creative direction: "I was thinking clearer and wanted to know stuff. Life's big questions." In the interim, Chambers moved to Australia and started a family. Feeling dismayed by Partridge's decision not to tour, he had to be persuaded to return to Swindon for the next album's rehearsals in September. At one rehearsal, Partridge recalled asking Chambers for "tiny, cyclical, nattering clay pots", which he replied sounded "a bit fucking nancified". The newly-wed Chambers soon left the band to be with his wife in Australia.
  Drummer Pete Phipps, formerly of the Glitter Band, was quickly hired as a session musician to continue the recording sessions -- XTC would never again employ a permanent drummer after Chambers' departure. In the meantime, Virgin released a greatest hits compilation, Waxworks: Some Singles 1977–1982, to underwhelming sales. The group's new material was rejected by Virgin executive Jeremy Lascelles, who suggested that they write something more commercial. Partridge remembered, "He asked me to write something a bit more like The Police, with more international flavour, more basic appeal." Lascelles said that he had actually named Talking Heads, not the Police: "Andy likes to portray us as the strict, stern schoolmasters, but we never wanted him to compromise at anything we thought he was good at. Here were very talented songwriters – surely, surely, surely they can come up with that elusive thing that is a hit single. That was our psyche."
  After some remixing and additional songs at Virgin's behest, Mummer, the first product of the studio-bound XTC, appeared in August 1983. Virgin did little to promote the album and delayed its release by several months. At number 58, it was their lowest-charting album to date. The one single that did chart, "Love on a Farmboy's Wages", did find significant airplay on BBC Radio 1. It was the first of a handful of XTC songs written over the years that reflected their poor financial state.
  Virtually every contemporary review of Mummer accused the band of falling out of touch with the contemporary music climate. Journalist Serene Dominic retrospectively wrote that the album was seen as "something of a disappointment at the time of release ... [It was] devoid of silly songs like 'Sgt. Rock' that had heretofore been the band's stock-in-trade and didn't rock out until the last song, 'Funk Pop a Roll.' ... Mummer signaled a strange rebirth for XTC." Moulding thought that "when we came back from America after our aborted tour of 1982 ... people like Spandau Ballet had moved onto the scene; new groups were coming up and there was no place for us." Mojo journalist Chris Ingham summed up the period: "In 18 months, XTC had gone from Top 10 hits and critical superlatives to being ignorable, arcane eccentrics. 'Your average English person probably thinks we split up in 1982,' suggests Partridge. He's probably right."
caption: Partridge in the studio, 1988. His refusal to tour caused long-standing tensions with the label.[1]
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