John Scalzi has a fine entry on iTMS. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about.
I don’t know who Mandy Moore is. I’d never heard of her until John mentioned her cover of Joan Armatrading’s Drop the Pilot. So I fire up iTMS and look up her album Coverage.
She sings Senses Working Overtime. Holy Cow! She knows XTC. And that’s a good thing in my book.
Update after a Google search: Oh, she’s one of those squeeky clean pop idols. Thus 99.9% of people coming to this weblog entry will get here on a Google search for Moore. Therefore it is my duty as your elder to tell you to put down your copies of Dirty, Pop Star in a Bottle, etc, and point you at two important albums from when your parents were courting one another:
- English Settlement, and
- Black Sea.
The song, Senses Working Overtime, was originally recording by the English band XTC on the album English Settlement.
XTC is one of the most important bands you never heard of. Many critics have lamented that if they had more exposure in the US, they could had been as big as the Beatles. Unfortunately, they only toured the US backing up The Police in 1980-81.
Do you like Blur, or Oasis? Compare Blur’s classic Parklife with XTC. I think Blur’s a great band, but they owe a lot to XTC.
Now pass me my walker. Kids these days, no sense of history.
