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These final three were arrived at following several knock-out stages involving all of XTC's albums. Personally, I think Beatles for Sale should have won the honours.

We members of the English Settlement mafia used to be so confident, so assured of our unassailable rulership of the Forum - now we can't even make third place in the 'survivor' game.

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You can wish to believe that it's either a cyclical phenomenon, or that ES's sound is hopelessly dated.

Or that the Forum has become overrun by a bunch of cloth-eared half-wits.

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English Settlement is "hopelessly dated"?!? What?!? Rickenbacker guitars, fretless bass, never-ending alive-sounding REAL drums? Nice reverby-sounds. Natural sounds, beautiful analog recording, not so fussed-over - what exactly is dated on it? That one synth line on "Ball & Chain"?

If ES is "hopelessly dated" then The Big Express and Oranges & Lemons are virtual dated time-capsules. O&L has sound all over it - and lots of those individual sounds are plenty-questionable. And Nonsuch's guitar compression is the virtual studio sound of 1991-3. These are all far more dated than anything of that on English Settlement.

I'm very curious to know what sound(s) people think are dated on ES?

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Relax, Bill: it was a joke. And even if it wasn't, there's such a thing as respecting other people's opinions.

Remember, it's only music; nothing of great importance, significance or consequence.

Relax TI, remember you have both sets of sex organs. Novocaine For The Soul, you better give me something to fill the hole

before i sputter out

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I don

wake me up when september ends