Chips From the Chocolate Fireball
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Category: Music CD
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CD Details
Performer: XTCPerformer: The Dukes of Stratosphear
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Import, Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 2001-06-18
Music Label: Virgin Int'l
Soundtracks:
- 25 O'Clock
- Bike Ride To The Moon
- My Love Explodes
- What In The World??...
- Your Gold Dress
- The Mole From The Ministry
- Vanishing Girl
- Have You Seen Jackie?
- Little Lighthouse
- You're A Good Man Albert Brown
- Collideascope
- You're My Drug
- Shiny Cage
- Brainiac's Daughter
- The Affiliated
- Pale And Precious
Music reviews of Chips From the Chocolate Fireball
Music Review: A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away
Rating: 4 Stars
I enjoyed this album greatly. It works on several levels. It is clever, and it is catchy. You can think about it, and hum it. The story behind it is well known - XTC does psychedelia under an assumed name - and the project was similar to The Rutles or Spinal Tap, except that it wasn't supposed to be overtly humorous. Nonetheless the songs are all supposed to be a little exaggerated and over the top, like on Todd Rundgren's "Deface the Music" or Wizzard's "Introducing Eddy & the Falcons".
The Ducks released an EP and an LP, which are compiled together on this record. The first thing that struck me was the production, which is extraordinary. The album comes from the mid 1980s, but it hasn't grown old at all. It is a wry irony that the modern-day music of 1985 now sounds extraordinarily dated and naff, whereas this mid-80s forgery of mid-60s psychedelic pop has not aged. "Chocolate Fireball" might even have been ahead of its time - the indie / shoegazing bands of the early 1990s often seemed to be channelling the spirits of 60s psychedelia. In 1985, very few rock bands would have dared to use backwards guitars or Mellotrons on their records, whereas by the 1990s that kind of studio trickery was fashionable. The album's attention to detail is very impressive. The Mellotrons are apparently real. There are authentic-sounding freaky space-out echo noises. There is a little girl, who narrates the second half of the record in the style of a Lewis Carroll story. It sounds cleaner and sharper than real 1960s pop, and it's in proper stereo.
The music is very good, too, although it's noticeable that the best songs are in the first half of the record (the "25 O'Clock" EP). The second two-thirds of the album are made up of the "Psionic Psunspot" LP, which sounds a lot like ordinary XTC music. "You're my Drug", for example, doesn't have much to do with the 1960s apart from the word "drug". I have only just listened to the album, but I can barely remember "The Affiliated". "Shiny Cage" has all the production tricks, and sounds like a John Lennon song, but it is a boring John Lennon song. "Have You Seen Jackie" and "You're a Good Man, Albert Brown" irritate me. They fit the period but they irritate me. I do not like them. But they are outnumbered.
The first six songs are cream. "25 O'Clock", "Bike Ride to the Moon", and "My Love Explodes" are catchy and fun. "What in the World", "Your Gold Dress", and "Mole from the Ministry" are slower and more majestic. "What in the World" is probably the loudest song on the record. "Psionic Psunspot" is almost up to the same standard but it's not as engaging. "Little Lighthouse" is lovely, "Collideascope" literally is John Lennon, "Pale and Precious" and "Brainiac's Daughter" almost literally are the Beach Boys, although apparently "Brianiac" is supposed to sound like Paul McCartney. The rest is pleasant but does not move me, and the verse of "Vanishing Girl" unfortunately reminds me of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", with Beatles drumming.
I am not actually a fan of XTC; in fact, I dislike their music. But I love this album. And love is the whole of the law.
Description of Chips From the Chocolate Fireball
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