XTC - Nonsuch
NME.COM feature on XTC - Nonsuch album including album review, artwork, tracks, listen now, tour dates, discography and more.
Release date: 03 March 2003
Tracklisting click track to read more
- Ballad Of Peter Pumpkinhead (2001 Digital Remaster)
- My Bird Performs (2001 Digital Remaster)
- Dear Madam Barnum (2001 Digital Remaster)
- Humble Daisy (2001 Digital Remaster)
- The Smartest Monkeys (2001 Digital Remaster)
- The Disappointed (2001 Digital Remaster)
- Holly Up On Poppy (2001 Digital Remaster)
- Crocodile (2001 Digital Remaster)
- Rook (2001 Digital Remaster)
- Omnibus (2001 Digital Remaster)
- That Wave (2001 Digital Remaster)
- Then She Appeared (2001 Digital Remaster)
- War Dance (2001 Digital Remaster)
- Wrapped In Grey (2001 Digital Remaster)
- The Ugly Underneath (2001 Digital Remaster)
More XTC Reviews
Wasp Star (Apple Venus Volume 2)
Always one of the more interesting and innovative of the post-punk/pop crossover bands...
Apple Venus Volume 1
The transcendental [B]'Harvest Festival'[/B] manages to make eyes meeting over a table of tinned peaches and digestive biscuits sound as momentous as [B]Brian Molko[/B] being made England manager...
XTC - Nonsuch YouTube Videos
More XTC - Nonsuch YouTube Videos
XTC News
XTC - Nonsuch: Wikipedia Album Entry
Nonsuch is an album by XTC, released on 27 April 1992. In a 1992 MTV interview, Andy Partridge said that he had selected the name of the album after encountering a drawing of the castle and, thinking that the archaic word "Nonsuch" meant "does not exist" rather than, as he later learned, "unique". In addition, the album title may have derived from a couplet in the lyrics of the final song of Oranges and Lemons (their previous studio album) "Chalkhills and Children":
I'm skating over thin ice
while some nonesuch net holds me aloft
This lyric shows Partridge misunderstood the proper meaning of the word "Non(e)such" prior to the recording of Nonsuch.
The album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album. "The Disappointed" was nominated for an Ivor Novello award. The album reached No. 1 on the Rolling Stone College album chart and No. 97 on the Billboard album chart in the U.S.
The album produced three singles: "The Disappointed" (which reached No. 33 on the UK singles chart), "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" (which reached No. 71 on the UK singles chart) and "Wrapped In Grey" (which, when withdrawn by Virgin, prompted the band to go on strike).
Two promotional videos were made. A UK-only video for "The Disappointed" (the band also did a lip-sync performance of this song on Pebble Mill at One) and "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead," which received much airplay on MTV that summer.
The band performed "Books Are Burning" live with drummer Dave Mattacks on The Late Show on BBC-TV in April 1992.
The album cover is a picture of Nonsuch Palace in Surrey, from the book A Short History of Ewell and Nonsuch, by Cloudesley S. Willis. The palace no longer exists, but its former grounds included the present-day Nonsuch Park in Cheam.
User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL.
Like XTC? You might also like...
Artist/Album artwork images hosted by Last.fm. For copyright enquiries please see here.
XTC - Nonsuch Lyrics
XTC - My Bird Performs Lyrics
Fine art never moved my soul
No vintage wine and designer clothes
But my world shakes for me
XTC - War Dance Lyrics
There's an epidemic
Stirring passions in young hearts
Even the old campaigners
Have got it really bad
XTC - Then She Appeared Lyrics
Then she appeared
Apple Venus on a half open shell
Then she appeared
The first photograph on Fox Talbots gel
XTC - The Ugly Underneath Lyrics
First there's the handshake
It's so warm that you could bake by it
Designed to take attention from their
Ugly underneath
XTC - That Wave Lyrics
That wave pulled me into your eyes
Through the greeny gray pebbles
And countless cathedrals arriving
XTC - Rook Lyrics
Rook, rook, read from your book
Who murders who and where is the treasure hid?
Crow, crow, spill all you know
Is that my name on the bell?
XTC - Humble Daisy Lyrics
Humble Daisy
Form a chain to hold all battleships in check
Humble Daisy
Knit a ladder down to nature's sunken wreck
XTC - Holly up on Poppy Lyrics
Holly up on Poppy, Canter never stop
She has escaped from the world
Where they bake beautiful girls
XTC - Dear Madam Barnum Lyrics
I put on a fake smile
And start the evening show
The public is laughing
I guess by now they know
XTC - Crocodile Lyrics
Crocodile, no, you won't make me jealous
That she left me for him
Scene one standing
XTC - Books Are Burning Lyrics
Books are burning in the main square
And I saw there, the fire eating the text
Books are burning in the still air
And you know where they burn books, people are next
XTC - The Smartest Monkeys Lyrics
Well, man created the cardboard box to sleep in it
And man converted the newspaper to a blanket
Well, you have to admit that he's come a long way
Since swinging about in the trees
XTC - The Disappointed Lyrics
The disappointed
All shuffle 'round in circles
Their placards look the same
With a picture and a name
XTC - The Ballad Of Peter Pumpkinhead Lyrics
Peter Pumpkinhead, hey, came to town
Spreading wisdom and cash around
Fed the starving and housed the poor
Showed the Vatican what gold's for
XTC - Wrapped in Grey Lyrics
Some folks see the world as a stone
Concrete daubed in dull monotone
Your heart is the big box of paints
And others, the canvas we're dealt
