XTC Coat Of Many Cupboards CD

The first ever box set devoted to XTC, 60 tracks covering XTC's 10 classic 1978-1989 period albums (including their Dukes Of Stratosphear side project). All tracks have been digitally remastered. 2002.

A COAT OF MANY CUPBOARDS contains outtakes, demo versions, home recordings, rehearsal extracts, acoustic versions and previously unreleased live tracks spanning 15 years of the band's history.
XTC includes: Andy Partridge (vocals, guitar); Colin Moulding (bass).
Additional personnel: The Dukes Of The Stratosphear
Includes liner notes by Harrison Sherwood.
All tracks have been digitally remastered.
XTC: Andy Partridge (vocals, guitar, acoustic guitar, keyboards); David Gregory (vocals, guitar, piano, Mellotron, keyboards, drum programming); Barry Andrews (vocals, keyboards); Colin Moulding (vocals, bass guitar); Terry Chambers (drums).
Additional personnel: Guy Barker (trumpet); Dave Mattacks, Pat Mastelotto, Prairie Prince, Peter Phipps, Ian Gregory (drums).
XTC fans are a dedicated lot. There may not be many of them, but nearly all of them need to hear everything the group ever recorded. They'll happily spend hundreds of dollars on rare singles and bootlegs, or buy official releases of demos, even when they sound nearly identical to the official release, so a four-disc box set of rarities, demos, alternate takes, and live versions like Coat of Many Cupboards is essentially manna from heaven. If there's any problem with the set, it's that Virgin and XTC didn't go far enough and dedicate the set entirely to unreleased material; they hedged their bets, devoting 41 of 60 tracks to previously unreleased cuts, with the lion's share of the rest -- a full 14, actually -- being album tracks any XTC fan already has. No matter how good these songs are -- and they include such masterpieces as "Chalkhills and Children" and the Dukes of Stratosphear's "Vanishing Girl" -- their presence on a lovingly assembled rarities set is a fairly major irritant (even if the band is reportedly working on an even larger archival release, provisionally titled Fuzzy Warbles, that may span as many as eight volumes). Still, if this set had just one disc of rarities, XTC fans would have purchased it anyway, and they'll overjoy in the sheer volume of unheard music here. And rightly so, since even if there aren't that many demos and alternate takes that are radically different from the finished product -- there's an acoustic run-through of "Senses Working Overtime" and an embryonic version of "Mayor of Simpleton" that are fascinating rough drafts, while an early version of "Life Begins at the Hop" is appealingly awkward -- this is still rich listening, filled with such delights as three White Music outtakes showcasing Barry Andrews (who would leave not long afterward), Colin Moulding's Nonsuch reject "Didn't Hurt a Bit" (which should have been on the album), and the live "Atom Medley," one of several in-concert performances that illustrate how good the band was on-stage, no matter Andy Partridge's stage fright. These moments and the uniform high quality of music, along with the track-by-track annotation by Partridge and Moulding, make the repetition of album tracks easy to forgive, since this is as close to a perfect gift for fans as imaginable (until Fuzzy Warbles materializes, that is). Although fans would have settled for anything rare, XTC has returned their affection with a box that shows as much love as the fans have shown over the years. It doesn't get much better than that. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
XTC have had several career retrospectives in the past, but never one like this. Over the course of these four discs, the British popsters' history through their years with Virgin (everything they did up until APPLE VENUS VOL 1) is rolled out with outtakes, demos, live performances, and some of the familiar original recordings. The deluxe packaging is thoughtfully annotated, with extensive notes about each song's composition and/orQ (4/02, p.137) - 4 out of 5 stars - "...For anyone ever touched by the joys of intelligent pop, this is a treasure trove..."
Mojo (Publisher) (April 2002, p.123) - "...[XTC were] carriers of the heartful, artful pop genius gene....[the box] functions...as an alternative route tracing XTC's journey from the nervy nerds of the New Wave to the semi-retired statesmen of thought-ful pop..."