Well, how wrong could it get? There’s a subject matter, namely the XTC songs (those written by Andy Partridge), there’s a witty, informed, and very accurate interviewer, Mr Todd Bernhardt, who not only knows his way around XTC, he’s also a musician.
And there’s Andy P, the interviewee extraordinaire, who is able to speak about anything without ever losing focus, and does a brilliant job at making absolutely any topic enchanting, be it death, loss, divorce, by his constant invention in language, and his art in jumping from one idea to another.
So in the end, you get 30 full interviews about 30 different songs, which are the story of a life, the story of a band, and more, much more. So congratulations, Todd, you’ve successfully translated the witty, funny, epic conversations into compelling reading!
To conclude, this is the best book for you if you want to read about the band XTC, about being a dedidated but uncompromising musician, about being British, about the lost art of being cheated by almost everybody, and of course about fade-in and fade-out on records. Essential subjects, then.
- Francois Massarelli on „Complicated Game – Inside The Songs of XTC“ by Andy Partridge and Todd Bernhardt