“Queen of The Planet Wow!”. This came out last year and is a collaboration with Chris Braide who I had never heard of until I looked him up. This guy is a professional corporate songwriter guy. He’s never had any significant hits, but he’s written songs for a bunch of well known artists like Sia. But he randomly also has a yes/buggles connection since he was a member of Trevor Horn’s shortlived attempt at a resurgence band The Producers (which also featured Lol Creme bizarrely), and he is also a member of the “Downes Braide Association” with Geoff Downes.

Why Andy wanted to work with this guy I dont know. Nothing of this EP gives much reason for his talent. You can tell andy’s melodic signature is all over these songs, but gawd the production sucks, and the singer has no charisma. all the songs sound like they might as well be be demos shopped to other pop artists for their consideration in their projects (maybe that was the origin on this project?). XTC song had amazing arrangments, removing that aspect from Andy’s songs and just singing them like it’s basic mid-tier pop-rock totally sucks the life out of them.

Andy must really despise working with Colin and Dave to not go back to doing XTC again. doesnt he want to get hit songs and commercial success? He’s been trying and failing at being a behind the scenes songwriter for decades now (see his “My Failed Songwriting Career” EP series), but what’s his motivation for pursuing that path specifically? Does he want the money and fame that comes from writing a bit pop hit or something? I dont know why Andy wouldnt be able to see that the biggest commercial success he would ever have from this point forward would be through a new XTC record. The amazing musicianship and colorful arrangements that defined XTC as a band are not there when Andy’s songs are presented with other people arranging and performing them. Surely an XTC reunion album woul’d be a huge financial success, it’s not like he needs to tour obviously. And he own control of his music now so its also not going to be like he’d be getting screwed by the record labels again which had caused problems for XTC in the past.