Review Summary: Rushed and mass-produced crap that would make your mother cry.
Evident in their debut album, XTC were heavily influenced by the punk rock scene coming out of New York City in 1977. An often overlooked new wave band, XTC is most well-known for “Dear God”, a backlash against the popular Christian book series for children and “Making Plans for Nigel”. “White Music” showed XTC’s love for New Wave music emerging from America. "Go 2", however was rushed. It just did not have the same fun attitude of "White music", the production was the equivalent of "Muscle of Love" from Alice Cooper, I went there.
The opening track on this album is not evident of this fact. "Meccanic Dancing (Oh We Go!)" is a fun track. It is afro-beat influenced and is a catchy song. This is the carelessness pop attitude that XTC should of pursed a lot more on this album. However, this is sadly not the case and we as the listeners are left with questions as to why they rushed making this album?
"Battery Brides (Andy Paints Brian)" screams krautrock to me. However, unlike the creativity of krautrock, it is dry and bland. It does not display the uniqueness of Can or Neu! at all. It poorly rips off of the style of music. This is in my opinion a huge missed opportunity for XTC to experiment more with the music style instead of taking it and defecate on it. XTC never did try to experiment with krautrock again and I think this song is the reason why.
"Buzzcity Talking" is more similar to "Meccanic Dancing (Oh We Go!)" but this song is not similar in the excitement factor. It is afro-beat influenced that would be observed on later tracks like "Making Plans for Nigel", however this is just dull.
"Crowded Room" is a more upbeat post punk song at first but just like the last two songs, it is not exciting to listen to. They sound like they are trying too hard to make a reggae-punk influenced sound along the likes of The Clash. They are not directly trying to rip them off but they would be better off doing so.
"The Rhythm" has a new wave feel to it unlike "Battery Brides (Andy Paints Brian)" but the song is bland like Battery Brides (Andy Paints Brian)". The sound is there but the feel to the song is not there.
"Red" is another upbeat track just like "Crowded Room", it is more reggae-influenced than "Crowded Room" and seems to be the only other song on this album that is decent. It is pretty fun actually but you have to listen to it a few times to actually think it is good.
"Beatown" is the return of the kooky synth that was observed during "White Music". However, this song is all over the place when XTC typically does not intend to make music all over the place. The first minute of the song is fun but after that the song drags on and on to 4 and a half minutes. An unnecessary minute ending to a song that had some promise in it.
"Life is Good in the Greenhouse" is a more downbeat song. It does have a Talking Heads influence. This can be implied by the similar wordplay David Byrne is known for.
Do you wonder why I look so fresh
Do you wonder why I look so tall
Do you wonder why you'll never ever move me
However, Andy Partridge is not necessary trying to rip-off Talking Heads. He was trying to write a catchier downbeat song but failed in his attempt to do so. This song is bland just like most of the album.
"Jumping In Gomorrah" goes from a post-punk guitar riff to a kooky synth sound that XTC early work would be known for. However, the song has weird transitions from the more upbeat to slightly downbeat and upbeat in the middle back to downbeat. If the music was constant throughout, this song could of been better. It is a decent song otherwise.
"My Weapon" is an afro-beat influenced punk song. The lyrics do not make any sense unlike most of XTC's later work. This is an ambiguous song with no overall meaning. This time the band is trying too hard to be punk when in reality they are not.
"Super-Tuff" starts off as a downbeat song and stays that way throughout. It does not go anyway and lacks direction and motive. What was the point of the fun lyrics when this song is not fun?
"I Am the Audience" is another afro-beat influenced song. This song's atmosphere lacks excitement and is rather boring to listen to. It sounds repetitive and lacks any artistic merit to it whatsoever.
This album has 2 songs that save it from a 1.0 and those are "Meccanic Dancing (Oh We Go!)" and "Red" otherwise this album sucks. It is a shame that XTC rushed to make this album because this young band was capable of so much more.
2/5
