The Daily Spin, October 16
The xx | xx
Welcome back to the Daily Spin, the series in which I review 365 albums during 2023.
Each album will be given a rating on a scale from 0 to 10. You can look at the entire set here. Additionally, you can check out a list of my favorite songs from each album right here.
Album: xx (2009)
Artist: The xx
Link:
Few debuts, if you ask me, have been quite so good as the xx’s self-titled, from 2009.
Despite not working with an actual drummer, the production of Jamie Smith, the guitar work of Baria Qureshi (who would leave the band later in 2009 due to ‘personal differences’) and the dueling vocals of Oliver Sim and Romy Madley Croft made it deeply apparently that a drummer wasn’t necessary for this sort of pared-down synthetic indie to excel.
It’s these sparse but deeply moving arrangements that have become the group’s hallmark, and immediately put them at the forefront of the industry - something new and fresh, taking pieces from Interpol and Radiohead and so many fantastic groups before them and working in into an innovative new spin on the genre, one that feels far beyond the youth this group possessed 14 years ago, when this was released.
Somewhere between hip-hop, rock, RnB, and electronica, the xx managed to carve themselves a little home of their own, and we’re all better off for it.
Rating: 9.7/10
Best Tracks: Intro; Islands; Stars
Worst Tracks: Fantasy