xx is the debut album by English indie pop band the xx. After they signed a record deal with XL Recordings, the band recorded the album from December 2008 to February 2009 at the label's in-house studio in London. Audio engineer Rodaidh McDonald worked with the xx during the recording sessions and strived to reproduce the intimate, unembellished quality of their demos. The band's Jamie Smith produced xx on his laptop and created electronic beats for the songs, which he then mixed in a detailed process with McDonald.

Although the group had been strongly influenced by R&B acts, xx drew comparisons from music critics to alternative rock, electronica, and post-punk sounds. Its melancholic songs have minimalist arrangements and are built around Smith's beats, Oliver Sim's basslines, and sparse guitar figures played by Baria Qureshi and Romy Madley Croft, who employed reverb in her lead guitar parts. Most of the songs were sung as low-key duets by Croft and Sim, both of whom wrote emotional lyrics about love, intimacy, loss, and desire.

xx was released in August 2009 by Young Turks, an imprint of XL, and received widespread acclaim from critics, who especially praised the band's sound. It became a sleeper hit in both the United Kingdom and the United States with consistent weekly sales in its first few years of release. Although none of its singles were hits, xx benefited commercially from the licensing of its songs to television programs and from the band's Mercury Prize win in 2010. When Qureshi was dismissed from the group shortly after the album's release, the xx continued to play as a trio on a protracted concert tour that helped increase their fanbase, reputation in the press, and confidence as performers.

Background

While students at South London's Elliott School in 2005, childhood friends Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim formed the xx with Jamie Smith and Baria Qureshi.^[1] Croft and Sim played guitar and bass, respectively, and dueted as the band's vocalists, while Smith programmed electronic beats for their songs and Qureshi doubled as a keyboardist and additional guitarist.^[2] On late nights, Croft and Sim either shared lyrics with each other through instant messaging or rehearsed quietly with Smith and Qureshi in their bedrooms so they would not disturb the rest of the household.^[3] The xx were greatly influenced by American R&B producers such as The Neptunes and Timbaland, whose minimalist productions incorporated vocal harmonies, handclaps, unconventional samples, and pronounced beats.^[1] The band covered R&B hits such as Aaliyah's "Hot Like Fire" (1997) and Womack & Womack's "Teardrops" (1988) when they performed live and recorded their demos.^[4]

After posting the demos on their Myspace page, the xx drew the interest of Young Turks, an imprint label of XL Recordings. They submitted the demos to XL's head office at Ladbroke Grove and were subsequently signed to a recording contract. The group worked with producers such as Diplo and Kwes to no success before they were introduced to audio engineer Rodaidh McDonald by the xx's manager Caius Pawson, who gave him three CDs of demos titled "Early Demos", "Recorded in Rehearsal Space", and "What Producers Did Wrong".^[5] McDonald was impressed by the intimate quality and use of silence on the demos, which both he and the band felt may have challenged other producers who wanted to incorporate their individual tastes: "They'd worked with about four other producers before then that had — and no discredit to them — I guess they'd seen a lot of space to add a kind of stamp on. There was a lot of empty space in the xx's music, even then, in the 'Early Demos'. But we just found that the best stuff was the most sparse."^[6]

Recording and production

At the behest of XL owner Richard Russell, the xx chose to record their debut album at the label's small, in-house recording studio and were the first act to record there. It was once the head office building's rear garage before Russell transformed it at the beginning of 2008 into a makeshift writing, rehearsal, and demo space for XL's artists. McDonald was assigned in September to manage and properly equip the room, which he liked because it was soundproof and "isolated from the rest of the office, so it wasn't like you were working in the record company's presence."^[2] Croft, on the other hand, called it a "pretty confined space" the size of a bathroom.^[7] Over the next few months, McDonald and Pawson prepared a budget for the label to fund the studio's preliminary setup, which would include recording equipment specifically suited for the xx, such as a modestly sized soundboard ideal for recording a small group.^[2]

The xx started to record the album in December with McDonald, who engineered the sessions.^[2] They usually recorded at night when XL's staff had left, which Croft said made it feel "isolated and quite creepy".^[7] To reproduce the sound he had heard on the band's demos, McDonald had them write down their instruments' settings and test different areas of the studio to determine where he should record each member. Sim, who played a Precision Bass manufactured in the 1970s, was often recorded in the hallway outside the studio with a Fender Bassman, one of several amplifiers McDonald experimented with for xx. Some of Qureshi and Croft's guitars were also done in the hallway. Qureshi played a Gibson SG with a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe or Blues Deluxe amplifier, while Croft played an Epiphone Les Paul on most of the album and a Gibson ES-335 on a few songs. For her lead guitar parts, Croft used a delay pedal and a Roland Micro Cube amplifier with a reverb setting, which McDonald felt would best replicate her "icy", echo-filled sound on the demos.^[2]

After all the instrumental elements had been tracked, Croft and Sim recorded their vocals together. They rarely sang backup to one another on any of the songs. McDonald felt it was important for the singers be "in sync" and share the same mental state or mood when singing full takes of songs, some of which he said benefited from when they were both "quite tired and emotional". He had Croft and Sim sing into Neumann microphones on most of the songs in order to make their vocals sound as "intimate" and conversational as possible. The microphones were among the more expensive items he had borrowed for the studio's preliminary setup so XL would not be overwhelmed with a costly budget.^[2]

Despite McDonald's close involvement, the xx had been encouraged to self-produce their album by Russell, who felt it would remain faithful to both their distinctive live sound and the DIY ethic practiced at XL since its beginnings as a rave label.^[2] Smith was chosen by the rest of the group to produce xx.^[8] He used Logic 8 recording software on his Mac Pro and often worked in a nearby conference room while they recorded in the studio with drafts of his beats.^[2] Smith created his beats with an Akai MPC sampler, which had been given to him as a gift on his birthday.^[9] He occasionally processed the sampler through an effects unit such as a Roland RE-201. Smith also created click tracks for the rest of the band to keep timing when they recorded their individual parts. After those parts had been recorded, he refined and incorporated his beats into the songs for three to four weeks.^[2] Croft trusted that Smith, who did not want to overproduce xx, would make it practical for them to perform live rather than layer the songs with several guitar or vocal elements.^[10] On one of the many late nights Smith spent at the studio, he walked in on ski-masked burglars who had broken into the building; they were alarmed by his presence and immediately ran away.^[11]

Most of xx was recorded from late December to late January before McDonald and Smith began an exhaustive mixing process, which lasted two weeks and was done with Logic 8. For each song, they mixed one or two tracks of each instrument and used Waves Audio components to equalize the recordings. Because McDonald had enjoyed how the demos captured unintended background noises such as street sounds, he deliberately left certain sounds on xx that would have otherwise been unwanted in the final mix: "I wanted it to sound like people in a room, rather than this polished kind of perfect crystalline thing. It was all the small details that we really liked."^[2] In February, the band wrote and recorded the songs "Fantasy", "Shelter", and "Infinity" before they finished the album by month's end. Sim sang his vocals for "Infinity" on the side of the studio opposite from Croft when his microphone had been unintentionally moved there, which resulted in a distant-sounding vocal exchange on the song. While recording "Shelter", a mechanical part from the guitar amplifier loosened and caused it to make a clattering sound, which McDonald and the xx chose to retain: "It was just like this missing piece of percussion that the track needed!"^[2]

Music and lyrics

"Heart Skipped a Beat"

"Heart Skipped a Beat" ruminates on a lost romantic connection over short guitar figures and a clapping rhythm.^[12]

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The songs on xx are built around a framework of basslines and beats, and they incorporate simple guitar riffs for melody, rhythm, and texture. The songs' melodic notes are separated by rests.^[13] Croft said the band's style of instrumentation had become defined by the limited equipment they originally used: "My guitar sound pretty much came from discovering there was reverb on my little practice amp and really loving the mood it created."^[7] The album begins with its loudest recording, "Intro", a largely instrumental song with double-tracked beats, distorted keyboard, non-lexical vocables, and a guitar riff.^[14] Songs such as "Crystalised" and "VCR" begin with a melodic ostinato and some understated musical elements, such as a xylophone on the latter, before they lead to quietly sung verses.^[15] Croft and Sim exchange verses on "Crystalised" while backed by the sound of drum stick clicks and basslines before the beat is heard. On the austerely arranged "Night Time", Croft sings its first two minutes over only guitar and bass before its beat develops.^[16] "Fantasy" is highlighted by a shoegazing guitar sound.^[17]

While McDonald observed a predominant R&B element, Russell felt the xx's music evoked the early hip hop records he listened to when he was young, as they were often limited to vocals, samples, and beats.^[2] Music journalists, however, inferred from xx that their influences were alternative rock acts such as Portishead, Young Marble Giants, and Cocteau Twins, the last of which Croft said she had never heard before the album was released.^[1] The Scotsman described xx as a minimalist, melancholic indie pop album that draws on elements from electronica and R&B, as well as alternative groups such as The Cure.^[18] According to Sarah Boden of The Observer, the album's unadorned, dream pop love songs are reminiscent of Cocteau Twins and Mazzy Star, because they feature low tempos, moody melodies, and rhythms influenced by R&B and dubstep.^[19] Their arrangements have what Neil McCormick of The Daily Telegraph called "a very British, industrial aspect" somewhat similar to the dub-inflected post-punk sound of English producer Martin Hannett and his work with Joy Division.^[1] Both Croft and Sim felt that their music's combination of seemingly disparate influences could be attributed to the variety in the band's music collection.^[20]

On xx, Croft and Sim touched on themes of love, desire, and loss in their songwriting, which Croft said has "always been based around emotions, right from the start. My favourite songs are usually quite sad and I think heartbreak is something that so many people can connect with."^[7] Like Croft, Sim wrote much of his lyrics at night when his emotions ran "a bit higher".^[21] Because they have reserved personalities, Robert Christgau believed they rely on a low-key, vulnerable style and "trade ideas about intimacy as contemporaries, comrades, prospects, lovers, ex-lovers, and friends".^[22] According to Emily Mackay of NME, all of the songs deal with the consuming emotions associated with first love, including the tacit intimacy on "VCR", the yearning expressed on "Heart Skipped a Beat", and the premature affection warned of on "Crystalised".^[23] Petra Davis of The Quietus argued that the thematic crux of xx is in the succession of songs from "Islands" to "Shelter", each of which "sees a radical shift in perspective on a similar—perhaps a single—love story."^[24]

The album's Roman numeral title refers to each of the band members having turned 20 years old by the time they released xx.^[7] Because of their age, many critics interpreted the songs as nocturnal depictions of adolescent lust.^[1] Spin magazine's Philip Sherburne wrote that xx brims with a "young lust" that is at the heart of rock music, and songs such as "Fantasy" and "Shelter" express a jaded yearning, particularly in a lyric from the latter song: "Can I make it better with the lights turned on".^[25] Croft, however, vehemently denied this: "We were writing these songs when we were 17. I can honestly say I've never thought this is about my sex life."^[1] Croft and Sim, who are both gay, did not intend for the songs to be heard as romantic duets, as she said they were singing "past each other" and not to each other.^[26] Because they had combined their individually written lyrics, they could not definitely explain what their songs are about, although Croft said Sim's lyrics resonated with her nonetheless. Sim later revealed that the romantic situations he wrote of had been inspired by other people: "I hadn't really had any relationships to be working off. But I had a huge interest in life, and looking at other people's relationships around me."^[27]

Promotion

"Crystalised" was released as the xx's debut single on 27 April 2009 and helped build interest among listeners and journalists.^[28] It was part of a series of singles from xx, which included "Basic Space" on 3 August, "Islands" on 26 October, and "VCR" on 25 January 2010.^[29] However, they did not receive significant airplay on BBC Radio 1, while other media outlets felt the xx did not warrant strong attention; one editor from NME said at the time that the band was not ideal for their front cover.^[30]

Several of the album's songs were licensed to television programs in both the United Kingdom and North America. "Intro" became widely used as theme music in television, including sports highlights, episodes of series such as Law & Order and Cold Case, an advertisement for AT&T, and BBC's coverage of the 2010 British general election.^[31] According to McCormick, this helped the xx develop enough media presence to garner "over half a million sales around the world without ever having anything as vulgar as a hit".^[1] However, although the xx realized their music had to be marketed somehow, Croft expressed reservations about "putting our music on everything, just to put it to anything just for the sake of money".^[32]

Release and reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[33]
The A.V. Club	A[14]
Robert Christgau	A[34]
The Daily Telegraph	[35]
The Guardian	[36]
NME	8/10[23]
Pitchfork Media	8.7/10[37]
Rolling Stone	[38]
Slant Magazine	[13]
The Sunday Times	[39]

xx was released in August 2009 by Young Turks and received widespread acclaim from music critics.^[1] According to journalist Alexis Petridis, it was the most acclaimed album of the year, and at Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, it received an average score of 87, based on 25 reviews.^[40] Critics particularly praised the group's sound on the album.^[7] In his review for The New Yorker, Sasha Frere-Jones remarked that xx rewards repeated listens because of the band's disciplined playing, while Mark Edwards of The Sunday Times said it succeeds with simple but "very near perfect" pop songs.^[41] AllMusic's Heather Phares called the instrumentation impeccable and hailed the album as a remarkably poised and sophisticated debut from such a young group.^[33] Matthew Cole of Slant Magazine believed Croft and Sim's rapport gives an emotional weight to the music, which he said sounds timeless and capable of appealing to both indie and popular tastes.^[13] Robert Christgau was impressed by their songwriting and wrote in his review for NPR that the underlying force behind the album's irresistible music is a "spiritual dimension" offered by Croft and Sim's ability to "shift roles without ever seeming hostile, cold or even unsupportive".^[42]

In a less enthusiastic review, Jon Caramanica of The New York Times found the singers too disengaged and reticent to reveal any genuine emotion: "Though they're singing to each other, it rarely feels intimate — more like two shy teenagers, eyes cast downward, awkwardly talking to the ground".^[17] Ben Schumer of PopMatters felt the consistent structures and tempos of the songs can make them sound somewhat monotonous on what is an otherwise successful and affecting nocturnal mood piece.^[43]

By the end of 2009, xx had appeared on several critics' lists of the year's best albums. It was ranked second by NME, sixth by Uncut, third by Pitchfork Media, ninth by Rolling Stone, and fourth by Chicago Tribune critic Greg Kot.^[44] The Guardian named it the year's best album in their annual critics poll and Tim Jonze, the newspaper's editor, hailed it as not only "the sound of 2009, [but also] a distinctive musical statement of the like we may never get to hear again".^[45] The album also finished seventh in The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop poll.^[46] In September 2010, xx won the Mercury Prize, an annual music award given to the best album from the UK and Ireland. Before the nominations shortlist had been announced, bookmakers and critics considered the xx as favorites and predicted they would win over more high-profile artists such as Corinne Bailey Rae, Paul Weller, and Dizzee Rascal.^[1] McCormick, one of the critics to predict its victory, explained that it "seemed the record that most represented Britain" with its unique take on modern pop tastes.^[47]

xx was not an immediate chart success, but eventually became a sleeper hit.^[48] It debuted at number 36 on the UK Albums Chart and sold 4,180 copies in the first week after it was released, while in the United States it did not chart higher than number 92 on the Billboard 200.^[49] The album sold steadily for the next 44 weeks until July 2010, when its announcement as a Mercury Prize nominee led to a sharp increase in sales and a jump from number 44 to 16 on the UK Albums Chart.^[50] By then, it had sold more than 150,000 copies in the UK and 179,000 copies in the United States.^[1] xx remained in the top 20 of the UK Albums Chart in the weeks leading up to the Mercury Prize ceremony. Immediately after its win that week, it climbed from number 16 to 3 on its highest weekly sales—28,666 copies—and reached a total of 212,835 copies sold.^[51] According to McCormick, "its triumph is a rare example of the Mercury Prize doing music lovers a service."^[47] In the US, the album reached sales of 350,000 copies by June 2012 with consistent weekly sales during its first two years of release, which Time magazine's Melissa Locker said was "quite a feat" in an era of music piracy, media streaming, and YouTube.^[52]

Although xx had been highly anticipated by XL, the album's success exceeded expectations in the press. McDonald said their direction and sound would have been entirely different had expectations been higher.^[2] Croft was "baffled" by the acclaim given to what she viewed as an album they had made "for themselves".^[30] Sim had mixed feelings about its success and believed it could affect his songwriting in the future: "This album was done with no expectations. No one knew who we were. When I was writing the songs, I didn't think anyone other than Romy or James would ever actually hear them. Now I know so many people will. I might feel I have to be a bit more private."^[53] At the Mercury Prize ceremony, he said the time since its release has "felt like a haze", but that the event serves as a "a moment of clarity".^[47] In their acceptance speech, the band announced they would use the £20,000 prize money to build their own studio, where they subsequently wrote and recorded their second album Coexist.^[54] When Coexist debuted in September 2012, xx was still on the British chart at number 37 and had sold 446,734 copies in the UK.^[55] The following year, NME ranked xx number 237 on their list of the top 500 albums of all time.^[56]

Touring

After the album was released, the xx toured Europe and North America through the end of 2009.^[57] Their first show in August was at Hoxton Hall in London, which Sim recalled was attended by only 112 people.^[58] The difficulties of touring early on exacerbated the growing tensions between the band and Qureshi, which culminated in her dismissal after a difficult stay at an October music festival in New York City.^[59] It was reported that she had become fatigued and left the group after they cancelled several concerts.^[57] Sim, however, disputed those reports and said her departure had been the band's decision: "We've grown up to be very different people. It wasn't working any more musically or as a friendship."^[60] Croft told NME in November, "I guess 'personal differences' would be the standard way to say it. I guess it's just the intensity of being on tour, things are so much heightened."^[57]

Rather than find a replacement for Qureshi, the xx continued to tour as a smaller line-up of guitar, bass, and percussion. They also reduced their already minimalist arrangements for songs when they performed live, although Sim jokingly said that Smith "needs another few arms so he can work everything" after Qureshi's departure from the group.^[61] In their concerts, Croft eschewed solos and chords for less defined figures and motifs, while Smith performed beats and ambient sounds from his synth pad as an accompaniment to Croft and Sim's playing.^[1] Because their style had been suited to the small venues they first played, the xx focused more on the production value of their shows and performing for larger audiences while on tour.^[18] Onstage, they dressed in dark clothing and illuminated their shows with light boxes that displayed their x-shaped, white-on-black logo.^[62]

With a growing fanbase, the xx made commitments to more concerts and extended their tour for the album. They intermittently toured for 18 months, including most of 2010. That year, they embarked on their first US tour and played high-profile festivals such as South by Southwest, Coachella, and Bonnaroo.^[63] Croft recalled their show at Coachella, where they performed for 30,000 people: "That was the moment when I was, like, Oh, my God, I think people might be into this."^[26] They were also a supporting act for fellow English group Florence and the Machine.^[18] By touring frequently, the xx broadened their reputation among listeners and the press. In March 2010, they played two consecutive nights at the Shepherd's Bush Empire in London to capacity crowds and appeared on the cover of NME, who proclaimed them "the most underrated band in Britain".^[30] In April and May, they toured the southern US and Japan, which Croft said was most demanding part of the tour because "none of us had been away from home continuously for so long."^[58] They were accompanied during this six-week period by photographer Jamie-James Medina, who later published his photos of the group in his book The Tourist (2010).^[58]

According to Sim, the band acclimated themselves to the increased attention and became considerably more sociable and confident while on tour: "If you'd have put me onstage at London's Shepherd's Bush Empire a few years ago, I'd have run away. I couldn't have done it. We used to be terrified."^[21] In June, the xx played the Glastonbury Festival in Somerset and, according to journalist Jude Rogers, displayed a newfound confidence through the rest of their summer and "post-Mercury [Prize] autumn" concerts: "Croft would sing more boldly, Sim developed an onstage swagger and Smith began experimenting with different rhythms and textures."^[30]

Track listing

Personnel

Credits are adapted from the liner notes for xx.^[68]

The xx

• Romy Madley Croft – guitar, vocals
• Oliver Sim – bass, vocals
• Jamie Smith – beats, mixing, MPC, production
• Baria Qureshi – guitar, keyboards
• The xx – design, photography

Additional personnel

• Phil Lee – art direction, design
• Rodaidh McDonald – engineering, mixing
• Nilesh Patel – mastering

Charts

Certifications

Release history

See also

• List of Irish Independent Albums Chart number-one albums of 2010
• List of number-one hits of 2010 (France)
• List of UK Indie Chart number-one albums of 2010

References

Bibliography

Further reading

• Medina, Jamie-James (2010). "Around the world with the xx – Britain's hottest band". The Observer. No. 4 December. London.

External links

• xx at Acclaimed Music (list of accolades)
• xx at Discogs (list of releases)