The xx
| The xx | |
|---|---|
 From left: Jamie Smith, Romy Madley Croft, Oliver Sim, Baria Qureshi |
|
| General information | |
| Genre (s) | Indie rock , dream pop |
| founding | 2005 |
| Website | www.thexx.info |
| Current occupation | |
| Romy Madley Croft | |
Vocals, bass
|
Oliver Sim |
| Jamie Smith | |
| former members | |
Keyboard , guitar |
Baria Qureshi (until 2009) |
The xx is a corporation founded in 2005 indie - pop-rock - band from the south west of London .
Band history
The band members, all born around 1990, come from the London borough of Putney and went to school together. At the age of 15 they were already practicing together in the rehearsal room of the Elliott School and performing in front of an audience. Artists such as Hot Chip , Burial and Four Tet have already emerged from the music school . With the guitarist Romy Croft and the bassist Oliver Sim , the band had two lead singers, Baria Qureshi as keyboardist and guitarist and Jamie Smith on the drum machine.
Three years later they had a record deal and were named as a concert tip by the New Musical Express . With their debut song Crystalized they drew attention on the Internet in early 2009. In the same year they also finished their debut album xx , which they mostly produced and mixed themselves. Shortly before the album was released, the NME added them to The Future 50 newcomer list . Although the pre-released single Basic Space missed the charts, the album was successful in the UK, many other European countries and the USA.
Then The xx went on a tour through Europe and North America. At the end of October 2009 Baria Qureshi fell out of a performance in London due to exhaustion; the following events on the continent have been canceled. In mid-November 2009, she then announced that she was leaving the band due to “personal differences”, and the three of them then continued the tour.
In September 2010 the band won the prestigious Barclaycard Mercury Prize , beating Villagers , Foals , Mumford & Sons and Dizzee Rascal, among others . On July 16, 2012, the band released the first single Angels from their second album on their Facebook page. On September 7, 2012, the second album Coexist was released . In May 2014 the band announced that they were working with producer Rodaidh McDonald on the third album, which was released on January 13, 2017.
Style and Influences
The style of The XX is characterized by "crystal clear, minimalistic, finely accented guitar playing" and "feather-light harmonies" as well as the "self-confident, sleepy alternating vocals" of the two singers. It was described, especially for the first two albums, as "minimalism from a few beats from the synthesizer, a sparingly plucked, heavily reverberant electric guitar, a humming bass track and quietly suffering vocals" with a high degree of fragility and intimacy.
The band members quoted several artists about their influences. Croft said, "Jamie was originally very much into soul and from there he moved to hip hop and British-based dance music. He brings some much deeper bass to the band. And I'm with Siouxsie and the Banshees and after all The Cure grew up. We're really a pretty big melting pot for all kinds of things. " She also mentioned her fondness for Jimi Hendrix , The Slits , Joy Division , Yazoo , Eurythmics and New Order .
Discography
Studio albums
| year | title |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 DE
|
 AT
|
 CH
|
 UK
|
 US
|
|||
| 2009 | xx |
DE54  (15 weeks)DE |
AT24 (5 weeks) AT |
CH43 (14 weeks) CH |
UK3  × 2
(73 weeks)UK |
US92 (49 weeks)US |
First published: August 14, 2009
|
| 2012 | Coexist |
DE3 (17 weeks)DE |
AT3 (11 weeks) AT |
CH1 (21 weeks) CH |
UK1 (34 weeks)UK |
US5 (19 weeks) US |
First published: September 5, 2012
|
| 2017 | I see you |
DE1 (11 weeks) DE |
AT2 (8 weeks) AT |
CH2 (11 weeks) CH |
UK1 (26 weeks)UK |
US2 (5 weeks) US |
First published: January 13, 2017
|
EPs
| year | title | Remarks |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Tour only | First published: January 12, 2010 |
| iTunes Live from SoHo | First published: March 9, 2010 | |
| iTunes Festival: London 2010 | First published: July 20, 2010 | |
| 2013 | The xxmas | First published: January 3, 2013 |
| Hivern remixes | First published: November 11, 2013 |
more publishments
- 2018: Remixes
Singles
| year | Title album |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
DE
|
AT
|
CH
|
UK
|
US
|
|||
| 2009 | Islands xx |
- | - | - |
UK34  (12 weeks)UK |
- |
First published: October 26, 2009
|
| 2012 | Angels coexist |
- | - | - |
UK43 (6 weeks)UK |
- |
First published: July 17, 2012
|
| 2016 | On Hold I See You |
DE84 (2 weeks) DE |
- |
CH50 (3 weeks) CH |
UK34 (7 weeks)UK |
- |
First published: November 10, 2016
|
| 2017 | Say Something Loving I See You |
- | - |
CH77 (1 week) CH |
UK60 (1 week) UK |
- |
First published: January 1, 2017
|
| I Dare You, I See You |
- | - | - |
UK100 (1 week) UK |
- |
First published: May 2, 2017
|
|
| Dangerous I See You |
- | - |
CH91 (1 week) CH |
UK75 (1 week) UK |
- |
First published: October 2, 2017
|
|
| The following songs did not appear as single, but were made available for download and streaming through the album and were thus able to achieve a placement: | |||||||
| 2017 | Lips I See You |
- | - | - |
UK93 (1 week) UK |
- |
First published: January 13, 2017
|
| A Violent Noise I See You |
- | - | - |
UK94 (1 week) UK |
- |
First published: January 13, 2017
|
|
More singles
- 2009: Crystalized (UK:silver)
- 2009: Basic Space
- 2010: VCR
- 2010: Intro (UK, US:gold)
- 2012: Chained
- 2013: Sunset
- 2013: fiction
Awards for music sales
|
Note: Awards in countries from the chart tables or chart boxes can be found in these.
| Country / Region |
silver |
gold |
platinum
|
Sales | swell |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Awards for music sales (country / region, awards, sales, sources) |
|||||
 Australia (ARIA)
|
- |
2 × gold2
|
- | 70,000 | aria.com.au |
 Belgium (BEA)
|
- |
3 × gold3
|
- | 45,000 | ultratop.be |
 Denmark (IFPI)
|
- |
2 × gold2
|
- | 10,000 | ifpi.dk |
|
Germany (BVMI)
|
- |
2 × gold2
|
- | 200,000 | musikindustrie.de |
 Italy (FIMI)
|
- |
2 × gold2
|
platinum1
|
80,000 | fimi.it |
 Canada (MC)
|
- |
3 × gold3
|
platinum1
|
200,000 | musiccanada.com |
|
United States (RIAA)
|
- |
2 × gold2
|
- | 1,000,000 | riaa.com |
|
United Kingdom (BPI)
|
4 × silver4th
|
3 × gold3
|
2 × platinum2
|
2,000,000 | bpi.co.uk |
| All in all |
4 × silver4th
|
19 × gold19th
|
4 × platinum4th
|
||
Soundtrack
Pieces by The xx are very popular as background music in films, TV series or TV contributions (selection):
- The song VCR could be heard in the credits of the episode Chain Reaction from the series Lie to Me .
- Also for a series, The Vampire Diaries , the song Islands was used. Furthermore, this appeared in episode 14 of the 6th season of the series Grey's Anatomy as a transition to the end and was also used in the soundtrack of the video game Rocksmith .
- In the 217th episode of Alarm für Cobra 11 - Die Autobahnpolizei , in the 3rd episode (hostage-taking) by Der Knastarzt , the episode "Sport & Mord" of the CSI series : On the trail of the perpetrators and in the two movies Project X 2012) and It's Kind of a Funny Story as well as in the series Person of Interest (episode 5 of the 1st season - "Familiäres Druckmittel") the song Intro appeared.
- For the film I am number four they contributed the song Shelter .
- Crystalised and Islands were used in episode 14 of season 7 of the One Tree Hill series .
- Heart Skipped a Beat was used in episode 8 of season 2 of series 90210 and Infinity was played in episode 20, season 2. Infinity is also used in the series Hung at the end of the 9th episode of the 2nd season.
- Crystalised was used in episode 13 of the third season of the series Gossip Girl .
- Angels was used in episode 01 of the 6th season of the series Gossip Girl .
- Infinity was used in the 7th episode of the fourth season ( Honor Among Thieves ) by Person of Interest.
- Sunset was used in the episode War , Season 2, episode 16 of the series Suits .
- Together was used in the movie The Great Gatsby (2013).
- Sunset , Chained , Intro and Fiction were used in the series Suits .
- Intro was used towards the end of the first part of the Top Gear Africa Challenge.
- Iceland was used as score track in the German crime film Hannah Mangold and Lucy Palm in a bar scene.
- Dangerous in the FIFA 18 soundtrack
Web links
- Official website
- The xx on MySpace
- The xx at Allmusic (English)
- Concert review: The Xx, Village Underground , Guardian, November 1, 2009
swell
- ↑ The XX ( Memento of February 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) at br-online.de, accessed on August 10, 2010
- ^ NME - The Future 50 , August 5, 2009
- ↑ The xx cancel dates on their tour due to exhaustion , NME News, October 30, 2009
- ↑ The xx's Baria Qureshi quits band permanently , NME News, November 12, 2009
- ↑ The XX: New single
- ^ Rolling Stone Review Coexist , September 4, 2012
- ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung: Unheimlich heimelig , January 15, 2017
- ^ Marc Savlov: UK melodrama blessed from above . austinchronicle.com. October 8, 2010. Retrieved October 15, 2015.
- ↑ Capart, Nicolas: The Smile of XX (an interview with singer Romy) (original title: Le Sourire de XX) . La Libre Belgique. October 9, 2009. Retrieved August 21, 2013.
- ↑ a b Chart sources: DE AT CH UK US
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from June 23, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at Indiewire.com, accessed June 21, 2012
