Legendary Pink Dots

Just as the words colour and color don't mean quite the same thing, there are no American analogues to Syd Barrett, XTC, Robyn Hitchcock, David Sylvian or the Legendary Pink Dots (acid reference almost certain). The Pink Dots emerged from England in 1980, moved to Amsterdam (legal cannabis influence almost certain) and began to release wild and weird album after album after album. Their music is post-prog experimental and offhandedly pop; the lyrics slink around corners like late-'60s English children's books (there's that doesn't-quite-translate thing again), and the songs have tellingly interior titles: "Personal Monster," "King of a Small World." With songs that are equal parts Yaz and Yes synth lines, Jethro Tull flute and Buzzcocks guitars, this is a band that's an anomaly, an artifact and a stalwart prediction of future sounds. They just probably won't be American sounds.