The xx

The xx did something almost rebellious in an age of ever noisier music: they turned the volume down.

While pop competed to sound bigger, fuller, more strident, they turned up doing the opposite.

Their music is pure space. A bass line, a minimal strum of guitar, a rhythm barely hinted at, and above all silence, a lot of silence. Two voices —one a woman's, one a man's— that do not sing at the top of their lungs but whisper, almost into your ear, like two people talking to each other in the dark.

They discovered something few people understand: that silence is music too, and that what does not sound can say as much as what does.

A state school in south London

What makes their story even more astonishing is how young and how close they were.

Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim met at nursery school, at the age of three. They grew up together, and at fifteen they started making music as a duo.

Then Baria Qureshi and Jamie Smith joined, the four of them classmates at the same school: Elliott School, a state secondary in Putney.

And that school deserves naming, because it is an extraordinary fact. Elliott School also produced Hot Chip, Burial and Four Tet, three of the names that defined British electronic music of their generation. One state school in south London produced half a scene.

They were nineteen or twenty when they recorded their first album, "xx", between December 2008 and February 2009. They did it at night, in their label's in-house studio, which was literally the back garage of the office building, fitted out as a rehearsal room.

That album by kids barely out of their teens, made of nothing but whispers and empty space, won the Mercury Prize in 2010 and became one of the most influential records of its decade. Qureshi left the band shortly after it came out, and the three of them were left.

The name, by the way, is deliberately ambiguous. The band has said that they liked how it looked written down and that they preferred to leave it open: the two kisses you sign off messages with in English, the chromosomes, the adults-only rating. They never chose one.

The best-known song that was never a hit

There is a paradox in their story that sums everything up.

"Intro" is probably the most recognisable piece by The xx: two instrumental minutes you have heard a thousand times even if you do not know whose they are.

It was never a chart hit. It was released as a promotional single on the same day as the album and barely reached number one hundred and twenty-nine in the United Kingdom.

And yet it went triple platinum in the United States, because it became ubiquitous by another route: the BBC used it as the theme for its coverage of the 2010 British elections, Rihanna sampled it on "Drunk on Love", and since then it has not stopped appearing in series, films and adverts.

A song nobody bought ended up playing everywhere.

The quietest one had the most influential ear

And here comes a fact almost nobody connects.

The third member of The xx, the one who stayed at the back handling the rhythms and the production, is called Jamie Smith, but the world knows him as Jamie xx.

That quiet kid who made the band's backing tracks turned out to be one of the most sought-after producers and DJs of his generation. On his own, under his own name, he became a figure in electronic music: the critics placed his solo album "In Colour", from 2015, among the best of the decade, and today he gets called in to produce and remix the biggest artists in the world.

So The xx did not just give us a cult band. It also gave us one of the architects of the pop and electronic sound of today.

The quietest of the three turned out to have the most influential ear.

Less is more

The contribution of The xx to music is a lesson that goes beyond their songs.

In a world that always pushes towards excess —more production, more notes, more volume, more of everything—, they demonstrated the power of the opposite: restraint, delicacy, emptiness.

Their songs breathe. They leave gaps for the listener to step into.

And that bareness, far from sounding poor, sounds intimate: listening to The xx on headphones is to feel that they are singing only to you, very quietly, something they would not tell anyone else.

They influenced plenty of artists who then understood that sometimes, to move someone, you have to take away instead of adding.

What to remember

Their music talks about love, about desire, about loss, about the distance between two people, with a shy and moving honesty.

Put on "Intro", "Crystalised" or "On Hold", and you are going to hear the sound of intimacy turned into song.

The xx reminded the world that you do not have to shout to be heard.

Sometimes, the whisper is what stays with you. They turned the volume down, and that is why, paradoxically, they resonated louder than almost everyone.

Sources

The xx, British band formed in London in 2005. Romy Madley Croft (vocals, guitar) and Oliver Sim (vocals, bass) met at nursery school, at the age of three, and started playing together at fifteen; Baria Qureshi (keyboards, guitar) and Jamie Smith, "Jamie xx" (production, rhythms), joined in 2006. All four were classmates at Elliott School, a state secondary in Putney, which also produced the members of Hot Chip, Burial and Four Tet. Their debut, "xx", was recorded between December 2008 and February 2009 at the in-house studio of the label Young Turks, a subsidiary of XL Recordings —a former garage of the office building fitted out as a rehearsal room—, with engineer Rodaidh McDonald, and was released on 14 August 2009. It won the Mercury Prize in September 2010, after which the album jumped from number 16 to 3 on the British chart. Qureshi left the group at the end of 2009, after the album came out. On the origin of the name, the band has stated that they liked how it looked written down and that they preferred to leave it open to interpretation —the kisses you sign off messages with in English, the XX chromosomes, adult content—, without adopting any of them as official. "Intro" was released as a promotional single on the same day as the album and reached only number 129 in the United Kingdom, despite which it went triple platinum in the United States; the BBC used it in its coverage of the 2010 British general election and Rihanna sampled it on "Drunk on Love" ("Talk That Talk", 2011), where all four members are credited as co-writers. In the opposite direction, The xx sampled Drake on "Naive" (2017), which takes from "Doing It Wrong". Jamie xx developed a distinguished career as a producer and DJ; his album "In Colour" (2015) was nominated for the Mercury Prize and appeared on critics' lists of the best of the decade. Other well-known tracks by the group: "Crystalised" and "On Hold". Externally authored text, edited and verified for Rebobinados. Interpretations of the meaning of their work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from Wikipedia, The Guardian, Pitchfork, Billboard, WhoSampled and other press coverage.