be—not being in school." "Blue Overall" saw Partridge drawing on Led Zeppelin's reconfiguration of blues music as originally played by black musicians. The lyrics are a commentary on critics who criticize "white boys" for singing the blues "and the rip-off sharks who infest music's murky waters". Release Virgin invested £33,000 into a music video for lead single "All You Pretty Girls", which peaked at number 55 on the UK Singles Chart. The Big Express was released on 15 October 1984. First pressings of the vinyl were contained in a circular record sleeve as an homage to the Small Faces' Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake (1968). For the inner sleeve, the members were photographed in GWR outfits on the footplate of the Lode Star train at the Swindon Railway Museum. XTC appeared on Channel Four's Play at Home programme performing an acoustic version of "Train Running Low on Soul Coal". Although the LP reached a higher chart position than Mummer, it sold a lesser number of copies. The album spent two weeks on the UK charts, reaching number 38. In the US, the album spent 7 weeks on the Billboard 200 album charts and reached its peak position of number 178 in December 1984. Within weeks of the album's release, the band's finances were depleted and further payments of advancements and royalties were frozen on account of the Reid litigation, forcing the group to subsist on short-term loans from Virgin. Partridge then conceived of a cheaply-budgeted project in which the group adopted pseudonyms and recorded several songs faithful to the style of 1960s psychedelia. The end product, 25 O'Clock (1985), was publicised as a collection of recordings by an older band called "the Dukes of Stratosphear". 25 O'Clock ultimately sold twice as many copies as The Big Express, even before the Dukes' identity was made public. The second and last Dukes album, Psonic Psunspot (1987), included "Shiny Cage", the Moulding song previously rejected for The Big Express. Critical reception Contemporary The Big Express was met with little critical notice, especially in the US. A reviewer for CMJ New Music Report wrote that the album was "mostly brilliant" and expressed hope that the band would gain the success and recognition they "fully deserv[e]". Ken Richardson of Stereo Review described the album as a "neglected masterwork". Rick Miller of The Spectator raved in a full-page review that it was "the most exciting record I've