XTC - Skylarking
|
List Price: Our Price: $13.99 You Save: $1.99 (12%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $6.58 (click here) Category: Music CD See more new music releases 
|
|---|
Buy this Music CD at online store in your country
Canadian Music Store
Canadian Music Store
Free Music Notes for Skylarking
Free Music Review: When XTC hits America
Hit: 5 Stars
I got into XTC a year or so before this album came out. Up until that point I had been listening to English Settlement along with other early favorites and liking Partridge and company quite a bit. What I had heard up until then, however, did little to prepare me for Skylarking.
Let's face it: Skylarking came out of nowhere. Nobody saw it coming. Not even the most zealous XTC fan. So different was it from what Partidge and Moulding had recorded that no one was prepared for the change.
And what a change it was.
John Wesley Harding once wrote a wonderfully witty song called 'When the Beatles hit America,' in it imagining what a modern day reunion of the fab four might have been like. After reviewing the newest recording by the long defunct pop group, Harding quipped, "the new record didn't sound a lot like 'P.S. I love you,' but it did sound like XTC... it sounded a lot like XTC."
Which is to say, Skylarking is the sort of album the Beatles might have made but Andy Partridge did it instead. It is a rich, beautiful recording, one awash in brilliant pop and colored with lush harmonies. It is a musical landscape both pastoral and baroque, the sort of which we rarely see in music.
Free Music Review: All time favorite
Hit: 5 Stars
This is my favorite Album. From the brilliance of the songwriting to the lush production of Todd Rundgren, every note rings true. I'm constantly inspired by the songs.
Phil Dutra
Free Music Review: An alternative classic
Hit: 5 Stars
This album is a classic. I have no idea what they call the genre today, but way back when, this was alternative, and this was the album that all the kids in black listened to. There is not a bad song on the album. Most people are familiar with Dear God, which is worth the purchase of this CD alone, but every song from Summer's Cauldron to Sacrificial Bonfire is as good.Free Music Review: The "Pet Sounds" of the '80s.
Hit: 5 Stars
Widely regarded as XTC's best album, "Skylarking" is not my personal favorite (I go with "Oranges and Lemons" for that), but it is one of those records worthy of all the accolades that are heaped upon it. At the height of their powers, the now-studio-bound trio engaged Todd Rundgren as producer. While Rundgren and XTC principle songwriter and guitarist Andy Partridge bumped heads rather severely, through strife comes high art, and this is no exception. "Skylarking" is one of the great pop albums of its era.
So what makes "Skylarking" so good? A lot, really. Compositions of both Partridge and bassist Colin Moulding are superb throughout-- they've finally pretty much shedded the last vestiges of ska-tinged new wave that dominated their early records and filtered down through all their previous recordings and instead fully embraced the quirky pop direction they had been drifting in. The arrangements, steadily increasing in detail and lushness over the years, continues their growth here-- strings, xylophones, horns, flutes and drum machines all swirl alongside the rest of the trappings of the band to provide a lushness of a soundscape, and subtle use of vocal harmony takes the edge off the band's sometimes overtly British vocals. The performances, both on instruments and vocals, from Partridge, Moulding and longtime guitarist/keyboardist Dave Gregory are all pretty much top notch. And finally, Rundgren arranged the album to provide a cyclic notion and a feeling of unity and concept.
Talking about highlights is rather difficult, it's all pretty much fantastic and startlingly diverse, from the pastoral strings and gentle British vocals of "Grass" to the funky rock of "That's Really Super, Supergirl" to the deep swing and swaggering horn arrangements of "The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul". Along the way, there's no shortage of great ideas-- morose string quartets ("Ballet for a Rainy Day"), explosive electric rock ("Earn Enough For Us"), neo-ambient pop ("Another Satellite") and a seemingly neverending assortment of fantastic pop songs (really just about everything). In short, there's nothing but a lot of good to say about this one.
Like the rest of the XTC catalog, the album was remastered and sonically now matches the detail of the arrangements and provides the opportunity to breathe. Additionally, the CD includes a bonus track in the form of "Dear God"-- originally a b-side, it became a surprise hit single and was subbed on the album in place of "Mermaid Smile"-- here the album is restored to its original order with "Dear God" tacked onto the end. In this place, it actually works nicely, providing a somewhat bitter coma to cyclic feeling of the album, and for a piece that's quite clear and preachy in its message, it's so good that the driving acoustic rhythms and superb string arrangements prevent it from coming off as overt. It proves to be one of the great pieces in the XTC catalog.
I said at the beginning it's not my favorite album by XTC, but it may well be their best-- cohesive, brilliantly written and performed, and superb from start to finish-- it's to the '80s what "Pet Sounds" was to the '60s. If you don't have it, you probably should.
Free Music Review: Best XTC ever
Hit: 5 Stars
I love this album so much. It flows and meanders along like a stream of conciousness that's destined to end a pool of lucidity. It's the album that made me jump up and notice this great band. Ironically, the only song that seems forced on the album is 'Dear God'. My favorite is 'Sacraficial Bonfire.'