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: XTC Skylarking GOOD ALBUM
Hit: 4 Stars
Skylarking, XTC had traveled from the urban to the rustic. A concept album about an English summer day, Skylarking sounds like the warm, luscious post-Beatles masterpiece Paul McCartney never made. Goaded by tyrannical producer Todd Rundgren, a fellow Beatles fanatic, XTC slipped the bounds of current trends once and for all. Alive with invention and impossibly sensual, the album is pure rock & roll Wordsworth. The lively heresy "Dear God," a fluke college-market hit, didn't make Skylarking a major success, but it did prompt unusual interest in its successor. Oranges and Lemons, from 1989, reimagined Sgt. Pepper's on XTC's home ground, England's mystical West Country. Oranges was Skylarking with more psychedelic studio effects, and it includes "Pink Thing," singer Andy Partridge's love song to his penis. The XTC career arc - from gawky new-wavers to bumpkin savants to special-reserve songwriters for the listening cognoscenti Free Music Review: One of the great albums of our time!
Hit: 5 Stars
This, simply put, is a masterpiece. It is an album that feels like a single, organic whole, yet each song is a vital, essential piece. Start to finish, the songs one after another are a delight; continually surprising...
...and they haven't aged a millisecond. This thing sounds as great as it did almost 20 years ago!
I used the word "organic" intentionally, as there's sort of a thematic link between many of the songs...lyrical as well as in tone.
Acoustic instruments blended with synthetic insect noises and real (?) bird chirping lead one song into another.
Song titles include "Summer's Cauldron", "Season Cycle", "Ballet for a Rainy Day", "1000 Umbrellas".
XTC's sense of humor pops up here and there, especially with the giggle, "That's Really Super, Supergirl",
Midway through the album, the single "Earn Enough For Us" just explodes from your speakers/headphones. It's a great, simple song, and shows off the band's ability to go loud and uptempo.
"The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul" is a finger-snapping jaunty tune that reminds me of the album Joe Jackson did AFTER his breakthrough, "Night and Day", called "Body and Soul". I recommend searching that one out if you particularly enjoy this song.
The album closer has to go on the list of the most dramatic and exhilarating pop songs ever. Not shying away from controversy, "Dear God" begins as a child "reads" a letter to God, questioning his presence.
Then Andy Partridge comes in, and he performs the song as if it's a dramatic scene in a stage play. Listen to his rage and frustration build through the verses, the band creating this ever-increasing wall of sound behind him, to the point where you can barely stand to listen...you feel despair, loss of hope, everything...
...until the shattering climax.
And to those who may be offended...you haven't listened to it yet. You won't be offended if you check it out. He may be explaining his doubt about God, but he's speaking directly to Him, isn't he?
I'm not religious at all, and I still think this is one of the more spectacular singles ever recorded...and a tremendous finale to one of the great albums of our time.
Free Music Review: Thanks, Radio Paradise!!
Hit: 5 Stars
I came across Radio Paradise, who links from homepage to amazon.com, while surfing. And all of a sudden, I was here re-listening to XTC- Skylarking, one of the biggest inspirations in my teen years. I was keen on S. Wonder, The Beatles and The Ploice, but Xtc kind of mixes it all, and has a certain tone of their own. Ever since I as a kid recorded "Senses Working Overtime" from thir English Settlement-album, I've been a fan.
But my all time favorite song is "The man Who Sailed Around The World" from Skylarking. I was playing in a brassband, but never knew untill I heard this song, how punky-funky horns can sound!
*with a deep voice* YEAH!
Free Music Review: Some 2 or 3 of 3 / 4 star quality outdone by the rest
Hit: 5 Stars
A lot of it is just right for where you are at the moment, and when it is, it's better than much of the music out there, at least in that ol' pop/rock vein. Many say it's a "spring" album, but I get more of an "autumn" vibe. Free Music Review: ARGUABLY the best.....
Hit: 5 Stars
Arguably, this is XTC's best. XTC has used Andy Partridge's "strictly studio" mentality quite to their advantage--listen to the way "Summer's Cauldron" and "Grass" bleed right into one another, as well as "Ballet for a Rainy Day" and "1000 Umbrellas." This is really an album that works as a whole and still allows us to enjoy the songs individually. I'm really torn between this album and The Big Express--although, there really is no sense in arguing over which XTC album is the best....