XTC - Skylarking
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Free Music Notes for Skylarking
Free Music Review: One of XTC's three best albums
Hit: 5 Stars
This along with Oranges and Lemons and English Settlement is my favorite XTC album. It has a lush, pastoral quality and they never sounded quite this way before. Except maybe for Mummer. It never sounds dated and is timeless in its essence and themes that it explored. Every song weaves a continuous story about the cycle of birth, life and death and contains some of their best lyrics. Cynicism and despair never sounded so good.Free Music Review: Overrated album by one of the most overrated bands
Hit: 2 Stars
I've given fair listenings to both this and ENGLISH SETTLEMENT. I wanted to like the stuff, but is Partridge trying to be the English boy-next-door or something? The lyrics are clearly trying to be clever but the rhymes fall flat for me. And the music is trying to break through to some kind of originality, to add a dash of the progressive to the pop, but that fails too, goes nowhere. And that voice, ohhh...like an early 80s New Wave Brit guy trying to say something alternately playful and serious but in that rounded, wry fashion that drags the notes. And why is he so...happy?Free Music Review: These guys should be huge
Hit: 5 Stars
XTC's continued cult band status is strong evidence of either the absence of God or his active malevolence. These guys should be huge. "Skylarking" should be universally hailed as the best pop/rock album of the 1980s. If you like British pop/rock along the lines of the Beatles and the Kinks, you will dig this stuff.Free Music Review: Simply brilliant
Hit: 5 Stars
Intelligent lyrics, brilliant melodies, clean, multi-layered production - this album was a remarkable achievement in the 80's and continues to stand out. It doesn't matter if it's XTC's best album or whether it's representative of their music. Skylarking should be evaluated on its own merits. XTC, like all great bands, is constantly evolving, so it makes no sense to pigenohole them.
Almost everyone has commented on the obvious Beatles influence but they have ignored the influence of Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys. A few songs, Season Cycle in particular, could have easily come from the Pet Sounds sessions.
On another note, my cd is from 1986 and contains "Dear God" but not "Mermaid Smiles." Other reviewers seem to have cd's with "Mermaid Smiles" but not "Dear God." How many different versions of this cd are out there?
Free Music Review: The Todd Rundgren Show
Hit: 3 Stars
Forget the Who, the Kinks, the Beatles and even the Spice Girls, XTC are the most intelligent, sublime British pop band, ever. Great melodies, terrific lyrics, and original and inspiring music. So why only 3 stars for Skylarking? Because this doesn't sound like an XTC album, rather its a Todd Rundgren album composed and played by XTC. Sorry to dis Todd (he's done great work with other people) but he leaves huge indelible Todd fingerprints all over this album. The production seems forced, artificial and even at times cheesy in its overuse of strings and sound effects. The band had to sit there while Todd f'ed up their music because they were in such financial trouble at the time. Hey it worked, they got a hit, and it is a good album but its just not XTC. Where are the guitars? I like XTC when they play rock music with actual guitars rather than pop music drenched in studio puffery and violins. Beach Boys be damned. I realize that this was the time when XTC were in their "pastoral" phase, but I like the rock of their previous efforts such as English Settlement, Black Sea, The White Album, Drums And Wires, The Big Black Express or Go 2 MUCH more than this pseudo Beach Boys pseudo psychedelic wimpy naval gazing crud. Skylarking is just too wuss pop for me. Compared to most of their previous work this album isn't all that.