Skylarking cover

Skylarking

XTC

Released

The recording of Skylarking was a fraught affair, with stories of Andy Partridge and producer Todd Rundgren butting heads still surfacing decades after the fact. But in its original release it was one of the band’s richest sounding efforts, a semi-song cycle that had more than the average amount of Colin Moulding tracks, such as the saucy “Grass” and the perverse destruction of “Sacrificial Bonfire.” Yet it was the attention given to Partridge’s “Dear God,” a B-side turned into a reissued album track, that led to a new US breakthrough for the band.

Ned Raggett

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