XTC - Skylarking (1986)

It's the 80s! Let's do a lot of coke and vote for Ronald Reagan!

Sorry, I needed something to get me in the mood to listen to an 80s album. "Summer's Cauldron" leads off and I suddenly realize I can't tell the difference between a real melodica and a synthesized one. Not that it matters. "Summer's Cauldron" is a good tune. It helps a lot that the drums and piano aren't washed out like I would expect an 80s song to do. There's still a large amount of synthetic swirling noise over the entire song, but I guess it's not XTC's fault that they were an 80s band, so I can forgive some of that as long as the songs are decent.

Skylarking is better than most 80s albums I've listened to because XTC is shooting less for the emo depressing shtick than most 80s bands. They're more like Talking Heads, though much sillier than the Talking Heads I know. "1001 Umbrellas" features a heavy theatrical and baroque influence. I wish I had heard a version of XTC that existed in 1967 that had to play these songs on a melotron instead of their shitty 80s synthesizers. These guys definitely have some song writing chops, but their production is bogged down by 80s digital sounds. The opening guitar crash for "Earn Enough for Us" sounds a lot like how The Who opens their big rockers. Too bad XTC isn't The Who. They also kinda remind me of Yes, particularly during the opening measures of "Mermaid Smiled", though not quite as Canadian. And by that I mean this band is very very very very British.

I think I kinda liked Skylarking. It was varied enough and had lots of neat ideas. It was a bit to 80s for me to really like, but kinda is better than nothing. 3 stars.

Aside: I read on the album's wiki page that when the album went for remastering the band noticed a major error with the original master tapes. Apparently the polarity of the recordings was reversed resulting in sounds that were supposed to puch the speakers out actually pulling the speakers in. I guess this means the original version of the album sounds hollow and thin. I tried to listen to the original version of the album, and also found a version that said it was a "corrected polarity" version. I couldn't really tell the difference. It was still interesting though.