XTC
Skylarking
How Andy Partridge & Co. created a stripped-down masterpiece, despite butting heads with their big-name producer
BY ANDREW DALY
GIE KNAEPS/GETTY IMAGES
XTC’S 1986 ALBUM, Skylarking, is fairly beloved today, but for Andy Partridge, the British band's co-founder, chief songwriter and guitarist, it was difficult to make. The main issue? Partridge's disagreement with producer Todd Rundgren over the record’s direction.
“Going in, there was weirdness in terms of having to shut up and obey,” Partridge says. “I’m certainly not used to that.”
Skylarking was recorded at Rundgren’s Utopia Sound Studios in Woodstock, New York, where the atmosphere, combined with Rundgren’s arguably unorthodox style, apparently proved somewhat oppressive.
“There was an almost macho climbing over you [in order] to break you,” Partridge says. “And I know why he wanted to break you. He wanted to move on quickly to the next project. That’s all there was to it. It was a money-making machine that wouldn’t make so much money if you took more time to get things right.”
Despite this, on the strength of the polarizing track “Dear God,” Skylarking launched XTC into the mainstream musical orbit in the U.S.
“What can I say? It was a difficult birth, but the baby came out okay,” Partridge says. “It’s a miracle baby. It captured us and our musical interests pretty well at a time when our songwriting and the band were on a new career trajectory.”