Todd Rundgren talks about the infamous recording sessions for XTC's Skylarking

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Originally published at: Todd Rundgren talks about the infamous recording sessions for XTC's Skylarking | Boing Boing

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Such a great album, alongside Oranges and Lemons as one of my favourite pure pop indulgences.

Earn enough for us will always take me to a happy place.

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XTC is one of my top 5 favorite bands. I love everything they’re ever done. I have heard both sides of this story multiple times, and I honestly I don’t care which one is true. The end result is absolute perfection.

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Pre-Rundgren:

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Collaboration: Could be heaven, could be hell in a cell for two.

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Not the worst producer/band conflict ever recorded, by any means. I’m rather sad that I never got to see XTC live, despite the band coming from Swindon, fifteen miles from where I live.
Apple Venus is my personal favourite of theirs, an album I just keep going back to.

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I generally list it as my favorite rock album of all time, and get a lot of looks of “what?” from folks when I do. It’s great to see it getting so much more love than I remember. And it’s one of those lovely albums that I find I really just have to listen to the whole thing straight through to appreciate it, it’s perfect the order it was originally set in.

Oh yeah, Rundgren is right, that’s objectively worse in every way.

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Andy is a friend of a friend, so I’ve heard the other side secondhand (rather than from cut-and-paste articles in classic rock mags). And it’s very revealing that Todd – whom I admire, AWATS is one of my top 5 favourite albums of all time – mentions Andy only in negative terms (stage fright, leaving for England, shit-talking the album before release), doesn’t mention Colin at all, and reserves all his praise for Dave.
The story I heard was that Todd kept constantly criticising Andy’s vocal delivery, going so far as to step into the studio and record Andy’s vocal parts himself to show him how it’s done. No doubting Todd’s skills as a producer, but if that’s true, his management style sucks.

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