Beck+Scientology=suck and XTC+Skylarking= yeahy happy

Yeah I'm on a role here. I seriouslly am just going to continue to write posts about things I think are important in music. I doubt there's many people reading these so...here you go Mike this is about XTC a really great band and their magnum opus Skylarking. This is also about album construction and Beck being an idiot scientologist.

Ok so if I haven't made it known yet, I love the album as a format. I gues what this means to me is that when a band or artist or monster under the bed puts out a cd I really wanna hear a whole product. Not just one song then the next with no connection or flowing theme. This doesn't mean all the songs have to continually work into one another. Just that they should have the same sort of feel and emotion behind them. An album should be a snapshot of the artist during the time they made it. A sure sign once great artist have fallen apart is when they force music to come out and their albums sort of start sounding confusing...I'm looking at you Beck (i get it your a crazy scientologist that's no excuse for the last three albums you've put out....Modern Guilt, yeah i liked it better when it was called mutations and it didn't suck and also...cut your hair)

Ok so at some point I'm gonna mention XTC. XTC is this great british band. I got into themonly after they'd broken up and gotten back together. They had one of those rare comeback albums that was both high quality and not a retread on their old material....It was called Apple Venus vol 1....if you check the band out check out bothe these albums their both stellar stuff. Anyway XTC are one of those hidden gems we probablly would have all been into if we were born a decade earlier and in England....there's a lot of those.

So yeah Skylarking is an excellent example of an album that's got a theme and organised sound to it. The sort of all around theme is nature and the freedom of running about in the english country side...you should all try it one day....There's birds chirping, songs about rolling in the grass and even in the downer songs the melodies keep the feel light and upbeat. Todd Rudgren produced this album, look him up he's important, and he reallt pulled XTC out of their new wave tendencies and moved them into more melodic and organic sounds.

One of my favorite things is how the two writers (Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding) hit on so many varied topics. On the same album you've got songs about making love in the countryside, providing for a new family, getting married and children asking god if these there and if he is when he's going to save him. It's the melodies and pop arangements that keep everything together. Rudgren said he struggled a long time in trying to order and arange the songs on the album so that they would sound more coehsive. Like making a mixtape that's a real mix tape and not just songs thrown together. In fact when I originally bought this album I thought it was a best of collection of their early work. It wasn't until I looked at the liner notes did i realise it was a single album.

So yeah XTC's Skylarking is a great example of an album that the band worked to combine theme, melody, tone and song placement to create a full album.You should check it out at your local library...or no, just go download it on Itunes.Or buy the actual cd...if people do that still...losers. But make sure you get the version with Dear God on it. It's the best song on the album and was originally a bside. But strangely enough a song about god with a child talking through half of it was a huge hit in england. So they took out one song and put on Dear God.I know those people are wierd right.Or you could be totally cool like me and get the album and the extra song.I am awesome...

EDIT BY MIKE:
Skylarking