Skylarking (Remastered)by XTC

I consider myself to pretty much be a metalhead at heart, I am of the opinion that XTC's 'Skylarking' is the greatest album ever made. Seriously! I wasn't very interested in the album at first, but when I listened to it by myself, that really changed things for me. Listening to this album became a nightly ritual for me before I fell asleep. Even though I wasn't going through the best period of my life when I fell in love with this album, it made me, in a subtle way, much happier than I had been prior. There are tons of cool things about 'Skylarking'. One of them is how season-oriented that it is. Some of the songs do have a nature theme to them, but as a whole, it really makes you associate whatever season that you first heard the album in with it (which, for me, is autumn). The songs are sorta quirky, and the lyrics aren't necessarily easy to relate to, but taken as a whole (again), it may actually represent one's own train of thought. That said, this album is also one of the few albums that I've heard that really creates a world around you. I usually don't get that kind of thins, but it totally works for this album. 'Skylarking' does not get nearly enough of the respect that it deserves. While loved by most fans and critics alike, it was mostly ignored by the mainstream upon its original 1986 release (although "Dear God" was a minor hit). If you are an alternative fan, or a fan of '60s pop/rock like the Beatles and the Beach Boys (this album is actually pretty psychedelic at times), and you haven't heard this album, you are seriously missing out.