# Todd Rundgren, Woodstock, and 1980s psychedelia: 40 years of XTC’s masterpiece, ‘Skylarking’

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/todd-rundgren-woodstock-and-1980s-psychedelia-40-years-of-xtcs-masterpiece-skylarking/
- Published: 2026-10-27T04:00:00+00:00
- Updated: 2026-10-27T04:49:24+00:00
- Original publisher: Far Out
- Original article: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/todd-rundgren-woodstock-psychedelia-xtc-skylarking/
- Topics: Business, Markets

## Key points

- XTC’s *Skylarking* turns 40 as a celebrated but once overlooked album.
- Recording in Woodstock brought creative clashes between Andy Partridge and Todd Rundgren.
- A disputed mixing issue was corrected in a 2010 reissue.

## Summary

XTC’s 1986 album *Skylarking* blended psychedelic 1960s influences with the band’s adventurous pop, but it failed to reach a wide audience at the time. Its story matters because an album now regarded as a landmark was shaped by creative conflict, label tensions and a possible technical flaw in its original mix.

The band recorded in Woodstock with producer Todd Rundgren, whose disagreements with songwriter Andy Partridge made the sessions combative. The album found more support on college radio than in the mainstream, and a sound polarity problem was identified decades later, though Rundgren disputed the claim. A corrected reissue appeared in 2010; forty years after its release, the album is more widely acclaimed.

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