Indeed, Todd may be god, but he's a tin-eared god at best. All of the Utopia LPs are simply terrible recordings. My personal favorite is 'Adventures in Utopia' which is a fantastic bunch of tunes rendered nearly unlistenable by the screechy sound quality. As far as XTC's Skylarking is concerned, the recent 45 RPM remaster by Andy Partridge really brought this Rundgren hatchet job to life for me, fixing much of the terrible mastering EQ.
Favorite poorly-recorded albums
I'm listening to Candy Apple Grey by Husker Du right now. Great album; sounds like it was recorded at the bottom of a well. Pretty typical for Husker Du. I read somewhere that it was intentional.
Do you have albums that you keep coming back to despite poor recording quality?
Do you have albums that you keep coming back to despite poor recording quality?