thin ... There was no bass on it, no high tops, and the middle sounded muddy." Gregory similarly recalled that it was badly recorded. Decades later, it was discovered that the album's master tapes were engineered with an improper sound polarity. Mastering engineer John Dent, who discovered the flaw in 2010, attributed it to a wiring error between the multitrack recording and stereo mixing machines, which would not have been aurally evident until after the tapes left Rundgren's studio. Dent was able to correct the issue, and his master was released by Partridge's APE House label exclusively on vinyl that same year. Rundgren commented: "I think it's total bullshit. But if such a thing existed, it's because they changed the running order on it and had to remaster it – which I had nothing to do with." The master with corrected polarity was eventually issued on CD as well. Retrospective reviews and legacy Upon release Skylarking received universal acclaim and is now considered one of the greatest rock albums of all time. Skylarking became XTC's best-known album and generally regarded as their finest work. Dave Gregory recalled that two years after its release, he learned that XTC's recent work was "hugely influential" in the US. Music journalist Michael Azerrad wrote that with Skylarking, the band had become "deans of a group of artists who make what can only be described as unpopular pop music, placing a high premium on melody and solid if idiosyncratic songcraft." Mojos Ian Harrison wrote that regardless of the "businesslike-to-hostile rather than chummy" relationship between Rundgren and the band, "the results were sublime". PopMatterss Patrick Schabe cited it as the album where XTC "blossomed into full maturity", while Uncuts Joe Stannard called it "the album that tied up everything great about Swindon's finest into one big beautiful package of perfect pop". Moulding said of the album: "Perhaps it lacked the polish of some of the other recordings we had made, but it was the character that was sewn into the record which was its strength. ... Positively naive at times." Gregory called the finished product "probably my favourite XTC album", expressing appreciation of how Rundgren handled the songs. In a promotional insert included with their album Nonsuch (1992), Partridge wrote "Musician and producer Todd Rundgren squeezed the XTC clay into its most complete/connected/cyclical record ever. Not an easy album to make for various ego reasons but