In the autumn of 1982, the English band Bauhaus released The Sky's Gone Out, their third studio album. It arrived on Beggars Banquet on 19 October, after a summer single that had already stirred up trouble. The record followed Mask from 1981 and came before Burning from the Inside, which appeared in 1983. It was recorded not only at Rockfield, but also at Beck Studios in Wellingborough and at BBC Maida Vale in London.
The Spirit single and Hugh Jones
That single was Spirit, released in July. It reached number 42 on the chart and stayed there for five weeks. But the real story was off the charts. Hugh Jones produced the single, which was unusual for a band that normally produced itself.
David Jay, the bassist, said there was a lot of agony, more on the producer's side than the band's. Bauhaus had wanted to produce their third album alone, but in the studio the arguments about creative direction started again. The four members realised they needed an objective ear.
David Jay, the bassist, said there was a lot of agony, more on the producer's side than the band's.
Derek Tompkins takes the desk
So they hired Derek Tompkins, their live sound engineer, to produce The Sky's Gone Out. Tompkins agreed on one condition: the staff engineer would handle the engineering, while he would interpret the group's wishes and help with the creative side. Bauhaus booked Rockfield Studios in Wales for a month.
Most of the album was created through experiments and made up on the spot. The sessions were productive, but clashes between the band and the engineer kept flaring up, and Tompkins often stepped in as the middleman. The album's genre is gothic rock with elements of experimental music, and the group pushed further: ballads, disco, ska and reggae all appear. Tompkins admitted that he did not understand the music and lyrics, but he kept asking the group what each song was about so he could capture the right mood. The lyrics themselves became more personal and less focused on the taboos and unsettling themes the band had explored before. NME described the music as Peter Murphy sounding like David Bowie imitating Jacques Brel reciting a Lautréamont pastiche over early Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Snoring, congas and a Brian Eno cover
Tompkins ended up doing more than mediating. He performed the snoring on Exquisite Corpse and the speech at its end. The band also recorded a cover of Brian Eno's Third Uncle, with drummer Kevin Haskins adding congas. The album is a compact but restless collection.
The Sky's Gone Out became Bauhaus's most successful album, climbing to number 3 in the UK Albums Chart. In the UK it earned a silver certification for 60,000 copies sold. The first limited edition even included a bonus live album, Press the Eject and Give Me the Tape. The album also reached number 26 in New Zealand. The Canadian edition came with a free 12-inch single featuring Ziggy Stardust, Kick in the Eye and Lagartija Nick, and it used a different cover: a white field with the album title and the band's logo in the upper right corner.
In a retrospective review for AllMusic, Ned Raggett wrote that the album is generally good, but unlike Mask it lacks a surge of positive energy and does not hold together perfectly, standing out more through individual songs than as a whole. In 2001 Alternative Press named The Sky's Gone Out one of the ten best gothic albums.