Daily Illini
February 26, 1993
Robyn Hitchcock And The Egyptians
Respect
by Jordan Dziura
Robyn has been putting out albums for a long time now. And it's beginning
to show.
Like most maturing artists, he has become more slick, more accessible, and more predictable. Sure, his music is still very fun to listen to. As far as musicians go, he is still one of the finest. And he still writes some extremely silly stories and lyrics. But still...
The problem with someone as staid and prolific as Robyn Hitchcock is lack of surprise. Respect is everything I imagined it would be and less. Which, while not necessarily making me detest Robyn et al., does little to further my belief that he should receive musical sainthood.
The true test of a brilliant artist is his/her ability to produce simple, straightforward work; present it in a simple, straightforward manner; and have it sound spectacular. Listen to Hitchcock's acoustic masterpiece, Eye, and then watch Poison's MTV Unplugged show as proof of my theory.
Any genius that exists in Respect is hidden in the excessively dense
recording and unnecessary instrumentation and effects. The track, "When I Was Dead", sounds like a bastardized "Baby, You're A Rich Man" with its warbling reeds and jumbled cacophony.
A photograph in the CD insert shows Robyn, Andy Metcalfe, and Morris Windsor
jamming acoustically. But from the opening Psycho-like strains of "The Yip Song", it is painfully obvious that too much effort went into making this a studio album. Robyn's guitar playing is allowed to shine only on a few tracks, most notably, "Railway Shoes".
And Robyn's lyric sheets have started to read like Mad Libs. The words "Cynthia", "melon", "grin", "mask", and "flesh" are inserted here and there, making what I once considered clever poetry seem tired and repetitive at
times. Even Dr. Seuss can get old.
There are still, however, some shining moments of Hitchcock genius -- both lyrically and musically -- spotted throughout the album. By no means does Respect suffer from lack of inspiration like its predecessor, Perspex
Island.
Respect wanders and searches for itself from beginning to end, which is probably the way Hitchcock feels at the moment. He is poised on the edge of being accepted by the mainstream, but his old fans still expect a certain amount of simplicity and oddity from him. By staying in this precarious position, he will continue to produce albums of only average quality.
You can probably guess which way I want him to fall.
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