Wall Of Sound
1997
Robyn Hitchcock
Uncorrected Personality Traits: The Robyn Hitchcock Collection
Label: Rhino
Genre: None
File Under: A Slice Of A Brilliant Career
Rating: 81
by Joe Feese
He's been called a musical practitioner of post-surrealism and post- Psychedelia; an imitator of original Pink Floyd frontman Syd Barrett; and at times, a quirky gratuitous weirdo. In truth, he's probably a bit of all of these. Yet Robyn Hitchcock is first and foremost an articulate songwriter with an eclectic sense of humor and a keen knack for the dreamy Pop hook.
Hitchcock began his somewhat convoluted career fronting the Cambridge, England-based Soft Boys and playing what he called "sedate hippie gibberish". After releasing the cheaply produced but highly acclaimed Underwater Moonlight, the band broke up and he pursued a solo career. Which is where this album comes in. Uncorrected Personality Traits is a collection of twenty tracks from nine Hitchcock albums, covering his post-Soft Boys/pre-A&M period, 1981 to 1985.
Compiling songs from his most prolific period, the album features fan-favorites such as the strangely psychedelic "The Man With The Lightbulb Head", with its rolling toms and submarine bass; "My Wife And My Dead Wife (Live Version)", a refreshingly silly love song ("I can't decide which one I love the most/The flesh and blood or the pale and smiling ghost"); "Beautiful Girl", an acoustic tribute to one of Hitchcock's heroes, John Lennon; and the album's brilliant title track, an a cappella song offering Hitchcock's waggish views on child-rearing.
Uncorrected Personality Traits also collects some of Hitchcock's best acoustic work, including the instrumental "Heart Full Of Leaves"; the wry "Queen Elvis II", with its odd sentiment, "People get what they deserve/Time is round and space is curved/Honey, have you got the nerve/To be Queen Elvis?"; and the Bob Dylanesque "Linctus House". As with any recording career that spans three decades, not all of the product is good. A couple of Hitchcock's lesser tunes show up on this collection -- "Fifty Two Stations" flops on its steady drum beat and clacking guitars -- and some of his best work came later in his A&M stint, when he put out Globe Of Frogs and Queen Elvis. But, all told, Uncorrected Personality Traits is an intelligent, masterful collection of tunes from a songwriter who never allowed his quirky personality to be "corrected" in any way. And for that we can be thankful.
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