Philadelphia City Paper
August 19, 1999
Robyn Hitchcock
Jewels For Sophia
(Warner Bros.)
by Michael Pelusi
In the wake of Barenaked Ladies' chart success, smart Pop risks devolved into bad puns and pseudo-intellectual artifice -- clever for clever's sake -- giving the whole genre a bad name. It's a pity, really; someone like quintessential English eccentric Robyn Hitchcock, whose bizarre-yet-somehow-meaningful sensibility has engaged his rabid cult audience since his days as a Soft Boy in the mid-'70s, can draw you into a weirdly private world with gifts of gab and melody. There're plenty of yuks on Jewels For Sophia, like the Highway 61 Dada-Rockabilly of songs like the Seattle tribute "Viva Sea-Tac" ("They got the best computers and coffee and smack"). But Hitchcock's not all quirks. There's also an offbeat-but-heartfelt love song called "I Feel Beautiful". And you can sample Hitchcock's insect-sex leitmotif on "NASA Clapping" and "Antwoman". But it's the ballads, "You've Got a Sweet Mouth on You, Baby" and "Dark Princess", where he spins his coitus-and-death obsession into brainiac slow jams, that represent the soul of the album. So much so that when the two hidden closing tracks (one apparently titled "Gene Hackman") flaunt pure Hitchcockian whimsy, they come as added, knowing bonuses, as if Hitch is gently mocking his own freak rep.
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