Robyn's debut album, Robyn Is Here, isn't particularly deep, but it is well-executed Eurotrash dance-pop. The Swedish teenager has an appealingly thin voice, and her producers and songwriters have a knack for crafting hooky dance-pop that sounds as if it was made in 1990, not 1997. Half of the album rides by on mediocre songs and first-rate ...
The slight failure of Robyn Hitchcock's Jewels for Sophia is by no means the fault of his songs -- they are as tuneful and ridiculous as ever. But after his close to the bone Moss Elixir, Hitchcock's regressed into goofiness, hiding behind a noisy band on some tracks. Compadre Tim Keegan on guitar and producers Jon Brion and Pat Collier come up ...
Robyn Hitchcock's first foray into U.S. major-label territory disappointed some critics but helped expand his audience beyond the realm of college radio, thanks to the radio-friendly "Balloon Man." Aided by his band the Egyptians, it's the production that mars this record, along with half of the songs. "Sleeping With Your Devil Mask," "Chinese ...
Robyn Hitchcock has covered a multitude of artists throughout his career, wowing concert audiences with his ability to spontaneously recall obscure songs and a penchant for making such numbers seem like his own. While his voice and songcraft have usually led to quick comparisons with Syd Barrett and the Beatles, his surreal lyrics and acoustic ...
Six years after his superb I Often Dream of Trains, Robyn Hitchcock returned to the acoustic format of that album with Eye, and while the surfaces of the two albums are similar and Eye was eagerly embraced by fans, the tone of the two discs is considerably different. I Often Dream of Trains was a collection of songs written as Hitchcock was slowly ...
1999's More Oar pays tribute to one of psychedelia's brightest lights, Skip Spence. His 1969 album Oar is a psych-folk classic, as well as a collector's item, ranking as one of Columbia's lowest-selling albums when it was originally released. This tribute marks the 30th anniversary of Oar's release and features performances from Spence fans as ...
Released in 1991, Rhino's MTV: Best of 120 Minutes is one of the last snapshots of college rock/alternative music just before grunge dominated, inflated, and ultimately burnt out the genre. The Red Hot Chili Peppers' version of "Higher Ground" is probably the album's hardest-rocking track -- though Sonic Youth's classic "Kool Thing" comes close -- ...
In 2004, Robyn Hitchcock's loose and folky Spooked saw the insect- and crustacean-loving eccentric enlisting the unlikely help of NPR darlings David Rawlings and Gillian Welch. This time around he's backed by "3/4s of the Minus 5 and half of R.E.M." (Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey, and Bill Rieflin) as well as ex-Soft Boys Kimberley Rew and Morris ...
Robyn Hitchcock's large armory of material is tailor-made for the reissue circuit -- his entire post-Soft Boys, pre-A&M output was remastered and re-released in the early '90s by Rhino with bonus cuts and extended liner notes for ingestion by the newly enlightened college radio demographic -- so it comes as no surprise that amidst a career ...
Many of Robyn Hitchcock's fans were less than enchanted with his 1991 album Perspex Island, with the glossy production usually cited as its crippling flaw, but the disc's real problem was that the surface sheen tended to emphasize the fact that the songs weren't up to Hitchcock's usual standards. Thankfully, Hitchcock's next set, 1993's Respect, ...
As the reference to the Soft Boys' rarities collection, Invisible Hits, suggests, Invisible Hitchcock gathers together a selection of obscurities and non-album tracks Robyn Hitchcock recorded between 1980 and 1986. Granted, the material is a bit uneven, but the album holds together well, as it emphasizes Hitchcock's gift for warped wordplay and ...
Far's second album, Water and Solutions, finds the Sacramento-based alternative metal band coming into their own, creating a distinctive fusion of the sober, grinding guitars of Helmet and Tool. Occasionally, vocalist Jonah Sonz Matranga oversings, and the band often concentrates on sonics at the expense of songs, but the best moments of Water and ...
One could argue that one of the reasons the Soft Boys' music still sounds so fresh today was in 1980 they managed to be ahead of the times and behind the times all at once. While their sharp intelligence, wiry melodies, veddy sophisticated wit, and cool yet powerful twin-guitar attack anticipated post-punk and indie rock by several years ...
Far's second album, Water & Solutions, finds the Sacramento-based alternative metal band coming into their own, creating a distinctive fusion of the sober, grinding guitars of Helmet and Tool. Occasionally, vocalist Jonah Sonz Matranga oversings, and the band often concentrates on sonics at the expense of songs, but the best moments of Water & ...
Disappointingly, the 1980s failed to recognize the genius of Robyn Hitchcock. As a member of the Soft Boys until they broke up in 1981, Hitchcock went on to write some extremely witty, off-the-wall, and peculiarly clever music. With a sound reminiscent of Lloyd Cole and even Elvis Costello at times, Hitchcock's jangly Brit-pop is made up of sharp ...
If pop music history teaches us anything, it's that reunions of once-great bands are a dicey prospect at best, and for every act like The Buzzcocks who were able to come back at full strength, there are two or three that never should have bothered, for their own good as well as ours (Jefferson Airplane, The Sonics, The Misfits, Crosby, Stills, ...
It seems the "unplugged" trend of the '90s was only a surprise to either fans of Bon Jovi or those who hadn't been paying attention for 35 years, for acoustic music had been a hallmark of rock and its cousins for quite some time by that point. This second volume in the Best of Mountain Stage Live series focuses on both country and alternative ...
Benefiting the T.J. Martell Foundation (which helps fund the fights against cancer, AIDS, and leukemia), Loaded With Hits is a two-disc collection of late-'90s pop/rock, ranging from dance-pop to urban R&B (and a bit of hip-hop) to adult/mainstream alternative rock. Present are the original versions of hits by artists like Mariah Carey, Christina ...
Northern State's Hesta Prynn boasts "I'm timeless, I write when I rhyme this" on the title track to her group's debut album, and such a call is right on. The ladies of Northern State deliver funky breaks and tight grooves on Dying in Stereo, and keep the hip-hop flavor without being vulgar and crass. Prynn, DJ Sprout, and Guinea Love formulate ...
Club Mix '99 cycles through over 20 of the biggest pop and club hits of 1997-98, including "Walkin' on the Sun" by Smash Mouth, "Thank God It's Friday" by R. Kelly, "Everybody" by the Backstreet Boys, "Rain" by SWV and "Legend of a Cowgirl" by Imani Coppola, among others. ~ Keith Farley, All Music Guide
On Hitchcock's last U.S. tour, he played Hendrix's "The Wind Cries Mary" as well as "Are You Experienced," sometimes within the same set. It's the kind of act that defines his performing genius as a whimsical iconoclast; but then Hitchcock once performed most of Dylan's "Royal Albert Hall" concert, so such live acts of devotion shouldn't come as ...
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