Scotts On Sound
1996
Moss Elixir (Warner Bros.)
by Scott H. and Scott B.
Scott H.:
Robyn Hitchcock has this great reputation as an underground cult hero, a seriously underrated songwriter who's never quite received the adulation he deserves. It's time to put that myth to rest.
Hitchcock is a clever entertainer who writes some pretty, Beatlesesque songs. But he's undone -- fatally -- by a tendency toward preciousness and a sad addiction to his own supposed cleverness.
Take his new Moss Elixir album. There are some pretty tunes on here. From the opening violin and guitar intertwinement on "Sinister But She Was Happy" to the simple statements on the closing "This Is How It Feels", it's clear this is a guy who knows his way around a sophisticated Pop song.
But in between there are way too many songs that are supposedly clever but are really just stupid (and we won't even talk about the idiotic short story in the liner notes). Take your pick, and chances are you come up with nonsense rhyme masquerading as clever metaphor: "The Devil's Radio", "Heliotrope", "Filthy Bird".
He's really just in love with his own strange wit -- count how many songs use the word "I", "me", or "my". There's no room here to try and share any emotion. He's just amusing himself like a comedian who laughs at his own jokes.
Scott B.:
"Where you find no wit, though, Hersey, I find plenty."
I know all too well of your aversion to anything clever, Hersey. How could I expect you to enjoy (or to even get) Hitchcock? The guy puts a gun to the head of the standard Pop-music fare you so readily embrace. This album, predominantly produced by Hitchcock himself, reveals the songwriter's oddball tunes in a relatively bare bones acoustic studio setting, though some intriguing instrumentation does find its way onto tracks. (Most conspicuous are the fetching violin parts by Deni Bonet on a handful of songs.)
Where you find no wit, though, Hersey, I find plenty. "Heliotrope", an acoustic guitar ode to a shrub who "worships the sun", is one of a few coy drug references on this album. On "Sinister But She Was Happy", Hitchcock compares his hand-waving heroine to a "chandelier festooned with leeches". You don't get images like that from your boys J.J. Cale or Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Hersey.
There are also more approachable songs -- like "Speed of Things" and "This Is How It Feels" -- which continue in the more conventional Pop direction Hitchcock took on Perspex Island with songs like "So You Think You're In Love". On the disappointing side, I was let down by "Man With A Woman's Shadow", the song co-produced by Beat Happening's Calvin Johnson. I guess I just expected more from this inventive tag-team.
Scott H.:
At least songwriters like Cale and Gilmore present themselves plain and unadorned -- unlike the arty, poseur types you so clearly revere. But what more should I expect from a guy who gives a positive review to an album produced by Julian Schnabel?
It's easy to see why you'd like this album: Hitchcock is coy, pretentious and thinks he's smarter than everyone else. Hmmm...sounds like someone else I know.
Scott B.:
"Hitchcock is coy, pretentious and thinks he's smarter than everyone else."
Plain and unadorned songs rely on the speaker having something to say and a listener being able to follow it. That's why Hitchcock is able to pull off a simply recorded album like Moss Elixir while a drone like Cale can't. And it's why you can't appreciate it, Hersey.
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