Welcome to Ten For, a feature where I take a look at the discographies of artists who tend to be known in the mainstream for only a few songs (if that), offering up a collection of tracks that will either serve as the start of an education or a squabble, depending on how you feel about the artist’s catalog.
Today we’re starting a look into the work of Robyn Hitchcock, a British singer-songwriter who - in the interest of full disclosure - I first became fascinated with because he was so far outside of the top-40 radio I’d been listening to throughout the ‘80s that I was, like, “I don’t understand any of this…but, boy, I sure do want to!”
Like many Americans, my gateway drug into Robyn’s work was a little ditty from his 1988 album A Globe of Frogs called “Balloon Man,” which you can revisit below.
After I bought and absorbed A Globe of Frogs, I promptly dived headlong into my efforts to obtain every album he’d released up to that point, which proved to be a slightly expensive endeavor, owing to the fact that some of those albums weren’t exactly easy to come by. But I did it, by God, and now that you’ve had an opportunity to hear the song that made me a fan, allow me to offer up some of the tunes from those other albums that continued to cement my suspicion that he was consistently pretty goddamned delightful.
1. “The Man Who Invented Himself” (1981 - Black Snake Diamond Role)
2. “Love” (1981 - Black Snake Diamond Role)
3. “America” (1982 - Groovy Decay)
4. “How Do You Work This Thing” (1982 - Groovy Decay)
5. “Uncorrected Personality Traits” (1984 - I Often Dream of Trains)
6. “I Often Dream of Trains” (1984 - I Often Dream of Trains)
7. “Heaven” (1985 - Gotta Let This Hen Out)
8. “Goodnight I Say” (1985 - Fegmania!)
9. “If You Were a Priest” (1986 - Element of Light)
10. “Airscape” (1986 - Element of Light)
There you go: 10 tracks from Robyn’s work prior to “Balloon Man,” and let me just tell you that I could offer up another 10 favorites from that era without even blinking. This collection, however, offers a nice variety, giving you examples of the bouncy, the gloomy, and the downright bizarre songs that served to make me a diehard fan.
In closing, since I’ve been enjoying the opportunity to offer up bonus tracks along the way, here’s a fun one that you may not have heard: it’s a song that Robyn co-wrote with Captain Sensible for release on the latter’s 1983 album The Power of Love, and it’s about as catchy as anything Robyn’s ever released on his own LPs.
Ten For... ROBYN HITCHCOCK (Pt. 1)
Lest I forget to add this: the playlist for all the videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsZIzQQF2_E&list=PLFNc2JHGZc4_-spiAPGjsnLS0ASWTEAQN