Robyn Hitchcock's second album Groovy Decay is a classic example of Things Going Wrong. It has a few decent songs ("America", "52 Stations", "St. Petersberg"), but a bunch of listless ones, and the whole thing is dragged down by Steve Hillage's percussion and horn heavy production, which sounds more suitable for Kid Creole & the Coconuts than Robyn Hitchcock.
By the time I became a Robyn Hitchcock fan a few years later, he'd already disowned the album, and reissued an alternate-reality version called Groovy Decoy, which was re-sequenced with demo versions of a few of the songs. These versions were later combined into a consolidated CD called Gravy Deco, which Yep Roc put out in 2007 as a digital download only. Bad album! No hard copy for you!
I stayed away from this album for the longest time, then picked up a used copy of Groovy Decoy in the disposable audio cassette format. I knew two of the songs from Gotta Let This Hen Out!, but couldn't really get a groove on the rest of the songs. I never picked up the album on CD, but grabbed the digital download from emusic a while back, and it gave me a headache. Since Robyn doesn't like this album, some part of me wants to be contrarian and say that I like it, but I really don't. The "disco version" of "Nightride to Trinidad" is particularly onerous The words "disco version" should not be listed in the same area code as a Robyn Hitchcock record!
The one good thing about GD is that Robyn's frustration with its recording process was the impetus for I Often Dream Of Trains, earning it a small place in the Robyn Hitchcock circle of life. Otherwise, it's for RH completists and disco fans only.
3 comments:
I can't disagree with anyone's complaints about GD and I really don't like the album either, but it does feature one of my all time favorite Hitchcock songs -- a total lost gem -- "When I Was A Kid". Amazing, amazing song -- can't live without it!
I think this album mostly suffers from poor production. There are some good songs here that would have been a lot better if they weren't squeezed through some early 80's craptastic studio.
Still I have great fondness for Cars She Used To Drive, It Was The Night, Night Ride To Trinidad, 52 Stations, Grooving On An Inner Plane (what are they yelling at the end?), and When I Was A Kid.
Somebody should do these songs justice sometime. I could try. But I'd fail.
Thanks for the Hitchcock series. Keep it up.
The chant at the end of "Grooving" is "Wang Bo, Wang Bo, Wang Bo", which I believe is a shout-out to original Soft Boys guitarist Alan "Wang Bo" Davies.
"When I Was a Kid" is a good song, but I prefer the Soft Boys version off Invisible Hits.
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