Robyn Hitchcock

Since the late ‘70s, Robyn Hitchcock has attained cult-hero status by filtering classic English pop songcraft through his own exuberantly surrealist sensibility. Born in London in 1953, he launched his musical career with post-punky jangle-pop outfit The Soft Boys, releasing the influential Underwater Moonlight in 1980 before breaking up. He made his solo debut with 1981’s folk-rock LP Black Snake Diamond Role, followed by a relentlessly creative stream of eclectic, genre-subverting albums on which he sings about trains and cheese and lost love with equal sincerity. With backing band The Egyptians, he found college-rock success in 1988 with the gleefully oddball “Balloon Man” and 1989’s near-lovesong “Madonna of the Wasps.” Constantly unveiling new chapters in his enduring career, he reunited with The Soft Boys for 2002’s Nextdoorland, released a pair of albums with The Venus 3, which includes members of R.E.M. and The Minus 5, had bit parts in two Jonathan Demme films, published a book in 2021, and released the delightful Shufflemania in 2022.