| Romantic Depressive | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Don Dixon |
| Cover: | Romantic Depressive.jpg |
| Released: | 1995 |
| Label: | Sugar Hill |
| Producer: | Mark Williams, Don Dixon |
| Prev Title: | (If) I'm a Ham, Well You're a Sausage |
| Prev Year: | 1992 |
| Next Title: | The Invisible Man |
| Next Year: | 2000 |
Romantic Depressive is an album by the American musician Don Dixon, released in 1995 via Sugar Hill Records.[1] [2] The album was part of an attempt by Sugar Hill to expand its roster beyond a traditional acoustic style.[3] Dixon supported the album with a North American tour that included shows opening for Hootie & the Blowfish.[4] [5] Romantic Depressive was nominated for a NAIRD Indie Award.[6]
Produced by Mark Williams and Dixon, the songs were recorded over a period of four years.[7] [1] Dixon pulled from a pool of 30 songs.[8] He played most of the instruments. The first half of the album is about romantic relationships; Dixon considered turning Romantic Depressive into a kind of concept album.[1] "Lottery of Lives" is about the military draft.[1] "Good Golly Svengali" is an instrumental.[9] "25,000 Days" was cowritten by Marti Jones, Dixon's wife; Sugar Hill had originally wanted an album of Dixon-Jones duets.[10] Bland Simpson played piano on "I Should Know Better".
USA Today praised Dixon's "well-crafted songs and bluesy, Southern-soul rasp." The Santa Fe New Mexican called the album "a tuneful journey through the convolutions of a gently twisted sensibility," writing that "the real genius of these songs is how deceptively simple they seem."[11] The St. Louis Post-Dispatch determined that "Dixon once again fashions a sound that mixes the melodic qualities of Beatles-styled pop, the gritty groove of soul and a bit of country twang."[12] Stereo Review stated that "Dixon's subject matter is evenly divided between doleful reminiscences about love's labors and reflections on himself and the world from the vantage point of midlife."[13] The Charlotte Observer opined that "the songs are too laid-back."
AllMusic noted that "everything here sheds new light on old traditions ... the sound is dense without being muddy, snappy without being shallow." The Star-Gazette listed the album among the 10 best of 1995.[14] In 2008, the Pittsburgh City Paper deemed Romantic Depressive "old-school soul-pop."[15]