Julian Cope

Julian Cope, the former singer of the Teardrop Explodes, was the protagonist of one of the most brilliant and unruly careers in rock music.

World Shut Your Mouth (Mercury, 1984), his first solo album, only hinted at the personality of an eclectic, dreamy bard, capable of delivering emphatic melodies within the realm of psychedelic rock. This poetic work, drawing from the acid rock of his old band, was imbued with kitsch melodies and arrangements, Doors-style grandiosity and melodrama, and Latin and gypsy flavors, crafting in this way a breathtaking sequence of danceable, formally impeccable, and highly emotionally engaging choruses, in the proudest psychedelic tradition. In the sweeping melodic progressions of songs like Bandy's First Jump, three decades of pop vocal harmonies are sublimated. Solemn and distorted ballads like Strasbourg intersect the Velvet Underground’s trenody, the Stooges’ perverse boogies, and the Doors’ dreamlike atmospheres. In litanies such as Lunatic And Fire, Cope borrows his tragic crooning from rhythm and blues shouts, music hall declamations, and Anglican choral hymns.
The album finds, above all, a miraculous balance among three seemingly irreconcilable elements: a light melodicism worthy of Tin Pan Alley, majestic cadences reminiscent of sacred ceremonies, and highly effective electronic arrangements. The keyboards are, in fact, the album’s second voice, ranging from small chamber cacophonies to stretched psychedelic phrases, from majestic church chords to hammering boogies. This gives rise to the moving elegy of An Elegant Chaos, flowing fluidly and ethereally over celestial interlocking keyboard runs, and the epic crescendoing chorus of Quizmaster, plunging headlong into spirals of hard riffs and liturgical chanting.
But Cope is also, and perhaps above all, a skilled manipulator of rhythms: the martial raga of Kolly Kibber's Birthday is transfigured into a hammering guitar cadence, cut by tragic keyboard trills, while a synthetic rhythm bombards in the background with its syncopations. The chameleonic vaudeville of Metranil Vavin (with traces of the Kinks and Zappa), the pyrotechnic epileptic frenzy of Sunshine Playroom (with a symphonic interlude), and the wild serenade of Greatness And Perfection (with a frantic Western-film twang) are artificially constructed gags, turning an otherwise harmless children’s rhyme into absurdity.

Perhaps under the spell of Syd Barrett’s myth, Cope almost immediately abandoned that superb melodicism to take refuge in the twilight mood of Fried (Mercury, 1984), oscillating between lysergic atmospheres (Laughing Boy, Torpedo) and pastoral ones (Bill Drummond Said, Search Party). The best moments are those that recycle his spectacular tricks of violent rhythms, distorted guitars, spacey organs, and hypnotic melodies (Reynard The Fox and Holy Love). His mental imbalance benefits him and hinders him simultaneously in the quirkiest numbers, which might recall the music hall antics of the Bonzo Dog Band (O King Of Chaos, Sunspots, Bloody Assizes).

Saint Julian (Island, 1987) returned to the fresh melodicism of Cope’s early work, particularly with the singles Trampolene and World Shut Your Mouth, but the sound was nervous and agitated, influenced by heavy metal production styles (Shot Down, Spacehopper), hip hop (Planet Ride), and world music (the ska of Eve's Volcano), far from the enchanted atmospheres of his first album—even in the more melodic ballads (Saint Julian), the most eccentric rhythms (Pulsar), and the psychedelic textures (A Crack In The Clouds).

With these albums, Cope effectively managed to fuse his innate penchant for sumptuous pop with the neuroses of a hardcore heroin addict.

Accompanied by his trusted collaborators Donald Ross Skinner (keyboards) and Roosert Cosby (percussion), Cope then dived into the extroverted sound of My Nation Underground (Island, 1988). The album opens with 5 O'Clock, an overture worthy of the most comedic and orchestral Frank Zappa, but with a chorus fit for Petula Clark. Equally driving and catchy is the ska of The Great White Hoax, while combustible power pop (Someone Like Me) and garage rock (Easter Everywhere) propel the other melodies.
The title track is one of his arranging masterpieces, capable of recycling and layering a Caribbean dance rhythm, orchestrated disco breaks, a magniloquent Broadway-style chorus, blazing blues harmonica solos, and voodoo tribalism. Even the most overtly commercial tracks retain their dignity: the synthesizer on Charlotte Anne mimics the flute of a medieval saltarello, and the slow tempo of China Doll creatively revisits 1950s crooning. A disjointed and inconsistent album, it finds neither a coherent narrative nor the illumination of a clear vision.

Always unpredictable and uneven, Cope then allowed himself a break with a collection of acoustic folk, Skellington (Zippo, 1989). A few months later, he also released an experimental album under a pseudonym, Droolian (MoFoCo, 1990).

His restless and eternally dissatisfied personality reached a temporary peak with the double album Peggy Suicide (Island, 1991), a collection of protest songs, an ambitious concept that serves both as a global report on the ills of the century and as a metaphor for the physical and moral decay of the planet.
Cope is determined in his “je accuse” but no less hallucinatory than usual: Pristeen immerses him in the most fairy-tale-like climates of the Velvet Underground, with electric piano standing in for viola; Jim Morrison could have sung the dark organ ballad of Drive She Said; and it is unclear how many doses of heroin it would take to bring Neil Young’s guitar neurosis to the levels of the long Safesurfer. Cope is not afraid to pay homage to trendy sounds, from the “Madchester sound” (East Easy Rider) with a desolate bluesman tenor, to the retro boogie of the Cult (Double Vegetation and Hanging Out And Hung Up On The Line) with the epic flair of a Warren Zevon. There is even a dance track, Beautiful Love, a cross between country and calypso complete with a trumpet fanfare. Finally coherent and solid, this album consecrates Cope as an agitated, apocalyptic storyteller.

As a testament to the state of grace the musician was experiencing, Jehovahkill (Island, 1992) is another monumental album. The work is perhaps overly conceptual, weighed down with symbolism to the point of seeming like a medieval treatise. Cope’s apocalyptic mood becomes the hallucinatory cry of a prophet in the desert, or simply the delirium of a madman in his asylum cell. The song arrangements seem almost random, improvised on the spot, just to play something. The harmonies are more free-form than rational, more instinctive than carefully composed. Soul Desert, Upwards At 45 Degrees, and the long The Tower express a metaphysical confrontation with the supernatural that is the destiny of all symbolist poets, yet their structures open twice as many doors as they close (see the driving hard rock riff played on acoustic guitar in the first, the almost solitary cry lasting three minutes in the second, and the cauldron of pathos in the third).
Cope ends up parodying himself when he sings the dark parable of No Hard Shoulder To Cry On in the epic tenor register, accompanied almost comically by synthesizer, guitar, and vocal effects; or when in Akhenaten a fairy-tale vision is counterpointed by a saxophone fanfare and horror electronics; or when he clownishly performs the nursery-rhyme-like Fa-Fa-Fa-Fine. It seems as if he is mocking his own depression.
In the end, the music itself seems to matter little. It hardly matters that the two instrumentals (Necropolis, halfway between The Who and Todd Rundgren; and The Subtle Energies Commission, a fiery Hawkwind-style jam) explore more robust sounds; or that Poet Is Priest achieves a spectacular fusion of Suicide, new age, soul, and techno. The album belongs to indulgences like Julian H. Cope, a driving acoustic blues worthy of the early Taj Mahal. The record overflows with ideas that Cope’s “sick” mind can only conceive for a few seconds, but cannot grasp or shape into a comprehensible language. Fear Loves This Place, a martial ballad worthy of American proletarian rock, is the only “normal” song, seeming like a survivor amidst the ruins. Perhaps too indulgent to be musical, Jehovahkill is nevertheless universal enough to remain great Art.

Prolific to the point of delirium, Cope published the second part of Skellington (Zippo, 1993), his stream-of-consciousness and musical alter ego, along with two psychedelic avant-garde albums: Rite (Zippo, 1993), a collection of four long acid-rock suites in the style of Amon Düül II (followed by Rite 2 in 1997, perhaps his most explicit tribute to 1970s German rock, containing the four long suites Var, Hill of Odin, D.c.o.m.p.o.s.e.r., The Ringed Hills of Var), and Queen Elizabeth (Echo, 1994), a collaboration with Thighpaulsandra, followed by Elizabeth Vagina (Head Heritage, 1997).

Cope also published two books dedicated to the German bands that had influenced him. His attitude seemed increasingly impatient with the recording industry, the audience, the world, and life itself.

Autogeddon (American, 1994) is at the very least schizophrenic: on one hand, it presents him as an angry folk singer, a logical continuation of the polemical outbursts of the previous album; on the other, it revives and exaggerates his passion for the great German bands of the 1970s. Autogeddon Blues takes the Dylan-style ballad form and pushes it to the extreme, ending up screaming like a possessed person (somewhat in the style of Patti Smith). I Gotta Walk uses the novelty song format to vent his sarcasm. Madmax borrows Cohen’s prophetic baritone, while Don't Call Me Mark Chapman adopts Donovan’s fairy-tale register. The universe’s most capricious bard even tackles the three-part mini-opera (subdued blues, music-hall ditty, and psychedelic hard rock) of Paranormal In The West Country and immerses himself in the eleven-minute instrumental jamming of s.t.a.r.c.a.r. The album completes the “environmentalist” trilogy of Peggy Suicide and Jehovahkill, but fails in every respect.

Cope the philosopher (i.e Cope hiding behind the thousand metamorphoses of jester) comes to the forefront with 20 Mothers (Echo, 1995), a work less apocalyptic and more “human,” still whimsical and bizarre, but also domestic and public. Wheelbarrow Man is an anthem worthy of the Grateful Dead, while I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud is a classically styled aria (counterpoints of violins and cello). Cope’s melodic talent soars especially in the catchy chorus and driving guitar of Try Try Try. Highway To The Sun purrs along the eccentric harmonies of early Pink Floyd psychedelia; Just Like Pooh Bear practically overflows with Dead Or Alive-style synthpop; Road Of Dreams even delivers orchestral kitsch, a cross between the Beatles’ Yesterday and a Mexican serenade; 1995 transposes Traffic’s progressive soul into a Middle Eastern context. Cope bids farewell appropriately with the de profundis of When I Walk Through The Land Of Fear, complete with choir and pipe organ. It’s a spectacular return to his best form, even if perhaps twenty songs are too many for a mercurial, unpredictable character like him.

Interpreter (Echo, 1996) capitalizes on the experiments of his previous avant-garde albums, creating dense electronic keyboard atmospheres for songs like Planetary Sit-In (the catchiest), I've Got My TV and My Pills, and Since I Lost My Head It's Awl-Right. But the rest of the album still follows the path of the uncontrollable madness of this psychedelic rock jester, from the medieval Maid Of Constant Sorrow to the futuristic Cheap New-Age Fix, from the cabaret of The Loveboat to the operetta of Space Rock With Me.

Virtually inexhaustible, Cope unleashes avalanches of ideas overflowing with folk, soul, gospel, and rhythm-and-blues influences. Secluded in his impenetrable ivory tower, clutching his prideful baggage, the boundless poet sings of the miseries of the outside world, the merciless narrator of this storyless novel that is the human adventure. Precisely in mastering every single genre of our musical civilization, Cope expresses his total rejection of these traditions.

Eccentric to the point of madness, Cope possesses an extraordinary ease of musical “storytelling,” which makes any of his songs enjoyable and profound. Even if he has not always succeeded in transcending this talent, Cope has nonetheless carved out a niche of romantic pessimism over his eventful career—a pessimism that, far from placing him in the decadent realm, instead fraternizes him with poets like Leopardi, Keats, and above all Hölderlin.

Unfortunately, at the turn of the century Cope discovered that it was easy and cheap to self-produce and distribute albums, and began to release all sorts of inferior-quality music. Odin (1999), his most experimental album, is one 73-minute composition, Breath of Odin, that lays a sinister mantra over an electronic soundscape Ten minutes would have been plenty.

A number of albums marked a sudden passion for old-fashioned hard-rock and punk-rock: An Audience With the Cope (2000), and L.A.M.F.'s Ambient Metal (2001), including two embarrassing jams, the 23-minute The Death of the Motherculture at Mona Mam Gymru and the 17-minute The Neolithic Goddess. Brain Donor was a collaboration with Thighpaulsandra and members of Spiritualized devoted to raw and primal psyched-out garage-rock a` la Stooges that released Love, Peace, and Fuck (2001), including the 13-minute Odin's Gift To His Mother, Too Freud To Rock'n'roll Too Jung To Die (2003) and Drain'd Boner (Invada, 2006). Their first two albums were compiled on Brain Donor (Mister E, 2005).

Rite Now (2002) was the third installment in the tedious Rite saga. Rome Wasn't Burned In A Day (2003) is his worst collection of melodic songs. Rite Bastard (2006) closed the Rite saga, perhaps the worst of the series.

The double-disc (but only 72-minute long) Citizen Cain'd (Lain, 2005) is, surprisingly, his most coherent album in a while and, surprisingly, in a very unlikely style: the Stooges are the main influence on songs such as Hell Is Wicked (basically a rewrite of I Wanna Be Your Dog) and Living In The Room They Found Saddam In, while the lighter melodies, such as the 12-minute Feels Like A Crying Shame, Homeless Strangers and Stomping Dionysus, straddle the border between Neil Young and early Julian Cope (the ruthless folk storyteller meets the exuberant melodramatic tunesmith). The emphatic finale of Edge Of Death mixes the good news (a renewed focus on meaning) and the bad news (the same annoying self-indulgence of the free-form experiments). This markedly superior album of the new century helps view 15 years of Cope's career as an utter failure: the last truly accomplished album that he released was Peggy Suicide, which at the time didn't even look that interesting but 15 years later looks like a milestone in his discography. From a composer of Cope's caliber one would have expected Peggy Suicide to be merely a transitional work, not his swan song.

Dark Orgasm (2005) is a bit too erratic, even by his standards, and relies too much on quoting his favorite artists from the past.

The double-disc You Gotta Problem With Me (2007) was another sprawling, redundant and amateurish collection that rarely offers interesting music. The nine-minute Doctor Know sounds like David Bowie fronting the Stooges on an under-produced bootleg.

Julian Cope's Black Sheep debuted with the double-disc Black Sheep (2008), that was still credited only to him, and officially with the double-disc Kiss My Sweet Apocalypse (Invada, 2009), a collection of lengthy jams of Marxist-agitprop tribal shamanic psychedelia.

Julian Cope continued to flood the market with double-discs of dubious artistic value such as Psychedelic Revolution (Head Heritage, 2012) and Revolutionary Suicide (Head Heritage, 2013), containing the 16-minute The Armenian Genocide and the eleven-minute Destroy Religion.

The double-disc Revolutionary Suicide (2013) contains the 16-minute The Armenian Genocide, a somber recited shuffle, the eleven-minute Indian-esque chant Destroy Religion, and a bunch of faceless folk-ish songs that are hardly musical. Drunken Songs (2017) is ostensibly a concept about alcoholism that ends with the rambling 19-minute On the Road to Tralee.

Skellington 3 (Head Heritage, 2018) was another collection of awful leftovers.

John Balance Enters Valhalla (Head Heritage, 2019) contains two lengthy quasi-orchestral instrumentals: the 14-minute cacophonous sound collage Positive Drug Test and the 15-minute bombastic military dance John Balance Enters Valhalla. Despite the filler, it's Cope's best album in a while.

Self Civil War (Head Heritage, 2020) is mostly devoted to regular songs, except for two lengthy pieces. The theatrical recitation over loose jamming of Requiem For A Dead Horse sounds like a tribute to both prog-rock of the 1970s and to Jim Morrison of the Doors. The closer, A Victory Dance, is just self-indulgent musical doodling.

England Expectorates (2022) is a collection of political songs and assorted rants (Cunts Can Fuck Off). The hippy has finally become a grumpy old man.