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Drive, She Said: A retrospective of Julian Cope
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Nevertheless, every ending is a beginning and by 1984 a new, fresher Julian Cope was brewing. Back living in his native Tamworth, away from the weirdness of Liverpool and with his second wife Dorian to support him, he had just recorded his low-key solo debut "World Shut Your Mouth". At first listen it sounds like a pop album and it is. It's a pop album about Russian poets, social alienation and the subconscious desire to return to the mother's womb but a pop album it is. Free from the constraints of expectations and bandmates, Cope's voice rejoices in liberation, floating over the joyous pop choruses of songs like "Metranil Vavin", "The Greatness And Perfection Of Love" and "An Elegant Chaos" even as he bares the darkest recesses of his heart. It's a stunning album and of all Cope's work it's perhaps the closest he's ever come to showing us his true voice, free from the mining and fashioning of rock's buried nuggets which has come to characterise much of his better known music. If a comparison must be made then it has to be with Scott Walker. An early hero of Cope's, the lush melodies and somewhat pompous vocal delivery of his songs also mask a dark poetic soul which lifts the music beyond the realm of mere bluster.
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"World Shut Your Mouth" was followed almost immediately by "Fried" which, aside from boasting the best album cover ever made, has, with the benefit of hindsight, perhaps now become Cope's best known work. Creeping back into ambitious rock star mode he plagiarised Van Morrison's "I Can Only Give You Everything" and The Doors' "The End" as well as a liberal smattering of Bowie's back catalogue to create the epic, self-mythologising, self-mocking masterpiece "Reynard The Fox". Elsewhere he takes a delightfully undignified swipe at the man who launched his career in "Bill Drummond Said" and with "Sunspots" provided the template for 90s Liverpool Britpop lightweights Cast's hit song "Sandstorm".
Back on track creatively he was now eyeing the charts. The 80s had been a barren wasteland for many and people needed reminding of some of the fundamentals. In 1986, spurred on by their inclusion on the NME's legendary C86 compilation, a band called The Mighty Lemon Drops had begun to rock an early Teardrop Explodes sound and, more importantly, were doing so wearing black leather. Realising that this group of young scoundrels were quite possibly the only cool looking band of the decade Cope decided to take it a step further. No fey indie jangle for him, 1987's "Saint Julian" album framed him as a leather clad alien messiah fronting a "two car garage band". Ramones engineer Ed Stasium produced, gave the album a heavy glam stomp and just generally ensured that it rocked like a bastard. Listening to "Saint Julian" today is a revelation, crystallising the pure petroleum essence of tight leather, bulging codpiece ROCK! in a way which dispenses with the unreconstructed sexism of so much of the genre and at the same time deftly skirts the pitfalls of irony.
1988's "My Nation Underground" was an over-produced disappointment but worth investigating for the pretty "China Doll" and the awesome title track. Unfortunately another turning point, perhaps even more significant than the end of The Teardrop Explodes, was just around the corner.
Pete DeFreitas, legendary Liverpool rock nutcase, former Echo & The Bunnymen drummer and one of Cope's closest friends, died in a road accident in June 1989 and this, perhaps coupled with the relative failure of "My Nation Underground", caused Cope's world to enter yet another seismic shift.
First he had a lot to get out of his system and the albums "Skellington" and "Droolian", while provoking the ire of his record label, served to cleanse his system and provide an outlet for many of the songs which he'd considered inappropriate for "Saint Julian". The demo-quality production values of these albums belies a strong songwriting sensibility, best captured on the classic Japanese hair gel inspired "Jellypop Perky Jean" off the album "Droolian". Like Syd Barrett before him, the fragile nature of the recording provides much of their charm but, unlike Syd Barrett, Julian was not the clueless acid casualty that the media liked to see him as. The first volume of his autobiography, "Head On", detailing the rise and fall of The Teardrop Explodes, was written during this period and reveals Cope as not only a great musician but also a brilliant writer. It is rightly considered to be the best rock book ever written.
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