Julian Cope: "Sunspots"

14 February 1985

"This is a stern, strident and invigorating march through some lunatic wasteland where tinny guitars slash, people whistle out of tune and someone pipes up on a jaunty recorder during the most compulsive sway-along chorus since long before Foreigner."

— Tom Hibbert

Nothing beats a reference to Foreigner to make you well disposed to a rival record. "Well, this really isn't my sort of thing but I don't hate it and it's not bloody Foreigner so it's okay by me!" "I'm not especially into much pop music beyond the mid-nineties but at least I've existed in a musical landscape for over a quarter-of-a-century without Foreigner." "The latest Maroon 5 record? We'll it's balls but not compared to..." Okay, I over-reached myself.

Oh well, is it too much of a backhanded compliment to say that I don't have a whole lot of interest in listening to the bulk of Cope's work but I'm still happy to see him around? Someone's gotta put out "lunatic wasteland" records and he's plenty lunatic for it. Like heroes Syd Barrett, Roky Eriksson and Skip Spence, there must be some sort of genius lurking in there and we can but hope that it will peak through in time. These casualties of sixties drug culture were always given the benefit of the doubt but seldom did their talents emerge. On the other hand, Cope is alive and well and still active and his main skill might be in being Julian Cope. But does he craft excellent pop records?

We're a few years out now from Cope's commercial golden year when his act The Teardrop Explodes exploded on the scene and the hits — both of them — came forth and he's clearly not especially interested in replicating their former success. (Either that or going round wearing a tortoise shell happened to be his best idea for how to market himself and give the punters what they want) Still, his solo career has been much more accessible than one might think and "Sunspots" is a prime example. Well constructed and with hooks and plenty of that swaying that Tom Hibbert is evidently so fond of, it's a fine listen but one that fails to invite replays and doesn't manage to get stuck in the mind. It's easy to picture young people listening to John Peel or Janice Long and really digging Cope's latest record — not even necessarily this one — but forgetting all about it once the latest Smiths, Cure or New Order single got played immediately after it.

Being both highly individual and prolific, Cope was slowly building up a loyal following so it's not as if everyone felt this way about "Sunspots", even if they couldn't get it any higher than number seventy-six. Less produced than Teardrop Explodes material, one might feel captivated by the singer's commanding vocal and how well the tinny guitars, out-of-tune whistling and jaunty recorder all mesh. I'm not convinced he won a lot of new fans but I can't imagine many Cope cultists were beginning to push away either. Pretty bloomin' great if you like this sort of thing and perfectly acceptable if you're a neutral.

Julian Cope has always been a figure to admire: he has a unique voice and presence, he's always done things his way and he doesn't care what you or I think of him. All that's great but it's worth pointing out that we may feel just as apathetic towards his work as he does towards our opinions of him. Plus, too much admiration can overwhelm our perceptions of an artist: I hold Prince as an individual in high esteem and sometimes these feelings manipulate myself into believing that I also like his music. Same goes for Cope: I don't mind when I hear his stuff but I never feel that I need to. And he's way better than Foreigner.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Nirvana Devils: "Some Foreign Shore"

His nibs oversells things a bit here by calling it the greatest German record of all time. No, it's nowhere near Kraftwerk's "Trans-Europe Express" or Can's "Spoon" or even Culture Beat's "Mr. Vain" — though Hibs wasn't to be aware of it for another eight years, assuming he ever was — but that doesn't mean it isn't worth seeking out. Stellar, speed-infused garage rock that threatens to turn into a psychedelic Nuggets masterpiece, it maintains a furious pace and, again, I can certainly understand why our madcap reviewer is so captivated. Like Cope's SOTF, however, it's like that Milan Kundera novel you read that you're pretty sure you liked but which didn't stay with you in any way. Enjoy music in the moment then move on.

Simple Minds: "Waterfront"

10 November 1983

"An iron fist in a velvet glove."

— Mark Steels

I have a pair of anecdotes from my adolescence to share this week. First, I used to aspire to being a pop star. I began plotting this career path while living in England. A year's worth of Smash Hits issues and Top of the Pops episodes gave me the idea that fronting my own group was the thing for me. We returned to Canada and these goals were put on hold as my then friends weren't similarly interested. I eventually did join a group and I tried my hand at singing poorly, playing the bass guitar almost adequately and writing some embarrassing lyrics. Songwriting was probably the one area I might have had some talent for but I was never inclined to collaborate with someone of musical competence and tended to give up on ideas too rapidly. During the lovely summer of 1990, I had a couple of tunes floating around in my head (the moody, soulful "Underground" and the techno rave-up "The Flight") both of which were abandoned due to my inability to make anything of them beyond vague a melody or a chorus without much of a song behind it. If only someone had told me...

Starting off in the post-punk scene, Simple Minds were one of those acts who didn't sell many records but everyone who did ended up going into music journalism. Their early string of albums from Real to Real Cacophony to New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84) are essential to everyone who likes to think about pop music, even if enjoying their work is an altogether different matter. Like most of their contemporaries who found themselves similarly trapped in a critically acclaimed bubble, they wisely began giving it all a big rethink with big eighties drums, choruses with which to punch the air and so much bombast. (But while their sound changed, my disregard for them has been a constant. From post-punkers to rock gods and further down to well-intentioned do-gooders with their creative eyes taken off the ball, one element of ver Minds that has been a constant is their dour, irony-free earnestness) Sparkle in the Rain, the accompanying album that would follow the present single a few months later, isn't my sort of thing but at least I can appreciate that they finally seemed content to allow their work to be listened to and not just furrowed over. Which is for the best really since "Waterfront" doesn't do much on the contemplation front.

"Get in, get out of the rain / I'm gonna move on up to the waterfront": yeah, it sounds pretty good, my thirteen-year-old self would've been dead chuffed to have come up with an opener like that. Of course, I would never have been able to expound upon it but that's precisely the point. It's easy to imagine Jim Kerr and his fellow Minds being impressed with what they'd come up with and, after struggling for a good while on some kind of song story, just resigning themselves to repetition — but the kind of repetition that works wonders in the arenas and stadiums they were beginning to fill (but less so in the tiny Glasgow clubs in which they and a whole generation of budding music journalists cut their teeth). Musically, too, it's kept simple with a bass line so comically easy that even this humble blogger could work it out. Mark Steels is blown away by "guitar chords that will take your head off" and "haunting keyboard lines" and he's not wrong but they're hardly challenging parts.

And now for the second anecdote from my youth. In the midst of joining a band and dabbling in songwriting, I took it upon myself to expand my musical interests somewhat. Figuring that rock music was important and was still attaching itself to worthy causes, I decided that the Greenpeace: Rainbow Warriors compilation was just what I needed. Well, at least I felt good about supporting a charity I respect. One of the cassettes was of poor quality with frequent dropouts and the music I was able to listen to I could only get through the once due to boredom (I couldn't imagine wanting to hear John Farnham's "The Voice" again and it was one of the reasons I bought the bloody thing!). Rainbow Warriors was promptly filed away in a junk box in my closet in favour of Pet Shop Boys' Behaviour and The Beautiful South's Choke. I'm only relating such a forgettable part of my music collection because the second tape kicked off with a live version of "Waterfront". A passionate performance, it goes over a bomb even if the Minds sacrificed what little subtly the original had. Better yet, its presence on a Greenpeace album meant that fans could connect it to oceanic pollution or rising sea levels or acid rain: a meaningless song suddenly meant something.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Julian Cope: "Sunshine Playroom"

A jam-packed fortnight of singles with the likes of Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "Relax", The Stones' "Undercover of the Night", The Smiths' "This Charming Man", The Style Council's "A Solid Bond in Your Heart", The Thompson Twins' "Hold Me Now" and Yes' "Owner of a Lonely Heart" all up for consideration, so at least Simple Minds didn't grab Single of the Fortnight by default. To opt, then, for the recently solo, increasingly irrelevant Julian Cope might seem to be the ultimate in contrarian buggery but for the fact that "Sunshine Playroom" is the most thrilling of the lot — and by some distance at that. A psychedelic/progressive bit of quintessentially Copeian madness, it abruptly darts between various genres, a aural complexity which contrasts with a lyrical simplicity not unlike that of "Waterfront". Stupidly wonderful but surprisingly sophisticated, no one could have merged Arthur Lee, Keith Emerson and Iggy Pop all into one figure and still managed to be so original. All hail Julian Cope!