New Music

Julian Cope has nobody to blame but himself. With his psychedelic horn-driven post-punk group The Teardrop Explodes, and on his seven subsequent solo releases, Cope has proven his ability to combine high intellectual weirdness with a razor-sharp pop sensibility. So how come the best singer/songwriter to come out of Liverpool since, say, 1962 has nothing but a half-handful of U.K. hits to show for his 13-year career? Simple: Cope seems to have no idea when he's being a genius and when he's recording pretentious dreck. Well, thank God for anthologists. Floored Genius: The Best of Julian Cope and The Teardrop Explodes 1979-1992 does an admirable job of plucking the gems from Cope's spotty history. It's the best thing that could have happened to the guy.

The first four tracks are drawn from The Teardrop Explodes' debut LP, Kilimanjaro (1980). Standouts include the dementedly jazzy hit single "Reward" (which rhymes "queues" with "Howard Hughes") and the shiny creepy "Sleeping Gas." Dissonant guitar and horn solos over driving, repetitive rhythm sections are the norm here, but this stuff is too much fun to feel avant-garde.

On Wilder (1981), the second Teardrops record, Cope took over sole songwriting duties, with mixed results. The bouncy "Passionate Friend," with its Beach Boys vocals and a trumpet line that sounds, I swear to God, like the theme song from the '70s sitcom "Love, American Style," somehow manages to avoid collapsing under the weight of its production. "The Great Dominions," on the other hand, is pleasantly ethereal but never gains momentum. Think of it as Cope's "Justify My Love."

The Teardrop Explodes broke up in 1983 (although not before recording enough new material for the posthumous and unlistenable Everybody Wants to Shag The Teardrop Explodes, thankfully unrepresented here), and Cope was free to pursue his solo career. "I regard what I want to do next as an opportunity for gross self-indulgence," Cope said at the time, and spent the next four years fulfilling that promise. The songs here, happily, avoid the worst of the excess; the pleasantly catchy "An Elegant Chaos" captures the flavor of the period, and "Sunspots," Iyrically a doodle, is worth listening to if only to hear what a Jethro Tull flute solo over a Nirvana guitar break might sound like. With a tuba.

Sometime in the mid-'80s, Cope suddenly remembered that electric guitars were really cool. The result was the brilliant 1987 release Saint Julian. Trust me--even if you buy Floored Genius, you still need this album. The smash hit "Trampolene" combines the expected lyrical cleverness ("Trampolene/I can't believe you're trampling me/ You tell it to me softly/ Then you disagree") with a truly staggering guitar hook. And, of course, there's "World Shut Your Mouth," a kicky tribute to non-conformity that's garnered Cope his only significant American airplay so far.

I'd quarrel only with the inclusion of "Spacehopper," a jokey sex ditty which could profitably have been replaced by the title track or the haunting "A Crack in the Clouds." My Nation Underground (1988) was more of the same, although a little uneven. "Charlotte Anne" (say it fast) presents a sadder, gentler Julian, singing "The sound you bring is an antiquated thing/ So please don't look to me for guidance" over airy keyboards and a martial beat. The inclusion of the string-sodden "China Doll" is inexplicable.

The most pleasant surprise on Floored Genius is "Out of My Mind on Dope and Speed," an underproduced gem from the nearly unfindable Skellington (1990) that sounds something like the Velvet Underground with the Opportunes singing backup. It's almost enough to give you hope for a Julian Cope comeback--too bad the last three songs here are drawn from 1991's truly execrable Peggy Suicide.

Attempting to get topical, Cope sinks into a mire of sentimentality and bombast. From Peggy' liner notes: "This classical mythical image of 'enlightenment' ironically mirrored the supposed death of the world through the Greenhouse Effect. It was a beautiful and absurd double-edged sword. This enormous Mother Earth was standing at the very edge of the highest cliff of Infinity--and was about to leap off...I had to make this record about the crazy situation."

Yeah, whatever. The only listenable track included on the compilation is "Beautiful Love." "Safesurfer," an eight-minute song about condoms, is breathtakingly masturbatory. One hopes that Cope's December release, Jehovah Kill, will get back to the sort of thing he does well.

Nobody's going to like all of Floored Genius--Julian Cope has just been too many different musicians for that. But that's why they invented programmable CD players. For the most part, the album successfully saves this batty prodigy from his own judgment. The world may have missed out on Julian Cope; Floored Genius means you don't have to.