Julian Cope

The artist is one odd duck! He's got about the scariest list of song and album titles on the planet. I bought this CD because I heard "Charlotte Anne" on the local Alternative radio station and found it quite catchy, and for some reason it is unavailable on iTunes. A commenter on the YouTube video of this song says they loved it so much that they named their daughter after it, apparently unaware of the pun in the title!

I can't say anything about the other songs on the album; I'm a little scared to even listen to them!… (meer)

There's not many books on the subject of Krautrock, or Kosmische Musik, but Cope's was one of the first to bring the music back into something approaching the mainstream. Cope's approach is that of the fanboy, a headlong rush to preach the Krautrock gospel and convert the uninitiated. Sadly that means objectivity goes out of the window.

The early part of the book where Cope sets the scene and introduces the main players is good and his pieces on bands such as Neu! and Tangerinee Dream are effective, but later on he gets all metaphysical and trippy and starts trumpeting the virtues of some of the more obscure offshoots of Krautrock. That's where he loses me.

The last part of the book is dedicated to Cope's highly selective and personal Top 50 Krautrock records, for which he provides reviews. Again his love of the music comes through in the passion of his writing, but again he has no objectivity and his highly personal cut-off point for some bands is questionable.

Cope has said that he has no plans to revise or update this book, which is long out of print (you can, as I did, locate a PDF of it with a simple google search), and he has acknowledged that there are factual and interpretive errors. But for all that it is an enjoyable and informative read, just take it all with a pinch of salt.… (meer)

Interesting exploration of Japanese post war political, economic, and social history as context for the cross-pollination of Japanese and Western experimental music via jazz, rock and pop. Cope's tastes take priority, naturally, and the focus is on experimental and psychedelic music, with Japanese rock and pop almost dismissed as being superficial and slavishly copyist. He's kinder about jazz, particularly in the creative collaborations between German and Japanese composers, and I'm now aware of more Japanese and German jazz musicians from the 60s and 70s than I was before. Clearly a subject Cope is passionate about, the only niggles I have are with the poor spelling/subbing and the repetition of stories that involve multiple bands in each of those bands' biographies.… (meer)