The Essential 10: Julian Cope (& The Teardrop Explodes)

This edition of The Essential 10, our quickfire introduction to a wide range of my favourite artists, features everyone's favourite musician who's also an expert on neolithic history and paganism, Julian Cope; an act that has managed almost 40 solo albums so far, over a career that goes back into the late 1970s. As the front man and principle songwriter for the Teardrop Explodes, we will also be taking their brief 2 album foray at the forefront of the British post-punk scene into account.

I have trawled the entire catalogue to come up with ten of my favourite tracks by him, including a few surprises (although, if you don’t know much about him, they may all be surprises).

Julian Cope came into my life in the early 80s with the big brassy sound of Reward. That was him fronting the Teardrop Explodes, but I didn't necessarily know him specifically until his string of (varying degrees) of UK chart success through the mid-80s. There are many words bandied around the world of entertainment far too eagerly (genius etc), but the term "eccentric legend of music and British ancient history" was surely invented for him!

He has racked up so many albums over four decades (40-odd), but this list runs out somewhere in the mid 1990s, as I have to be honest, I couldn't keep up with him. It will, however, give you some insight into just how good he has been. I will forever remember seeing him at the Royal Court in Liverpool (with fellow geography student Matt Ford), his long hair all tied up like a Pekinese and dressed like Dennis the Menace.

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1. Treason: we start with an early Teardrop's single. It didn't chart the first time out, but it was given a slight remix and re-released off the back of the success of Reward, this time reaching number 18. A lovely, orchestrated piece of post-punk pop, with lots of swirling keyboards. (original promo video)

2. Fear Loves This Place: this atmospheric dark folk epic was the only single from 1992s Jehovahkill. The twangy guitar riff and big, lush keyboards through the chorus are epic - and then the drums ramp up to help it towards a crescendo... great stuff. (audio only)

3. The Greatness and Perfection of Love: this is his first solo single, which came out in 1984 and features on World Shut Your Mouth (which of course does not include his big UK hit, World Shut Your Mouth). Three minutes of 1980s dreamy, jangly pop perfection. (music video - he looks smug at the end, and why not - he knew he'd made a great song)

4. Beautiful Love: 1991s Peggy Suicide was the first of three records Cope made with an underlying environmental theme, which he referred to as "a meditation on humanity's relationship with Mother Earth". Beautiful Love, a song about our ties to that Earth, with its bouncy piano refrain and punchy brass, is a delightful slab of Detroit R&B influenced pop. (official music video)

5. Wheelbarrow Man: this one is chronologically the last of the choices here, coming from 1995s 20 Mothers. Wheelbarrow Man is a deliriously quirky song of unbridled joy, reflecting on Cope getting back in touch with his estranged brother Joss. He did state in the liner notes however, "we haven't spoken since, mind you." So very Julian Cope. (live audio from Reading Festival, 1996)

6. Bouncing Babies: another corker of a tune from the Teardrop Explodes first record, Kilimanjaro. Big pulses of 60s Hammond organ, staccato drum patterns and Cope singing for all his worth over the top - fabulous. (audio only)

7. Spacehopper: this one, from Saint Julian, bounces along just like... well, like a Spacehopper! Driven by a furious arpeggiated guitar riff, and full of Cope yelping - just under four minutes of great indie rock fun. (live on The Tube, 1987 - does cut out a few seconds from the end)

8. Upwards At 45 Degrees: another moment of great drama from Jehovahkill. It morphs from a delicate acoustic folk track into moments of intense psychedelia, as it squalls into its intense climax. (audio only)

9. Trampolene: another great pulsing indie-rock track from Saint Julian, with more fantastic arpeggiated guitar courtesy of his faithful sidekick, Donald Ross Skinner. (live at the Central Methodist Hall, London, 1987)

10. Passionate Friend: this one appeared on the Teardrop's second (and final complete) album, Wilder. Gosh, he wrote some absolutely great pop songs in the 80s, didn't he? Great use of brass and lots of bah-bah-bah's. (appearance on Top of the Pops, 1981)

The Teardrop Explodes, with Cope second right

11: Reward: okay, so this is an essential 10, but I decided it needed to have 11 songs in it, so there. Late 70s Liverpool included The Crucial 3, the most important band to never actually record anything or play live. But every member went on to create at least one essential part of the 80s post-punk soundtrack; Pete Wylie wrote The Story of the Blues, Ian McCulloch wrote The Killing Moon, and Julian Cope wrote this - a perfect fusion of post-punk, pop and late 60s psychedelic garage rock (the trumpets were inspired by Love's Forever Changes album). The decade was barely a year old and he had already written one of the best songs of it! (live on The Old Grey Whistle Test, 1980)