Description

Reading Julian Cope's memoir, Repossessed (available with Head On), this & follow-up album Fried are made even more compulsory listening. Coming out of the messy break-up of The Teardrop Explodes, which saw the material that would be belatedly released on 1990's Everybody Wants to Shag the Teardrop Explodes, Cope took on the Teardrops debts & went to live in Tamworth, with vague plans to become a taxi driver (as Tim Buckley had), or maybe go & work on an oil rig for several months. Instead, he stayed indoors with Dorian (who would become his wife) with some cheap keyboards, an epoch of imaginationmore… & a new found love of songwriting- particularly Tim Buckley & Nick Drake. The album open's with Bandy's 1st Jump- which was reportedly about Ian McCulloch's sister (as had Passionate Friend)& took us deep into the place where Cope was residing. This is much more instant than the Teardrops, straight to the heart of the matter- imagine a tighter take on psychedlia & you're close (Love's Seven & Seven is, for example). Metranil Vavin, title from a Russian poet, is a reworked version of a lost Teardrops track- this is much closer Beatles-White Album terrirtory than the more synthetic take on the posthumous Teardrops release. Next up is single that should have been (a term applicable to most songs on this album)Strasbourg- which has the romantic notion that one lover can be France, the other Germany. A modern pop classic...Next up is An Elegant Chaos (which surfaced on 1991's Floored Genius compilation), which is a gorgeous pop song in the English sense: oboes, psychedelia, Madness-quality songwriting. I think the lyrics are wonderful, especially the bit journos criticise him regarding cow's- which is an amusing reading of Nietzsche's Herd theory, if you think about it (& far less horrific than abysmal lyrics of this era, as found in songs like People are People, The Lebanon & The War Song!). Quizmaster is my favourite song on this collection, tight psych-rock curled around a melancholy lyric- this is what bands like SFA and The Coral should have sounded like!Kolly Kibber's Birthday (see the beginning of Graham Greene's Brighton Rock) is more mininal stuff- a drum machine, cheap casio sounds, a lo-fi take on krautrock- file next to Felt or The Magnetic Fields. It mentions Liverpool; which was a downer...Non-hit single Sunshine Playroom uses the drum machine in an overloaded manner, as if to replicate a rushing heartbeat as the body refers back to childhood & toys: "there's something making me want to go back!"- Head Hang Low is ta-ta to the Scott Walker-fan period of Cope's life, having more in common with tracks like The Great Dominions & Tiny Children that what would follow. The chemical outsider who would recur on such tracks as Laughing Boy & Me Singing appears here; a meeting point, perhaps.Pussyface (aka Sex (Pussyface)) is another old Teardrops track yet to be released- more of a groove, it provides respite from the melancholy that precedes it. Next up is Greatness & Perfection- one of the perfect pop songs Cope produces from time to time, replete with those divine "Ba-Ba-Ba's". The album proper ends on the sinister Lunatic & Fire Pistol, the Roky/Syd-influences apparent in the charming English music (think XTC). This edition comes with bonus cuts from the Sunshine Playroom single- none of which stand out- though with the exception of Hey High Class Butcher they remain unavailable elsewhere. World Shut Your Mouth is a great album, with a great cover- yet more evidence that the 80s wasn't as horrific as the existence of The Thompson Twins would suggest...

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Category:

Music > Albums

Case Type:

CD

Release Type:

Retail

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Cover Info:

Title:

Julian Cope - World Shut Your Mouth (1990) Retail CD

Part:

Front

Dimensions:

1875 x 1880 px

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1,032 KB

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Report a Problem Wrong Cover Duplicate Image Bad Quality Wrong Info

05/04/09 by ssvril

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