Copendium: An Expedition into the Rock 'n' Roll Underworld

by Julian Cope

Overview

Eschewing the usual criteria of chart success or acknowledged influence, the Copendium — a collection of album reviews and themed track samplers — takes energy, originality and heaviness as its bearings. The result is a feast of obscure and neglected masterworks that together form a surprising but entirely credible new tradition. Krautrock, motorik and post-punk, stoner and doom metal, occasionally even jazz, spoken word and hair metal: they are all represented in a wholly persuasive sequence.

Cope is the perfect guide to this novel terrain: impeccably informed, passionate, insightful and deeply funny. Copendium is his re-imagining of a useful canon of popular music, and it is set to become required reading.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780571270347
Publisher:	Faber and Faber
Publication date:	06/14/2016
Pages:	736
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.20(h) x 2.20(d)

About the Author

Julian Cope is a visionary musician, antiquarian and musicologist. His work with the Teardrop Explodes and as a solo artist marks him has one of British music's great innovators. His studies The Modern Antiquarian and The Megalithic European have established him as an authority on ancient history. And his joyful surveys Krautrocksampler and Japrocksampler have become required musical reading. He has also penned two successful volumes of autobiography, Head On and Repossessed, and continues to perform, solo and with his band, the Black Sheep.

Editorial Reviews

'Downright irresistible' Ben Thomson Independent on Sunday, Books of the Year

'Copendium is a collection of album reviews, exactly 10 years worth, which Cope wrote for his own Head Heritage website. He homes in on the unsung, music that is unknown, unloved, even unreleased...If, like me, you thought you knew your musical onions, if you pride yourself on knowing or just owning the work of musicians whose mothers don t even know they exist, then reading Copendium is a humbling exercise...Every essay in Copendium is an adventure.' Roddy Doyle Irish Times

'I think Julian is the best writer on rock and roll in the world today. No contest. Lester Bangs would love him if he were still alive. They'd be blood brothers. He's got the spirit alright. True faith.' Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream

From the Publisher