Clipping of my review of the 1988 Julian Cope album, My Nation Underground, as published in the December 1988 issue of my high school newspaper, The Spectrum.
After spending the whole of my freshman year reading our high school’s newspaper and wishing I could be as cool as the columnist who documented her club outings and love of all bands goth—that is, a significant cross-section of the late 80s alternative scene—I finally got my chance. This record review was one of my early contributions to the paper during my sophomore year.
It’s interesting to read this now and see just how familiar I was, at the age of fifteen, with Julian Cope’s discography to date. I was clearly a big fan of his previous album, with its shout-out rock radio hit “World Shut Your Mouth.” And then I had, in typical form, dug into his previous musical endeavors. So of course I was also familiar with his two albums as part of The Teardrop Explodes.
Many years later I would read his two autobiographies, Head On and Repossessed, paying particular attention to the period in the latter book where he was recording his solo albums and becoming obsessed with his collection of children’s model cars. Great reads, especially the first book, for its overview of the Liverpool punk scene and his rivalry with Ian McCulloch of Echo & the Bunnymen.
