The sprawling, high-concept double protest album masterpiece from one of my personal musical heroes gets a reissue. With as much acid and other chemicals as Julian Cope most likely consumed during the ’80s, it’s a miracle the former Teardrop Explodes frontman could hold a spoon by 1991 let alone make the best album of his career. But that’s what he did on this psych-rock opus, a double album treatise on humankind’s disregard for its home, planet earth. This came after two separate attempts by major labels to turn him into a pop idol, and Cope had finally had enough, deciding to really let his hair down and fully let the freak flag fly (not that it was ever lower than half mast). He was still on Island Records, but he was now hanging out at Stonehenge, swimming with dolphins, and attending political protests as his 6’6″ alien alter ego, Sqwubbsy.
“Peggy Suicide” is a sprawling and brilliant statement, making room for hallucinogenic trips (“Double Vegetation,” “Not Raving But Drowning’), epics about the AIDS crisis (“Safesurfer”), punk rock burners (“Hanging Out and Hung Up on the Line”), and indictments of Margaret Thatcher (“Leperskin”) and the state of police in the UK (the Lenny Bruce sampling “Soldier Blue”). It’s also got some of his best-ever pop songs in “Beautiful Love,” “Head” and “If You Love Me At All.” In letting it all hang out, Cope created a an album that is definitely weird, weirdly welcoming and the best place for the uninitiated to start.
The Fat Angel Sings 