Peggy Suicide

Good album. Never heard of Julian Cope, but this was a pretty nice surprise.

Yes, the album is way too long, but it is also very varied so it manages to keep some interest.

Some songs I enjoyed: "Pristine" (I love the Velvet's vibe, probably my favourite), "Promised Land", "Safesurfer" (very good 8 min track), Leperski (nice bass), or "Las Vegas Basement". Interestingly, the first and the last song are probably my favourites.

This is between 3 and 4 stars for me. Leaning towards 3 because of the length, and towards 4 because of the variety and originality (also, 3 or 4 tracks are very good).

Overall, I think I'm leaning towards 4 stars.

For a record this long & so-called ambitious, there's an unwonted naïveté & a naturalness that renders the whole experience not only worthwhile but an organic enterprise. & I go for that sort of thing. 'Each day we get closer to the big bad fire / I looked down at the sickness in you.' Eclecticism is not the same thing as random variety, but Peggy Suicide has a sense of both cohesive diversity as well as scattershot energy: Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, oh I don't know, how about Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, & Alex Chilton, all these styles & more are featured, but I also get the feeling for a personality that I guess we can only attribute to Julian Cope himself. Whoever he is, I don't care much for the looks of him, but this album in a vacuum, yeah, real deal.

Some interesting ideas, plenty of sprawling psychedelic, artsy experimentation and enough variety to be found on here. However, at nearly 80 minutes, this is a very self-indulgent affair that I'd struggle to see myself returning to by choice, and not all of the experimentation is a resounding success.

Surprisingly, I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll bump up to a 5.

Perhaps the most UK-centric pick of the entire list, somehow. Julian Cope is the former lead singer for The Teardrop Explodes (we got Kilimanjaro & it was totally fine), & someone with a deep enough love for Scott Walker to curate an entire selection of Scott’s music just to try and rehabilitate his image in the early 1980s. He’s here with a 76-minute art rock album to tell us exactly what he thinks about the world. Going in, I didn’t have high hopes, if I’m being honest. It already felt bloated & preachy & a little self-serving, and that was just from the cover art & synopsis alone.

I’m pleased to announce that my low hopes were quickly surpassed in a way that made me feel foolish for doubting the pick here – this is not “Kilimanjaro”-esque at all, with Julian Cope & the team he put together crafting a wide net of musical styles & topics to touch on, and for a 76 minute album, I’m VERY pleased to announce that it only feels just a little too long as opposed to being unbearably too long. Hell, I found myself thinking some tracks could go on longer to really sell more of the instrumental atmosphere / vocal performances at hand here. If you’ve got me that invested in what you’re saying & how you’re choosing to say it, you’ve done something right.

It’s a UK-centric pick in terms of how Dimery & friends got here, yes, but it’s also a UK-centric album in terms of how much Julian Cope seems to fucking despise Margaret Thatcher. There’s at least 3 or 4 tracks here devoted to hating on her, and I can’t help but respect the commitment. For the most part, however, this is an album loosely preaching about the climate issues that were apparent even back then. Obviously, we have a bit of a crisis on our hands with how much water we’re currently using to create some Suno-driven slop & a whole bunch of other LLM related issues, so it seems like Julian’s words fell on deaf ears here. He did focus a little much on hating car dependency, to be fair, but that was incredibly valid back then & something we haven’t solved now, given that they’re adding yet another lane to that highway right by you that’ll solve everything. You know it’s coming.

When this album isn’t tackling climate issues & the horrors of predicting 35 years ago what has clearly come to pass today, it’s talking about other decently relevant topics for the time; “Double Vegetation” seems to tackle the Western desire to stop the spread & influence of Islam that was carried out in the Gulf War invasion & certainly into today. “Hanging Out & Hung Up on the Line” is apparently about anxiety bubbling up in potent forms when you need it the least, and I’d say that’s pretty damn relatable. “Safesurfer” tackles sex in the age of AIDS, & while it’s a bit one-note, the instrumental atmosphere is rad as hell. “If You Love Me at All” is also a bit one-note, but gaslighting like that has clearly stayed the same. “Soldier Blue” is about the government crossing the boundaries of peaceful protest; arguably, more relevant than ever.

I’m just impressed, really; there’s an almost Beck-like quality to Julian’s work here, with this album touching on everything from grunge to ragtime to trip-hop and somehow feeling totally cohesive in spite of everything, managing to make all 76 minutes flow in a way that never REALLY bit at me. Obviously, there’s some longer outros & a bit of one-note repetition in ways that could’ve been trimmed down, but sometimes, simmering in that repetition gets the point across a little more. “Drive, She Said” wouldn’t feel the same if you didn’t have to get nagged at for a good chunk of the track, nor would “Las Vegas Basement” hit the same way if you didn’t have to hear the guitar solo go on just a little too long. I understand why this has a 2.77 on the site, as it’s a bit of a commitment to go past the surface level & really dig into these tracks in a more meaningful way. One might also just say that it’s trite nonsense, but that really disregards all of the effort put in to make this appealing to a casual listener as well. Seriously, there’s great soundscapes & instrumentals across the board here.

Overall, I’m at a 4.5 bumped up to a 5, if only because it is a bit long & some tracks do get a little repetitive, along with some rehashed topics in ways that don’t add too much to the album. I think there’s a world where, had this been tightened up a little more, it would’ve been a really big album. At the very least, if anything other than “Pristeen” & its slightly oversaturated wall of noise had been the opener, maybe people would’ve taken more kindly to this album from the get go. I can’t think of a more natural opener though, so what do I know? Regardless of its flaws, it’s a surprisingly strong album, at least compared to the expectations I had going in, and I think it deserves the bump up to a 5. Not bad at all, Julian.

Kinda off-beat and interesting. I'd listen again. 3.

i liked some parts and disliked other parts

I had never heard this album. I was pleasantly surprised! This album would have been really solid if it was trimmed down to 12 songs or so. But none the less, still a good listen. 90’s sounding, but in the best way possible

Way too long. Have to revisit sometime

A couple good songs but I don't want to listen to the second half to see if there are any more.

Similar recipe as Echo and the Bunnymen: moody gothic 80s synthy post punk with a heavy dose of dreamy 60s psych swirling around - big atmospheres, dramatic vocals, layers and layers of guitars and organs, melodic bass. But this more eclectic. Cope adds in a bit of the baggy madchester dance sound (easy rider, leperskin) and a couple of slower more stripped back acoustic tracks that start at Billy Bragg and ultimately build back up to a big orchestral psych noise. Some harder charging garage punk stuff ala Modern Lovers (hanging out). Some of it sounds like a British version of the shaggy slacker sound of 90s US alt rock. I like everything on here, but there is still too much of it - still, what a discovery!

Meh.

Pretty unenjoyable from start to end. Cope’s vocals are whiny and the music does little but serve are backing to this. The nearest there is to a highlight is ‘If You Loved Me At All’

Western front 1992 just sums this overlong experience up, when you’re album is already an hour long there is no need for crap like that (or the one immediately after it).

I really should get out of the habit of opening Amazon Music and instantly checking the length of the album. It means that when you instantly turn against a vocalist, you immediately get the double whammy of knowing there's going to be nearly 2 hours of this.

I did not like this. Occasionally it musically sounded like a certain era of REM (see Leperskin as an example) and it just made me think about how great REM were. Beautiful Love reminded me of So You Wanna Be a Boxer from Bugsy Malone but with terrible sounding brass synths.

One of the top reviews says "It feels aggressively artful." and I misread it as "aggressively awful" which is far more accurate.

1/5

Meh

Thought this was alright 40 minutes in until I looked and realised I had EIGHT TRACKS LEFT

Didn't hate it, didn't love it. Definitely some interesting tunes. Not sure I'll ever revisit as a whole album, but there's some choice tunes among the bunch.

An interesting album. I'll gladly listen to it again. 4/5

Through the first eight songs, I thought that the general reaction of this being too disjointed was massively overstated. It seemed a bit eclectic, sure, but pretty well within the realm of what one could classify as "alternative rock". A bit of The Cure here, some U2 there, perhaps even a little Velvet Underground at points, so on and so forth. Pretty good stuff, too! Especially "Hanging Out & Hung Up on the Line", "Safesurfer", and "If You Loved Me at All". Then, as tracks nine and ten ("Soldier Blue" and "You...") continued, I began to understand a bit more where everyone was coming from. The dance elements of "Soldier Blue" definitely felt a bit out of place; perhaps if it was approached in a baggier Stone Roses/Happy Mondays fashion, it would have fit in better, but its distinct funkier nature lends to a more jarring experience in the context of the record. "You..." almost has a Zappa-esque quality that is equally confusing; I don't even necessarily think either of these songs are bad, but they absolutely signal a turning point in the album for me in terms of it as a listening experience. From that point on, I'm not sure it ever totally finds its footing again. There are some other great songs, particularly the closer "Las Vegas Basement", but there are also a couple of other left turns ("Beautiful Love") that remind you of the hodgepodge nature of it as a whole.

3.5/5

Jules is a fuckwit in the best way

𝘗𝘦𝘨𝘨𝘺 𝘚𝘶𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘦 feels like one of those great hidden gems — wildly ambitious, politically charged, and overflowing with Julian Cope’s eccentric charm. The album moves through psych-rock, ambient textures, and groovy, hypnotic jams with an ease that makes its scope genuinely impressive. The only real drawback is the sheer length; it’s a lot to take in at once, and some stretches feel more like mood pieces than essential songs. But even so, the highs are striking, and the album’s personality is unmistakable. A sprawling, rewarding trip.