website Head Heritage. I was looking on there the other night and he has posted his less than complimentary comments about Michael Jackson. In his view the media have deflected attention away from Afghanistan and The Expenses scandal. Never one for shying away from being controversial he does still make some compelling music and he is something of a national treasure that should be revered.

in the Teardrop Explodes (Kilimanjaro [original vinyl with Mick Finkler's guitar parts] is one of my eternal top 5 ellpees) but Julian H. Cope and I parted company with JehovaKill. Apart from 'Upwards at 45 Degrees' I thought it was awful. I read Head-On and loved it, eventually I got Repossessed and felt like I needed a bath after each chapter. He is a talent and I do respect him but I'd love him to do some of his 'pop' tunes in the ilk of... Sunshine Playroom, need I add more?

hates Jazz?

Anyone who has their own special climbable mike stand built deserves our admiration.

Used to worship him, but like James Blast, he and I parted ways musically.

I think his first solo LP (World Shut Your Mouth, the album, not - and not including - the track) feels like my favourite of his solo efforts in retrospect. It's mostly great pop; since then, he's headed ever further down a more esoteric path which, I'm afraid, doesn't entertain me and doesn't feel "true", for want of a better word.

Is he a National Treasure? Maybe he was in 1984, but now -? He seems to me to represent that rather self-satisfied middle-class hipsterdom that doesn't appeal to me now that I've left my teens behind, in the same way that I can largely do without listening to (say) The Doors.

Still have a soft spot for him, though, as he was my teen idol, and as both Teardrop Explodes albums are still fantastic.

Oh, one other thing - I saw him play at the Cambridge Folk Festival (true) a few years back and BOY was he an antidote to the rest of the weekend...

Teardrop Explodes were a wonderful group and his solo purple patch, from Peggy Suicide through to Interpreter is possibly the purple patch to end all purple patches as far as I'm concerned.

Then we parted company for a decade - the fine line he always walked between brilliant pop and far out nonsense was decisively crossed the wrong way (Brain Donor was just plain bad) and that was it.

BUT, give his last two albums a go - You Gotta a Problem With Me and Black Sheep. He's well on his way back to the brilliance, and relative accessibility, of Peggy and Jehovahkill. At least two thirds of each of the new albums wouldn't be out of place on either of them. (The other third of each is far out nonsense, mind)

at last years latitude by pratting around and wasting my time and the good feeling of an expectant audience. He's become self absorbed and frankly wilful which is fine if he's happy to have a small but dwindling audience but his creative period is long gone and what we are seeing now is someone who can't do anything other than be rockstar going through the motions. Oh and lose the Nazi hat JC.

Always a good rule. I ignore the general aura of pseudo-mystical, hectoring prat, do what I can to dodge the odd dodgy album and just bask in the general wonderfulness of Jehovahkill, Peggy Suicide, 20 Mothers and others. The first of these is a grade A masterpiece.

but was impressed with the enthusiasm and spadework evident in his "Modern Antiquarian" book, which has been bought, read and used as a guide by a wide variety of people who I'm sure would never ever have touched his musical output.

As a contrast, I recall reading an autobiograhy from Dave Davies of the Kinks full of personal anecdote which made a pretty good read most of the way through. Then suddenly it descends into 20 or 30 pages of the wayest-out pseudo-mysticism you're likely to find anywhere. How a publisher ever agreed to its inclusion is totally beyond me. Maybe the fact it was a US-published edition had something to do with it...

were for a period a personal obsession. This is probably because I saw them in the week Kilimanjaro was released performing in full fancy dress like this:

http://www.anos80.com.br/teardrop_explodes/new_roma.jpg

I remember playing pinball with Alan Gill before the gig and he was dressed with the headband an'all.

Plus it was around about the same time that I was introduced to umm, perception modulating molecules...

Julian's first few solo releases also kept me interested and I agree with M.O.S. above that WSYM is a classic. Progressively, however, his albums became curate's eggs. I really lost touch at 20 Mothers, in that I haven't heard a note after that. I still have a warm corner of my heart for him as a concept, though. I have heard his last LPs are a bit or return to form. Must check em out.

Chris agree with the choice of hat. IIRC, He tries to pass it off as some homage to The Igg

are a return to form, there's a lot of grungey metal and very poor sound but the thing with Cope is no matter how weird and obscure he tries to be he always throws out at least a couple of classic melodic gems per album.

I'm a big fan from the music to his Head Heritage web-site, his autobiographies are excellent and so is his other writing, usually far more entertaining than the subject matter.

The Modern Antiquarian and Megalithic European are not only brilliantly researched labours of love but are beautifully produced books.

I can do without him poncing about in leotards behind curtains and the hippy pagan thing gets a bit tiresome but certainly one of the few "maverick" artists out there, really doing it on his own terms.

Just wish he'd concentrate on knocking out an album of classic pop tunes next!

any other similar 80's musicians.

Would Robyn Hitchcock count? I was also thinking of Mark E Smith but not sure if you could say he was 80's as such, although a similar independent soul.

I'm clearly swimming upstream with this one, but RH to me is just a poseur. I can't get beyond how hard he's trying to be alternative and whimsical. With an original genius like Cope or Mark E Smith, you accept there's going to be quite a few mis-hits alongside the gems. With Hitchcock, it's just all trying too hard. And musically shit. In my very humble opinion and all that.

I love Julian Cope's pop stuff but his weirder side can be great as well - one of the CD single versions of 'I Come From Another Planet, Baby' was a twenty plus minute track called 'Ambulence: Wessex Post-Ambient Therapy Musics'. It is insane. And brilliant.

Perhaps not on the same level as Copey but some pretty damn good albums.