Many people remember Julian Cope for his mid-1980s solo hit “World Shut Your Mouth” or his stint as lead singer for the post-punk band The Teardrop Explodes.  In recent years, however, Cope has built a formidable reputation as a writer on all matter of subjects, most notably music and antiquities.  His overview of Krautrock (1960s-1970s German psychedelic rock) from 1995, “Krautrocksampler” is considered a classic, even though he refuses to have it republished because of factual errors he’s since discovered and because he claims there are others more knowledgeable than he is.  His antiquities books “The Modern Antiquarian” and “The Megalithic European” have also proven to be very popular.

Cope’s latest book “Copendium” is a massive collection of essays (over 700 pages) culled from Cope’s website that chronicles terrific, but ignored or forgotten music albums, spanning several different genres.  Among the artists that Cope exhaustively writes about: Von LMO, The Electric Eels, Montrose, Pentagram … even a Van Halen bootleg gets a detailed essay.  If you love discovering new music and enjoy great writing, “Copendium” is damn near perfect.