Let The Day Begin...Let The Day Start!: Day 222 The Teardrop Explodes

Kilimanjaro - The Teardrop Explodes

Mercury Records

Produced by The Chameleons, Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley, Mike Howlett

Released October 1980

UK Chart #24

US Chart #156

 

All tracks composed by Julian Cope, Gary Dwyer and Michael Finkler; except where indicated

Side A
01. Ha Ha I'm Drowning
02. Sleeping Gas (Cope, Dwyer, Finkler, Paul Simpson)
03. Treason (It's Just a Story)
04. Second Head
05. Poppies in the Field
Side B
01. Went Crazy (Cope, Finkler)
02. Brave Boys Keep Their Promises
03. Bouncing Babies
04. Books (Cope, Ian McCulloch)
05. The Thief of Baghdad
06. When I Dream 

The Reward Single was not on the original album but was added to later pressings.

Reward / Strange House in the Snow

Mercury Records

1981

UK Chart #6

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On this day in 1994 Julian Cope released his 9th Studio album Autogeddon but as I am not a big fan of that album (I did like his solo debut World Shut Your Mouth and also My Nation Underground but could pretty much live without the rest) I decided to maybe go back to the beginning with his band The Teardrop Explodes and their excellent Debut Album Kilimanjaro.

I can remember with great excitement the release of the early Teardrops singles, all of which are represented on the album (Sleeping Gas, Bouncing Babies, Treason (It's Just A Story) and the excellent B-Side penned with Ian McCulloch Books) also When I Dream and Ha Ha I'm Drowning were released as singles from the album.

Weighed up against the Echo and the Bunnymen Debut Crocodiles that had been released a just shy of a year and a half earlier I personally think Kilimanjaro wins that battle hands down (my Stuart will no doubt disagree!). It shows though just how much great music was springing up in Liverpool though because there was also Wah! Heat in contention as one of the best to come out of the city for years! Funnily enough Julian Cope, Ian McCulloch and Pete Wylie had all been together for a short period of time together back in 1977 under the banner of the Crucial Three. Can you imagine how those three would ever get along in a band together! They never played live or recorded anything and McCulloch has said that the band were "...just mates - we never did anything. We wrote one crap song." Though Wylie reckons they had at least four songs! From what I can remember there was some hostility played out in the press between Cope and McCulloch. 

Kilimanjaro would be on my list of All-Time Favourite Debut Albums.

Let The Day Begin...Let The Day Start!