release date: Aug. 9, 1994
format: cd (ECHCD 1)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,64]
producer: Julian Cope
label: Echo - nationality: England, UK
Track highlights: 1. "Autogeddon Blues" - 3. "Don't Call Me Mark Chapman" - 4. "I Gotta Walk" - 6. "Paranormal in the West Country (Medley): i) 'Paranormal Pt. 1', ii) 'Archdrude's Roadtrip', iii) 'Kar-ma-kanik' " - 7. "Ain't But the One Way"
10th solo album by Julian Cope follows The Skellington Chronicles (Jun. 1993) but is seen as the natural sequel to Jehovahkill (Oct. 1992). Also, following the '92 album, he released the collaboration album Rite (Feb. 1993), made with Donald Ross Skinner. The album is the first issue on the newly founded sublabel Echo, a division of Chrysalis Group.
Autogeddon [whose title is a play on the Christian term 'Armageddon' for the annihilation of the Earth] is on the one hand his final part of a trilogy, but at the same time it appears very much as a fairly independent release, as it doesn't contain a smilar extensive tracklist as the other two albums - it comes with 'only' eight tracks but stil has a total playing length of 46 minutes - and then it's not divided into phases either. Musically, focus is also on other styles. The cosmic space rock and the German krautrock have been reduced and / or replaced by an indie rock style mixed with neo-psychedelia and progressive rock. The compositions are longer but not unusually long - with the exception of two songs: "West Country (Medley)" consisting of three parts, i) "Paranormal Pt. 1", ii) "Archdude's Roadtrip" and iii) "Kar- ma-kanik" with a total running length of 8:30 minutes, and the song "S.T.A.R.C.A.R." running 11:28 minutes. Common to all tracks is an overall theme of car culture as an image of (especially) Western consumerism and Cope's perspective on the destruction of the global environment - which in this way adds the album to his main theme in the trilogy. A greater focus has crept in on progressive compositions at the expense of more catchy songs, which nearly always were part of his albums. Perhaps Cope has simply adjusted to his own mindset of getting messages across instead of following the record companies' desire for sales ability - this new perspective on music is emphasised by giving the individual tracks an explanation in the inlay, rather than the regular reproduction of the song's text (also seen on Peggy Suicide).
Autogeddon received a mixed reception but still sold well and is ranked as Cope's second best solo album with a number #16 in the UK, only surpassed by Saint Julian (1987). Despite good sales figures, the album appears as less accessible, where focus has been accentuated on musical originality and perhaps especially on the message, which in any case may also be seen as an increased demand for the listener's attention and his / her willingness to come to terms with the actual meaning of the songs as something other than just pure musical enjoyment.
Shortly after this, Cope and Thighpaulsandra released the instrumental album Queen Elizabeth (Nov. '94) under the same name.
[ allmusic.com, Q Magazine 3 / 5, Rolling Stone 3,5 / 5, NME 4 / 5 stars ]
