Johnny Paycheck - Armed and Crazy (Expanded Edition) (1978/2010)

Although Julian Cope was largely a social hermit during the mid-'80s, his darkest years personally, he remained a friend and favorite of BBC DJs Janice Long and John Peel, who regularly coaxed him from his Tamworth home into their studios for sessions. (In keeping with his craving for solitude, the majority of the mid-'80s recordings feature Cope strumming away at a guitar with only a cheap and clattery drum machine for accompaniment.) The results are startling for those familiar with the more polished studio recordings; stripped of its relatively lush orchestration, "Reynard the Fox" sounds like Roky Erickson at his most paranoid. The full-band sessions recorded just before and during the recording of 1991's Peggy Suicide find Cope utterly revitalized, off drugs, happily married, and, happily, even weirder than before. The throbbing "Soul Medley" jams together Funkadelic's "Free Your Mind & Your Ass Will Follow," the Mothers of Invention's "Are You Hung Up," and Cope's own Krautrock-inspired meltdown, "Hanging out and Hung up on the Line," for a mind-melter that no mere drug could provide. Although it's no substitute for the albums Julian Cope was recording in these years, The Best of the BBC Sessions: Floored Genius, Vol. 2 is essential for fans.