R7M5

[rayge]

A Porter Wagoner – The Rubber Room



B Julian Cope - I Come From Another Planet, Baby

[bungo the mungo]

the wagoner choice is a strange one. so many better tracks to choose from. the cope track is OK, i think i prefer it.

B

[DarknessFish]

More country! Eek! Run and hide. Not as yee-haw-y as The Monkees effort, but a bizarre portentous thing about a padded cell. Ok. It's silly, but you can't accuse it of being another generic old worlde pick. Shame there's so much echo, wouldn't a rubber room be awfully flat and dampened?

I might've seen Julian Cope live around this time, though it was an acoustic set. My brother's annoying Welsh girlfriend was berated by Mr Cope for chatting loudly through the entire set. This is almost like a light n' fluffy toytown take on industrial rock, with the driven percussion and fuzzy synths. Not sure I like the cheap synth swirls again for the 'spacey' take, but it's quite an attractive shiny little thing. Yeah, not too bad.

B

[Crunchy Col]

Oh, wow, great match. Finally!

I first heard 'The Rubber Room' not too long ago - think someone on BCB pointed it out. It's an amazing record with just the right amount of 'odd' without it becoming gimmicky. The vocal is ace, the arrangement is perfect. It's really something special. I love it.

I'm a huge Cope fan and when all his switches are on and he's not being a lazy or obtuse bastard he makes pop music like the best of them. And this is one such example. It's a killer song.

Tough. I might change my vote but for now this one goes to another JC

B

[toomanyhatz]

I like both of these gentlemen, and appreciate their eccentricities, though of course there's not much in common musically (though I bet Cope likes A!)

A is ultimately a bit of a novelty, but an interesting one. And Cope has many far, far better songs than that one.

[Deleted]

My grandmother made my brother and I watch the Porter Waggoner show and Glen Campbell hour when we stayed over at her house while my parents went out.

This is a weirdly compelling Waggoner song. I think I like it, but I can't be sure. It drew me in from the first. The Cope song starts well enough, but doesn't hold me. Still more my thing, I think. I don't know if I could hear the Waggoner song again and not go crazy.

B

[lokie]

[Deleted]

Cope is OK enough to get the nod...Vote B

[Reactionary Rage]

I liked As spooky melodrama and I'm a sucker for silly productions like this.

B is one of those records I remember liking at the time but which I'd completely forgotten about. It's not bad but it sounds a bit like 2nd rate Sparks.

Put me down for a visit to the Rubber Room.

A

[Deleted]

I was disappointed in B. Ugly drum sound and a bit of a nothing song. Seems a strange pick when there's so much better from this artist.

I don't know if I enjoyed A, but it was certainly an experience and sometimes some genuine weirdness can be a good palatte cleanser!

A

[fonz]

A reminded me of some dull Lou Reed thing, with too much repetition.

For all its faults, and it has many, B gets my vote here. I'd like to hear more Cope, but bcb put me off

[T. Willy Rye]

I like both of these. B slightly more.

[fange]

Good match. Both artists i like and deeper cuts that surprise if you haven't heard them in a while like me. I'm going with the one i'm more likely to play more these days, which is the PW.

A

[osgood]

A nice match. I did enjoy A but this morning I prefer to visit another planet than the rubber room.

B

[rayge]

ooh, a conceptual tie about mental illness

a here's some weird country with a production that Joe Meek could have devised, which is certainly different. I haven't heard this before, so I'll have to guess what's going on under all that echo and mannered pronunciation, and what exactly has driven him into a padded cell, but that's not bad at all. 5.5 /10
b Cope's career is a curate's ostrich egg and this sits squarely in the middle bewteen the great and awful. I like the song,m it's got a bit of perk and cheer about it, but what lets it down for me, ultimately, is the vocal, which I found, unusually for JC, rather characterless. 5 / 10

A