"Fried" is the second solo album by Julian Cope, released on November 9, 1984, just six months after his debut album World Shut Your Mouth. For this album, Cope retained guitarist Steve Lovell and oboe player Kate St. John from his previous record, but added Donald Ross Skinner, his musical partner from Drayton Bassett, on rhythm and slide guitars. Other additions to the album's lineup included former Waterboys drummer Chris Whitten and, on one track, Steve "Brother Johnno" Johnson from the band Mighty Wah!.
Fried marked a more raw and unpolished approach compared to Cope's debut, and many aspects of the album foreshadowed the looser, more mystical style that Cope would become known for in the following decade. The album's controversial cover featured Cope naked, crouched on top of the Alvecote Mound slag heap, wearing only a large turtle shell. The album's themes included early examples of Cope's penchant for mythologizing his life, blending personal experiences with folklore and ritual. The track "Reynard the Fox" referenced both English folk tales and a notorious onstage incident from the previous year in which Cope had slashed his stomach during a performance. "Bill Drummond Said" was an enigmatic fable about Cope's former manager, Bill Drummond, who would later become a key figure in the KLF, while "O King of Chaos" revealed Cope's growing interest in paganism, with the song serving as an invocation to the Norse god Odin. Several tracks on Fried were sparsely arranged, with Cope often performing solo.
Despite receiving better reviews than his debut album, Fried sold poorly at the time of its release, and the single "Sunspots" also failed to make an impact commercially. The album's underperformance led to Cope being dropped by Polygram, but he soon found a new manager in artist and musician Cally Callomon, and signed a new deal with Island Records. Skinner and Whitten, who had played on Fried, would continue to collaborate with Cope on his next album, Saint Julian. In 1986, Bill Drummond released his own album The Man, which featured a track titled "Julian Cope Is Dead," in response to Cope's "Bill Drummond Said."
In 2007, Fried was included in The Guardian's list of "1000 Albums to Hear Before You Die."
