Why does anyone like the Fall?

The Classical
New Face In Hell
I'm Into CB!
Repetition
I Am Damo Suzuki
New Face In Hell
Hip Priest
Couldn't Get Ahead
Dr. Buck's Letter
Living Too Late
Hit The North
Cruiser's Creek (live from Seminal Live lp)
Dktr Faustus
CREEP
Clear Off!
Oh! Brother
Impression of J. Temperance
Prole Art Threat

Hopefully this, in addition to what Douglas and others are posting, will give you a nice long list of songs to download from your favorite p2p.

That's a Kinks song, Mike!

Anyway, I think the hype is a bit overblown, and they sound like absolute shit on pot, but they have their moments. Eh.

1) “steppin out”
2) “rebellious jukebox”
3) “dice man”
4) “rowche rumble-live”
5) “pay your rates”
6) “fit and working again”
7) “totally wired”
8) “the classical”
9) “room to live”
10) “lie dream of the casino soul”
11) “i feel voxish”
12) “c.r.e.e.p.”
13) “rollin’ dany”

14) “couldn’t get ahead”
15) “living too late”
16) “frenz”
17) “wrong place, right time”
18) “dead beat descendant”
19) “black monk theme part I”
20) “free range”
21) “strychnine”
22) “hey student!”
23) “life just bounces”
24) “spinetrak”
25) “touch sensitive”
26) “hands up billy”

Ah, lovely. I would happily shell out for a Fall boxset of Peel Sessions from then to now.

Would you believe... USA Today?

that said i still like tons of their songs, for reasons stated elsewhere in this thread.

I used to do Fall tribute radio shows while on WFMU. You can check one of them out here.

It's exciting stuff.

I picked up the Rough Trade years anthology when it came out not long ago and it comes off like a perfect mix tape. I listen to it all the time. Definitely a great starting point.

You should get Dragnet. It's the best Fall album AND it has 'A Figure Walks' and 'Muzorewi's Daughter' which I think you'd like.

It also has a really grainy, monochrome sound and lots of Mike Leigh's 'a row of terraced houses falling down' drum rolls. If anyone tells you it's really badly recorded they're nuts. It's PERFECT.

You guys will not appreciate this, but it occurs to me: I've never seen anyone writing about Beat Happening mention how Fall-like they can be. Primitive tom-thump, gorilla-handed repeating riff, singer moaning and sneering . . . throw "Bewitched" into a Fall playlist and it sits comfortably. I mention this mostly because I imagine many of you don't like Beat Happening.

Early Fall - help me make a definitive C90
Fall (post-1985 / compilations): Search & Destroy
What are the best 10 Fall tracks of all time then?
best Fall album for starters

Felcher, you might be interested in this:

Are The Fall the most overrated band in the history of music?

But maybe you just need to jump ahead on the CD until it starts to click. On This Nation's Saving Grace (one of the best records ever made) .. just listen to L.A. and Gut of the Quantifier.. two pretty accessible tracks.

Also, listen to it on Vinyl. The ordering on the CD sucks and the extra tracks ruined it.

A request for MES:

we are in a band called the fall from norfolk, va and we are signed to an independent label..just wanted to let you know....maybe you can change your name to the fall uk so it does not conflict..thanks for your time

okay, but put a gun to my head? probably the wonderful and frightening world, prolly because it was really the first full album i got into back when it came out...still trying to find the peel mix of c.r.e.e.p...okay i haven't looked that hard, but it's the best one.

it would be a better world if the same attention endlessly lavished on, say, pet sounds, was spread like thick marmite on this nations saving grace.

long live the mighty fall!

skip

it's really not a matter of opinion --it's a fact that if you don't dig the fall, well, you're really somehow...how you say....deficient.

skip

I like the Fall, and I like Beat Happening.. and I like the former far more than the latter. And you do have a point, in relation to more mid 80s Fall, though I think there's still this question of ferocity and layers that Beat Happening don't have (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but certainly a crucial difference IMGO)

been listening to O-Mit, an EP of stuff left off Re-Mit, it's really great

nice, had no idea that existed

got one of those great Fall song titles that cracks me up: "A Disco (City)", the parenthesis kill me for some reason, miss u Mark E.

How do they feel about this description? “It really was a great band,” says Riley. “The two drummer lineup [with Karl Burns] was an amazing thing to be involved in. It felt absolutely infallible pretty much every night. We felt like we could take anybody on. We once played with The Birthday Party [in 1982] and they really went for it, it was a bit like a 'follow that...' scenario. And we did. We did a 13 minute version of ‘And This Day’, and we went hell for leather. For my money we were better than The Birthday Party that night, who were one of the greatest live bands in the world.” Scanlon then adds: “although we did play with The Cramps and they blew us off stage. Fucking ruined us.”

one for the "blew them off stage" thread! i find the image evoked by the lewder reading of that innocuous line truly delightful.

further to the interview, there is a pretty significant subset of fall cratediggers who will listen to all these different recordings critically and point out standouts - not sure if they've been in touch with those folks, but god i bet they could curate some truly killer sets based on their tapes. far better than the grey-market piles of crap that come out now.

It is wild how much stuff seems to get added to the pile every time I take a look - there’s a 4-disc reissue of Are You Are Missing Winner?

One of those sets has four renditions of "Das Boot". I mean, yeah, but

Even if there WEREN’T any outtakes from Re-Mit, they’d still have to make an outtakes ep called O-Mit

We could use a good live album of the fall heads roll tour from before the explosion of that lineup

that would be great