best Fall album for starters

By the time you've listened to all of those you should have an idea of what period(s) in their catalogue interest you most.

Slates is great. I forget which tracks are on which albums to be honest. The one with "Garden", "Smile", "Eat Y'Self Fitter" etc. might be a good start cos it mixes elements from the Brix-era and the pre-Brix era.

Another vote for Slates! That and 'Hip Priest & Kamerads' are the most perfect Fall records I've heard. The latter is the best introduction because it collects lots of the best stuff from the pinnacle period and has plenty of variety. The live version of Who Makes the Nazis on it is far superior to the one on Hex Enduction Hour. It has Room to Live which is one of my faves: best key change evah! The EP it's on of the same name has a bad reputation so best to get it here probably.

Anyway, Nation's is a good album to get into later. I'd start with Live at the Witch Trials.

458489 is a good listen, much more consistant than most of the Brix period releases, although I'd say The Wonderful and Frightening World of the Fall is the best album of that period.

That is my two cents anyways.

I'm with this.

Personal starting point for me was Palace of Swords Reversed. FUCKING GENIUS. Yes. Out of print, though, but I gather other comps nearly cover the same ground -- further wibblings of mine here (and for better or worse, I'd say a good half or more of the reviews of the regular albums are mine as well...).

http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:p-h-nkDccvHqWM:http://bp2.blogger.com/_uB-0D-gV8mY/Rv8eg3ualUI/AAAAAAAAEO4/Y0-8QPx8rZg/s400/Room_to_Live.jpeg

This record is driving me crazy all over again.

I mean, really, what could you possibly need out of the Fall that that record doesn't deliver? "Marquis Cha-Cha" is a song I've always considered a primary gateway drug for those unfamiliar with The Fall. And I've already blabbed enough on my blog about "Hard Life In Country", so I'll try to remain silent here.

Totally agreed. LOVE IT. Always been weird to me that of the EP's bookending Hex, Slates gets so much more notice.

So many peaks. "Solicitor in Studio" always sounds to me like a band that knows how great it is but just can't deal anymore w/ playing cool about it, and it just bubbles over. Also: "Detective Instinct" has to be as concentrated a distillation of the MES Gogol-on-greenies m.o. as exists in the catalog...going to listen now!

my version of this is the Line reissue with the "Lie-Dream"/"Fantastic Life" single added to it. For years I thought those were part of the record proper. With them added, this is an amazing Fall album. Without, well, still good but not in my top ten. "Hard Life In Country" is my fave for some reason, even with its relentless grinding repetition.

There really is no wrong place to start with the Fall, pre '90s work at least. About five years ago I just started picking up the '80s albums as I found them used and heard them in the order I did. In general, I strongly believe the best place to start in any catalog is not necessarily the "canonical" album. Nowhere to go but downhill, theoretically speaking, from there.

My favorite Fall album is probably Bend Sinister. I still only have heard a bit of the '90s stuff though. A long way to go!

Absolutely agreed on 'Room to Live'. I've only listened to it for the first time very recently, long after I'd absorbed the rest of their pre-Brix material. As much as I love 'Slates', this really does deserve as much attention.

Well, 'Room To Live' was my first Fall album, but it didn't make a fan of me. However, the next one, 'This Nation's Saving Grace' did.

a mate of mine asked me this very question the other week; i gave him a lend of "50,000 fall fans" but said -- and i'd stand by this! -- that "imperial wax solvent" is a fucking awesome place to start.

fwiw here is the Fall fan site's poll:

After 27 weeks of round robin polls on the forum, the 2008 Fall Albums League has finished. The 27 studio albums (not including Imperial Wax Solvent, which hadn't been released at the start of the competition) finished in this order:

1. Hex Enduction Hour
2. Perverted By Language
3. Grotesque
4. Slates
5. This Nation's Saving Grace
6. Dragnet
7. The Real New Fall LP Formerly C.O.T.C.
8. The Wonderful And Frightening World Of...
9. The Unutterable
10. Bend Sinister

11. Room To Live
12. The Frenz Experiment
13. The Infotainment Scan
14. Live At The Witch Trials
15. Extricate
16. Fall Heads Roll
17. I Am Kurious Oranj
18. Levitate
19. Code: Selfish
20. The Light User Syndrome

21. Shift-Work
22. The Marshall Suite
23. Middle Class Revolt
24. Cerebral Caustic
25. Reformation Post TLC
26. Are You Are Missing Winner
27. Seminal Live

So a pretty high showing for Room To Live. And Fall Heads Roll is not that good, wtf.

For Brix-era stuff I've always liked Bend Sinister the most. If you like Wings, there are
plenty of similar dark twisted tales herein, especially the opener R.O.D; plus upbeat organ-driven
things.
Pre-Brix you can't go wrong with the holy trinity: Grosteque, Slates, Hex

it's when i look at lists like that i remember i obviously hear very different things in the fall to a lot of other listeners ;)

I find that over twenty years of Fall fandom I mostly listen to one album to represent each epoch. Live At the Witch Trials, This Nation's Saving Grace, and Middle Class Revolt cover it for me (although I own a bunch of other great ones). Slates, Hex, Bend Sinister... great albums. I just never play them anymore.

"Hard Life In Country" folks. They ought to put that out to the aliens from other planets as one of the best things the human race has achieved here on earth.

SOLICITOR IN STUDIO

wait!!! Grimly has a new screen name that involves John Cooper Clarke!! I've been outdone! Oh my god, I've been outdone.

... by everyone....

Globo have covered the whole of "This Nations Saving Grace"

http://www.globo.org.uk/

(beware the embedded mp3 on that page. 'LA' on the Freak Zone on Sunday sounded better than 'Couldn't Get Ahead' here)

http://vox2.cdn.amiestreet.com/album-art/50-000-Fall-Fans-Can%E2%80%99t-Be-Wrong-(39-Golden-Greats)-by-The-Fall_58327_full.jpg

^^a comp, but definitely made me a fan

gives you some sort of roadmap to all their different eras etc, they can be a hard band to figure out as a newbie

of course...

Oh! The Fall John Peel Sessions box set! OH! you guys.

'50,000 Fall Fans...' definitely took me from curiosity to full-on obsession when I first dipped into the back catalogue. Prior to that, all I'd heard was the Peel session of 'Blindness' and a couple of tracks from 'This Nation's Saving Grace'. It's a great place to start, contains a nice booklet with a basic discography, etc.

off topic but i have just finished reading "the fallen" by dave simpson, where he tracks down the former members of the fall. great stuff and highly recommended.

it's on my list ... once i've finished "a disaffection" ... oh, and a fucking mountain of psychology articles. and "neurophysiology for numpties". tits.

his wee piece in the grauniad the other week ("i lost my girlfriend because i was too busy chasing around drummers from the fall") was fundamentally depressing, mind.

is that an actual book?

what, dave simpson's? yeh, he deci ... oh, you mean "neurophysiology for numpties". no. sadly.

ASIDE:
anyone know that blog that made it a project to go through every fall release ever and review with links to the albums? i just looked at it recently and cannot remember where.

I let a coworker listen to Extricate today, and he loved it. First he's ever heard of the Fall... so I'd say Extricate is a good choice.

Extricate wouldn't be my first choice...Stephen, I wrote you an email back to yours and you didn't respond. Could it be in your spam folder? Sorry we keep missing each other!

If I was to blindly pick two, Extricate and Nations Saving Grace would be them.

The remaster of Ex is weird: The tracks that were not on the album have ben removed from CD1, and put onto CD2 along with the 12" versions and b-sides. Which is wrong.

What do you mean? The tracks that weren't on the LP, but were on the cd and tape? Like, um, Extricate itself in fact?

Exactly that, yes.

That is, as you say, wrong. I had the tape, and I always felt that Extricate was the perfect end of album song.

.. and the track "Black Monk Theme 2" the perfect intro to "Telephone thing", and so on.

that's how i will always listen to it, no matter what.

me too.

Extricate wouldn't be my first choice...Stephen, I wrote you an email back to yours and you didn't respond. Could it be in your spam folder? Sorry we keep missing each other!

It wouldn't be my first choice, either, but it happened to be the Fall album I had on hand that day. He loved "British People in Hot Weather" anyway, what a great song that is! Anyway... I received your email but hadn't bothered to reply since you'd be back on Friday. I'm having a busy week anyway. I'll get around to it soon, I promise!

This Nation's Saving Grace has been in heavy digital rotation for me lately. So that.

ned?

I'd start with Slates. It's short and sweet, and one of the best things they ever put out. Quite representative, and real variety. There's their angular pop side with Leave the Capitol, the creeping menace of An Older Lover, the 2-chord vamp/rant of Slates, Slags etc, and a glorious blast of punk noise in Pink Press Threat.

> "Personal starting point for me was Palace of Swords Reversed. FUCKING GENIUS."
> Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 17 October 2002 19:18 (7 years ago) Bookmark

I think I was pretty much happy with Slates and This Nation's for a long time. Been listening to Dragnet, Perveted by Language, Hex Education, The Wonderful and Frightening World..., Grotesque over the last week and loving it all, mostly. Re-listening to Slates and that is just one of the best records ever, on a track-by-track basis with no hint of a drop-off but its weird to think of The Fall as just a band that releases records rather than a world that was mapped out by MES, Brix and these scruffy looking people from a part of Manchester. I wouldn't want to listen to Slates in isolation anymore.

I'll look at the Unutterable sometime.

IMO everything they did in the studio from 79-89 is worth your time. After that it's hit or miss, I know there are plenty of people who will rep for individual albums after that but I find the 90s almost completely covered by "A Past Gone Mad" and "A World Bewitched" compilations. Even the esteemed "The Unutterable" is let down by a string of tracks towards the end. I much prefer my 00s playlist, all killer no filler. But then again, no two Fall fans will agree what tracks fall into which category.

Is your playlist public, Gerald?

The run from Dragnet to Bend Sinister made them my favourite band growing up, but there was a really swift drop in quality after that. Smith suddenly seemed to lose intensity and lyrical focus from The Frenz Experiment onwards, with Seminal Live being a particular nadir - the live songs on it weren't seminal, and the few semi-demi-seminal songs weren't live.

Yes, Stewart Lee did a really good job in compiling A Past Gone Mad for the 90s output, and individual 00s songs such as the Peel version of 'Blindness' still have the power to surprise. My attention wanders whenever I try to listen to a whole 00s album though. The best songs on the last few albums tended to be the ones where the band locked into a riff and Smith's vocals were almost incidental, such as this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_l6FkGXjULQ

+1 would love to see your playlist gerald

> "Personal starting point for me was Palace of Swords Reversed. FUCKING GENIUS."
> Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 17 October 2002 19:18 (7 years ago) Bookmark

― koogs, Wednesday, February 24, 2010 7:40 AM (ten years ago) bookmarkflaglink

this^

I'm old, so when I say 'playlist' I mean 'I cherry-picked these tracks and created my own local MP3 compilation'. I edited a few tracks that went on way too long, too. Here's the tracklisting:

Best Of The 21st Century (6 hours long!)

Cyber Insekt / Two Librans / W.B. / Sons Of Temperance / Dr. Bucks' Letter / Way Round / Ketamine Sun (extract) / Hands Up Billy - The Unutterable
Jim's The Fall / Bourgeois Town / My Ex-Classmates Kids / Reprise: Jane - Prof. Mick - Ey Bastardo - Are You Are Missing Winner
Susan Vs Youthclub - single
Green Eyed Loco-Man / Theme From Sparta F.C. #2 / Contraflow (Country On The Click version) / Open The Boxtosis #2 / The Past (Country On The Click version) / (We Are) Mod Mock Goth / Proteinprotection - The Real New Fall LP
Blindness (version) - Interim
I Wake Up In The City - 2G+2
Pacifying Joint / What About Us? / Assume / I Can Hear The Grass Grow / Bo Demmick / Youwanner / Clasp Hands / Trust In Me - Fall Heads Roll
Reformation! / Fall Sound / My Door Is Never / Das Boat (edit) / Systematic Abuse - Reformation Post-TLC
Alton Towers / Wolf Kidult Man / 50 Year Old Man (edit) / I've Been Duped / Can Can Summer / Tommy Shooter / Senior Twilight Stock Replacer - Imperial Wax Solvent
O.F.Y.C. Showcase / Bury Pts. 1+3 / Hot Cake / Slippy Floor (edit) / Chino - Your Future Our Clutter
Taking Off / Nate Will Not Return / Greenway / I've Seen Them Come / Age Of Chang - Ersatz GB
Sir William Wray / Hittite Man / Victrola Time - Re-Mit
Mister Rode - The Remainderer
Dedication Not Medication (LP version) / Auto Chip 2014-2016 / Quit iPhone - Sub-Lingual Tablet
Wise Ol' Man (edit) / All Leave Cancelled - Wise Ol' Man
Fol De Rol / Brillo De Facto / O! Zztrrk Man / Groundsboy - New Facts Emerge

And these MES guest appearances:
Not Clean - Ghostigital
Fledermaus Can't Get It / The Rhinohead / Family Feud / Duckrog / Chicken Yiamas / That Sound Wiped / Dearest Friends - von Sudenfed
Real Good Time Together / Mettle Claw - MES & Ed Blarney
Blow Up Muscles - MES
Molocular Meditation / VS Cancelled - MES & Jan St. Wener

missing "Loadstones" but lots of great stuff in there!

Interesting article in Record Collector (Luke Haines) suggesting that "Your future our clutter" was the last one where Mark sounded like himself, and "Ersatz" had a drastically different voice, possibly because illness. Being as how YFOC was the last fall album I got, I'll have to use your picks to catch up with.

Gerald’s selection is missing OFYC’s most breathtaking track! But excellent work otherwise

Great work even though you've missed out loads of my faves etc grumble ;)

Don't sleep on the Imperial Wax (the band) album btw. I think it's their second best behind OFYC, and I LIKE latter-day Fall

Auto Chip 2014-2016 is miraculous though yeah. I think Smith is a big part of that one though! HOW BAD ARE ENGLISH MUSICIANS!

My journey started with this, which I loved and stewed over for a few months:

https://img.discogs.com/EOwNbN0eeT2dyA_Z045PP7INobo=/fit-in/543x544/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-617685-1193743949.jpeg.jpg

Then, I just dove into a deep end with this, thanks to a well-timed Borders gift card blessing:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f2/Completepeelsessions.jpg

Only then did I start picking up reissues of the older stuff and keeping up with the then current albums as they came out.

tough to go wrong with those at your first two, tbh

*as* your first two

I mean, it worked! Turned me into a huge fan.

Oh the Peel box is absolutely epic, but I always figured it was overdose for a new fan. The two that got me into the fold were "Palace Of Swords Reversed" (still one of my all-time favorite compilations) and "A-Sides 84-89".

My first was 458489 A-Sides, which I immediately liked, but I don’t think I truly “got” it until I heard Grotesque.

"Words of Expectation" on the first disc in the Peel Set is my very favorite thing in the world

discovered the fall in 89 with bend sinister when i found it on sale at woolworths. quickly acquired all of the beggars banquet albums as they were easily available, then it was palace of swords reversed that introduced me to the early fall stuff.

mine was hearing "The Man Whose Head Expanded" on the radio around time of release, first record I heard/got was Wonderful & Frightening World

wonderful & frightening world was for the longest time my least liked album... i had the cassette version with tons of extra tracks and it was just too much to take! now it's my favorite.

yep, I love that tape version

Loved the b-sides collection . some weird shit.
first saw them around Xmas 83 then several times over the next couple of years. Probably last in Belfast in like 95.

LOve that Dragnet, Hex Enduction era and a little later. Not really investigated their later years overmuch.

The BBC history documentary was quite good too.

i started with Grotesque and it worked, had everything in short order afterwards

I'd heard "Bingo Master" on the Rhino DiY Uk Punk II comp in the mid-'90s and the way MES's vox didn't quite sit on the beat unnerved me a bit. Nonetheless in 2000, when Early Years 77-79 was reissued, I decided to take the plunge and found I liked this slightly off-center approach, with the dinky electric piano and this guy who sounded kind of punk but seemed to put himself somewhere above it, and I wanted more. A year as a student (MES be not proud) in England then made it possible to track down most of the studio albums, where the real catalyst for my fandom was 458489 A-Sides.

For me one of the magical things about a lot of Fall albums (Hex, Frenz, Unutterable, and Reformation were examples) was how they would be opaque at first, still baffling on the second listen, and then would suddenly click on the third. Some were more immediate (Infotainment, Marshall Suite, Dragnet), a few never quite got there (Kurious Oranj, Middle Class Revolt) and one seemed like a dud but after several listens over a few years eventually became a lower-tier favorite (Cerebral Caustic).

I'm not sure the post-YFOC stuff has that thing there that takes extra listens to "get," though I quite like a couple of these (Re-Mit is a bit skimpy but fun, SLT has the best overall quality of the Cherry Red albums).

I think if I were advising a newcomer who was actually interested in physical product (do these exist?), you could do a lot worse than Cherry Red's singles box, despite its somewhat dubious logic in terms of B-side selection — you could choose the A-sides only option. The first disc of both comps, from "Bingo Master" through "Cruiser's Creek," makes about as good a case for the greatness of The Fall as any single disc I've heard.

Cassette version of wonderful and frightening was my intro to the fall as well
True it’s an enormous amount of music but you only had to listen to one side at a time