John Cale - Fear Is A Man's Best Poll

also, not part of the album, but a worthy b-side:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0eqW7612KU
so pretty.

"Barracuda" over the title track, "Ship of Fools" and "Gun." This album is more uneven than I remember.

really? only track i'm not nuts about is "orgy" which is at least funny.
love "ship of fools" -- there's an ambient wash of sound in the background of that one that is very nice.

Not wild about "Emily," "Buffalo Ballet," or "Momamma."

"Barracuda" is SO MUCH fun to sing.

Title track for me too. I bought this album on the Island Years comp when that came out in the mid 90s, on the advice of the 1990 Rolling Stone guide that said these albums were unhinged. I knew the VU pretty well at that point & had a hard time thinking of Cale as unhinged & the albums disappointed me in that his singing is so mannered, like even his growls and menace on "Gun" sound like a put-on. I like mannered Cale tons on Paris 1919, a top-down classic album, but these ~~punk~~ ones haven't yet clicked with me. I need to figure out how to listen to them right, I guess.

yeah, listened to the island years comp yesterday and this morning...the more "unhinged" stuff felt a little forced this time around, kind of luridly pleasing, but also a little too pleased with itself for being so very nasty. the more playful, mellower stuff is what grabbed me...

Title track for me too. I bought this album on the Island Years comp when that came out in the mid 90s

^^^ essential owning. I got this, unbelievably, from Columbia House in '98 for 99 cents.

same here!

wow what a steal! yeah it is a wonderful comp.

guess slow dazzle has been polled: POLL: Best track on John Cale's "Slow Dazzle"
but we could do helen of troy next to round out the trilogy.

"Gun" for me. The title track has never been a favorite of mine, and "Orgy" is the only one I skip. Great record.

Orgy is a hilarious song fuiiud

gun

Orgy is a bad Beach Boys pastiche. I barely like good Beach Boys.

weirdly, "orgy" was a single! must've sounded like a smash hit to someone at Island.
http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/9d17729210913153a60d4046770fec94/156393.jpg
w/ the aforementioned sylvia said on the b-side.

Went for the title track, but there's a barracuda nipping at its heels.

this is worth y'alls time. http://fruitierthanthou.blogspot.com/2010/10/john-cale-john-peel-session-1st-may.html

Not wild about "Emily," "Buffalo Ballet," or "Momamma."

what

Ship Of Fools 4EVA!!!

which one would metallica cover?

honestly i could pick any of these. i love how this record nearly mines the same territory as paris 1919 but with less sonic detail, in starker tones. it's a very grey, muddy record, with weird, dark curves in it. it is also a very funny record but it is laughing at the dark.

e.g. i think the tension between the intended anomie of "gun"/"fear is a man's best friend" and how cale is sort of still mired in his mannered aspects is both hilarious and far scarier than if he were completely unhinged.

essentially:

the ocean will have us all otm

Not wild about "Emily," "Buffalo Ballet," or "Momamma."

what

This. "Emily" sounds like she's been dead for thirty years. The bridge to "Buffalo Ballet" ("Yes, we'll all join in/And we'll all hold hands") is like some bizarre gospel song from There Will Be Blood. "Momamma" has killer slide guitar, IIRC.

Go back and do your homework, Alfred. Momamma is very disappointed in you.

I have a hard time getting past the opening melody of "Emily."

The lurching dynamics of "Momamma" are a precursor to the superior "Heartbreak Hotel."

i dig cale's appropriation of corny English song tropes (at least that's what they sound like to me) on songs like "emily" -- something kind of interesting about the juxtaposition of these victorian melodies and the other, nastier stuff.

and momamma scuba's riff is definitely pretty close to the heartbreak hotel one. but on what other song do you have manzanera, richard thompson and bryn haworth playing together?

Title song is one of my favourite songs ever.

voting Fear

"Buffalo Ballet" and "Fear" are easy top ten Cale tunes for me. I'll let them fight it out in my head for a while.

i dig cale's appropriation of corny English song tropes (at least that's what they sound like to me) on songs like "emily" -- something kind of interesting about the juxtaposition of these victorian melodies and the other, nastier stuff.

I think that's exactly right. Between the loping piano, the whooshing ocean noise, and chorus of dead female backing singers, it's as if the song was written for Mary Shelley.

I'll let them fight it out in my head for a while.

Same here -- I'm having a hard time figuring this one out.

"Buffalo Ballet"

i think i might come out of this voting for "ship of fools"

yeah, that is the one that really stood out to me on my latest listen ...i had gotten used to the sharper, less dreamy solo acoustic versions Cale's done in recent years. but there's this heatstroke, dreamy quality to the studio version that is just amazing.

yeah generally the mood here is one in which the instruments and songs are come out of a thick smoke and it is particularly there in "ship of fools." one of the instruments is resonating throughout the length of the song, makes the whole enterprise seem like it's swelling and growing upon itself.

and then of course "gun" rockets you into the mouth of hell a bit

sylvia said is such a great song

might even have voted for it ahead of the actual album songs

yeah, it is so good!

yeah, "sylvia said" is amazing

of the album tracks proper tho, "ship of fools"

did someone end up volunteering to do a VU solo poll? that really would be fun

"Sylvia Said" is a little Velvet Underground-ish.

yeah, i figured this was cale's little nod to lou's "said" series of songs

seems unlikely that the title would be a total coincidence

did someone end up volunteering to do a VU solo poll? that really would be fun

Considering I've relistened to Moe's excellent I Spent a Week... and Lou's Set the Twilight Reeling in the past week, it would be an impossible choice.

The synthesizer part is kind of like the viola on "Stephanie Says."

Ship of fools, easily.

Manzanera plays guitar on "gun", right? Nasty stuff.

Manzanera and Eno both play the guitar on Gun.

According to the interview in The Island Years' liner notes, Eno's guitar credit is for feeding Manzanera's lines through his synth.

That's what I meant - they are both playing that gnarly guitar at the same time.

3 good albums, but they get worse as they go on, "Helen of Troy" is pretty crap in places - does the world need ANOTHER version of "Baby What You Want Me To Do", especially from John Cale??!?!? I've heard Cale say that Island put it out before he'd finished mixing it or something, but that's a hoary old excuse artists are wont use for albums that aren't quite up to scratch.

There's a version by Moe as well (Jad Fair sings it)

I hate that song

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

Eno/Manzanera guitar solo on "Gun" is all-time awesome. But I guess I gravitate toward the ballads. "Buffalo Ballet," "Ship of Fools," "You Know More Than I Know," all of which perhaps work better in the context of the comp than the in the album proper, but they're still pretty.

Have played both "Buffalo Ballet" and "Gun" live... and I was (supposedly) doing the lead guitar on "Gun"! I'll have to see if I can find a tape of that... in fact, I think it was a medley with "Heartbreak Hotel"!

for a long time, I only knew "Fear Is A Man's Best Friend" from Billy Bragg's cover.

Earlier this year I got to hear the original.

Blimey, nothing like it!

3 good albums, but they get worse as they go on

OTM. I love "Ship Of Fools" but if you're gonna vote for it you're voting for Paris 1919, not Fear. I'm voting "Gun".

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Order of tracks is spot on, well done ILM! Thought "Gun" might get more votes tho.

Agreed, particularly as Ship of Fools got a lot...

yeahhh, pretty nice results. thought maybe barracuda would get a vote or two. shall we do helen of troy to round out the island years?

life and death and things you just do when you're bored

<3 this guy

No votes for mommama scuba, wow

you add it up it brings you down -- what a great line

hahaha i just realized after watching several youtubes of live versions of "fear is a man's best friend" that it's not "life and death and things" it's "life and death are things..."
oops

either way, you add it up, it brings you dooooooooooown

i have since confirmed that he changed the lyrics for the live versions
in the recorded version it's life and death and things you just do when you're bored unless i am totally word deaf

Before I forget I want to tell this thread that John Cale did radically rearranged versions of three songs from this album when I saw him last Friday -- he did Fear = man's BFF, Ship of Fools and (iirc) Gun all kind of in the same cracked carnival carousel sort of way. Ship of Fools was the most different from the recorded version because the original is so sweet and pretty. The songs didn't sound wound up and tooth-gnashy like the 80s live versions I've seen on youtube, but they were very different and weird. I appreciate his willingness to totally redo his own songs! Maybe it makes them more interesting to play. He also did Waiting for My Man.

Lol @ "Fear = man's BFF"

Saw him last night and the version of "fear" played was among the most hilarious things I've ever seen. In a good way, naturally. Also did a 10+ minute version of "ship of fools" which was sublime.

yeah! he did that at my show too. i didn't want to give you spoilers but it was so great, right? i love him when he is goofy and lighthearted just as much as when he's any of his other ways. did he do the nookie wood song?
thanks for the recap -- i'd have wondered and then forgotten to ask you

here's some of his big ears set -- sounds kind of cool!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFOf39vRSOU

yes, it was amazing, though I will admit that it took me a while to find a way into the groove of whatever it is that they were doing. But once I did I was all theirs.

Ludicrously great band obviously. Funkiest bassist ever.

oof the bridge in "buffalo ballet"... so nice.

the whole record. john cale rules.

http://quietus_production.s3.amazonaws.com/images/articles/7147/John_Cale_1318330132_crop_550x571.jpg

He looks like a Brian Froud drawing.

I just play the whole Island Years comp.

* hi, my name is Zach_TBD (Karl Malone). i was a longstanding underrater of Fear.
** hi Zach_TBD (Karl Malone).
* hi. god, this is awkward. what was i even thinking. where do i even begin

sleeping in the midday sun.
sleeping in the midday sun.

one of those single lines that just makes the entire song. john cale has a lot of those.

note: on Spotify, the most popular song on this album is Barracuda (close to 3M listens, compared to only 500K for the best song, Ship of Fools). on this poll, Barracuda has 0 votes.

"Barracuda" is a catchy sumbitch

sleeping in the midday sun.
sleeping in the midday sun.

one of those single lines that just makes the entire song. john cale has a lot of those.

Holy shit, I was going to post that I was surprised more people don't cover John Cale, but then I saw this:

https://werksman.home.xs4all.nl/cale/covers/index.html

List of bands includes both Sugar Ray and Red Hot Chili Peppers, though both (particularly the latter) or kind of technicalities:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NzuVBA55NI

Paul Kelly does a great version of "Buffalo Ballet":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4cBcd0IaIA

"Emily" would have been my pick. Another one-line chorus: "Maybe we'll love again".

haha, that is weird that "barracuda" is the most-played spotify track — must be the one that the algorithm has singled out for being up-tempo, no screaming, not too long etc. the playlist canon.

KM I am glad that you are properly appreciating this masterpiece

haha, that is weird that "barracuda" is the most-played spotify track — must be the one that the algorithm has singled out for being up-tempo, no screaming, not too long etc. the playlist canon.

― tylerw

I wonder if it's from people searching for the Heart song and playing it.

I wondered that too.

Haha maybe!

Most likely

Now if only Taylor Swift would record a song entitled "The Man Who Couldn't Afford To Orgy"...

“Barracuda” features in the recent Andy Samberg film Palm Springs - might be getting some action from that.

omg the Heart connection, don't know whether to laugh or cry

“Barracuda” features in the recent Andy Samberg film Palm Springs - might be getting some action from that.

god, this just hit me hard for some reason