John Cale - Fear Is A Man's Best Poll

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.

ship of fools

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

Not to belittle Eno's role, because god knows on tracks like Bowie's "Beauty and the Beast" he does otherwordly things treating guitars with his EMS Synthi. But on "Gun," all he's basically doing is speeding up and slowing down the LFO modulating the filter Manzanera's guitar is being run through. It's a classic solo for sure, but praising Eno on this is like giving credit to Jimi Hendrix's right foot for controlling the wah-wah pedal on "Voodoo Chile."

Buffalo Ballet for me. Paul Kelly's cover of it is possibly even more affecting, such an evocative song.

best chorus is "ship of fools"

best verses are "fear"

tough call

Relistened to this last night; "Sylvia Said" is indeed a fine, fine thing.

Love this album, especially the first side - all classic songs in my opinion.
Gun is another good one, I guess I'll go for Buffalo Ballet because of the "sleeping in the midday sun" bit.

As for the "mannered" style of the Island era, this is exactly why I like these albums so much. They're very difficult to pin down, they can be at the same time cold-hearted exercises in rock n roll and brutally excoriating confessional tales.

all three of those Island era lps are my well-worn, go-to favorites. put one on and it's always, 'Thank you, thank you, John Cale to the rescue!!'

yessss - slow dazzle is the near-equal of fear IMO and helen of troy isn't too far behind. has guts ever been issued on CD? it's a great 70s cale primer

sabotage is where he REALLY got 'unhinged'

in fact slow dazzle might be my favorite, good excuse to relisten before the next poll

HOT sounds forced to me. Don't mind "I Keep a Close Watch" but the title track and "Leaving It Up to You" are Grand Guignol.

Yeah but Pablo Picasso is the shit.

just for the way he prounces AHSSSWHOLE

I love 'my maria' and 'engine'

HOT is uneven but "Leaving It Up To You" is one of his all-time classics; also like "Close Watch" and "Cable Hogue"

the end of "china sea" is probably my favorite slow dazzle moment.

but back to fear! here's an outtake from the cover shoot
http://www.xs4all.nl/~werksman/cale/img/outtakes/fear.jpg

Fear, Buffalo Ballet, Ship of Fools are my favourites... Fear wins though.

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

it's weird, i still haven't heard helen of troy. think this is his best apart from paris.

helen of troy is pretty unsettling to me, even after all these years of listening to it. like what is going on during "engine"? yikes!

These 3 albums are contenders for "3 best consecutive albums" ever, along with, say, the first 3 Wire albums. I wonder if that's been polled...

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

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