John Cale - Fear Is A Man's Best Poll

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

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

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