"People get ready, strip down your houses because it's the FALL TRACKS BALLOT ROLL- OUT!" - PART TWO The Tracks (Pre-wray)

righteousmaelstrom u did not vote for the song from which yr dn derives!

iirc

I think the only thing in this poll that surprised me was Wings placing above Voxish, Garden and (way above) Tempo House. But I've changed opinions about the PBL tracks a lot over the years, so maybe that'll be the next one...

lol I know. I actually pulled it from the live stage rant at the end of Putta Block.

#1 The N.W.R.A.
Winter
Wings
Deer Park
Slang King
Eat Y'self Fitter
Jawbone and the Air-Rifle
What You Need
The Classical
Totally Wired
Lay of the Land
The Container Drivers
Paint Work
Who Makes the Nazis?
Fit and Working Again
Psykick Dancehall
Garden
Marquis Cha-Cha
Kicker Conspiracy
How I Wrote 'Elastic Man'

i threw my ballot together without thinking too much and could easily swap half these tracks for others. considering the showing for all the other slates tracks i thought fit and working again was a lock for the top 10. kicker conspiracy is great but i think being about football affects its reception - a friend of mine hates it for this reason.

My ballot. I only did songs.

01 The Classical
02 Australians in Europe
03 U.S. 80's-90's
04 Totally Wired
05 Lie-Dream Of A Casino Soul
06 No Bulbs
07 Twister
08 Guest Informant
09 Gut of the Quantifier
10 Telephone Thing
11 Futures & Pasts
12 Rowche Rumble
13 British People In Hot Weather
14 Lucifer Over Lancashire
15 The Man Whose Head Expanded
16 Paint Work
17 Fiery Jack
18 Bournemouth Runner
19 Hip Priest
20 Kimble

Well done to the other Australians in Europe voter (I know. It's shooting stereotypical fish-in-a-barrel, but it still rocks).

Aus in Europe has been stuck in my head for like a week! I maybe shd have voted for it. Several b sides of that era I regret not including. Mark'll Sink Us... Bormann...

EuuuRUP! UP! UP-UP! UP!

The Annotated Fall

Oh yay hurray, that v cool site has saved me the task of typing in the awesome ad-lib portion of the live in Iceland version of The Classical:

On live versions, variant lyrics often would appear at this point. One more or less typical example (from Austurbaejarbio, recorded in 1982): "Dear customer, prior to delivery, this fine Ford Kawasaki Excel Escort was given a thorough inspection by Fred here in the white coat...please note, um, the, um, coin-spots on the dashboard...please note the fuel exhaustion limit reader...please note the elephant house odor of the dashboard, and most importantly the axels and the hubs which are immune to snow, extreme heat, rain, hailstones, sleet, and HAIL! The Classical!"

Not evoked by transcription is the amazing phrasing but it's something like

PLEASE NOTE!
the FUEL...
EXHAUSTION...
LIMIT...
READER...
PLEASE NOTE!
the elephant...
HOUSE!
odor...

That same live album has a great variant on Look, Know:

HE
Was the first
To wear
an idiotic
JACKET
in the club...

Container Drivers and I'm Into CB were robbed

This Poll in Number One in my list of Polls by the way.

Also I think this is the type of band and catalog that you could do one of these every six months and come up with quite a different result. Can we do that?

Jeff W! 'Twas I. This was my somewhat unreconstructed response to hearing it for the first time ever:

Australians In Europe - Holy hell, so catchy! And there's a subtle chord-change. This IS the poppy post-Bend Sinister burbling and it's AWESOME. And wow, that vocal echo thing! Playing with content AND form here. I'd not expected something quite so righteously joyful! It's still heavy; the bass and drums ensure that. But it's also a romp, a blast, perhaps the blinding chords of the Ketamine Sun shining onto our damned forms. I can't quite explain how bizarre this song's alchemy is. OH SHIT! The power-chord middle section!!! What's happened to The Fall?! This is completely insane! And then the guitar builds beneath, the bass changes, and MES comes back in...it's maybe one of my favourite 5 Fall moments so far? Hahahahaha, this band NEVER fails to amaze me. WOW. This has rapidly become one of the best pop songs I've ever had the privilege to hear. And there's still over a minute left!!! It's all going a bit Complicated Game. I ain't complaining. FUCK. I have no more rational argument about this. Why isn't it automatically mentioned every time the Peel Sessions are brought up? Beautiful solo during the fade-out too. YES

Anyway, here's my ballot. Hurricane Edward was fucking ROBBED my friends! Go on, give it another listen, it's the end of time

Bonkers In Phoenix
Hurricane Edward
Winter
Weather Report 2
Hip Priest
Garden
Gross Chapel - British Grenadiers
New Puritan
Australians In Europe
4 1/2 Inch
Ol' Gang
Blindness
Octo Realm/Ketamine Sun
The Crying Marshall
Two Librans
Paintwork
Hexen Definitive/Strife Knot
Midwatch 1953
50 Year-Old Man
Eat Y'Self Fitter

I tend to go for the dare I say 'more avant-garde' sort of Fall song - things like Hit The North and Totally Wired may reach me eventually - certainly I'm not going to make a distinction between 'interesting Fall' and 'boring Fall' because it's all part of the same creative process, really

REALLY REGRET NOT VOTING FOR:

Mexico Wax Solvent
The Birmingham School Of Business School
Antidotes

i forgot to vote for "autralians", stupid considering i made room for most every other would-be pop hit

it does look like a whopping great pop anomaly in my ballot doesn't it. but it's an unbelievably intense, bizarre and plain fucken rocknroll pop song, it's a righteous pop maelstrom

imago do you not fuck with Guest Informant, the other throat-shaker from that clutch of B sides?

Thanks for turning me onto that track, Aus in Eur, am listening now. It's great

would have to *gulp* hear...it...again? xp

btw you can add virtually every Levitate and Unutterable track I didn't vote for to the Regret list, especially Spencer Must Die, Levitate, Dr Buck's Letter, Devolute and Cyber Insekt

Had no time to comment

1 Wings
2 Kurious Oranj
3 Fortress/Deer Park
4 Leave the Capitol
5 Slates, Slags, Etc
6 The Classical
7 Lie Dream of A Casino Soul
8 Hey! Luciani
9 Look, Know
10 English Scheme
11 Your Heart Out
12 Jawbone and the Air Rifle
13 Blood outta stone
14 C'n'C Mithering
15 US 80s-90S
16 The man whose head expanded
17 Athlete Cured
18 Middle Mass
19 Who makes the nazis
20 Xmas with Simon

Could be v different, in fact looking now am surprised at some of my low votes.

20 Xmas with Simon

you rule

re: levitate, I wanted to vote for both Eve and Hurricane Ed, but in the end only Eve made the cut, mostly for the breathtaking transition to the hallucinatory 'if only the shards. could relocate. back. in place.' moment

Feeling da croupier's ballot for "Old White Train" and especially, uh, "Words of Expectation."

1 Words Of Expectation
2 Hotel Bloedel
3 Gut Of The Quantifier
4 I Feel Voxish
5 Job Search
6 And This Day
7 Leave The Capitol
8 Impression Of J. Temperance
9 Weather Report 2
10 Room To Live
11 Y.F.O.C. - Slippy Floor
12 Prole Art Threat
13 New Puritan
14 Dr. Bucks' Letter
15 Paint-Work
16 City Hobgoblins
17 Big New Prinz
18 Service
19 Blindness
20 Spinetrak

Really, though, that whole long list just gives me a nice warm feeling inside. Favorite discoveries of poll research: "Bremen Nacht" and "4 1/2 Inch."

Updated Spotify link (w/ correct "Deer Park" placing) is here.

1. Bremen Nacht
2. Leave the Capitol
3. Frightened
4. Cruiser’s Creek
5. Hip Priest
6. Sing!Harpy
7. Container Drivers
8. New Face In Hell
9. Repetition
10. Shift-Work
11. Don’t Call Me Darling
12. Feeling Numb
13. Telephone Thing
14. Ten Houses of Eve
15. Psykick Dancehall
16. No Bulbs
17. Totally wired
18. Lost In Music
19. Eat Y’Self Fitter
20. 50 year old man

REGRET NOT VOTING FOR:

Contraflow
It’s a Curse

Thanks for the Spotify link.

I think you have two of the tracks as 'local' i.e. on your laptop/whatever. (Paintwork and Cruisers Creek), which means 'we' can't access them.

Only 4 of these ended up in the top 20. Either I have really dopey taste in Fall songs or, as Hincklepicker suggested, this poll would come out vastly different every few months (or maybe both).
Looking over all the other votes, I could make a few completely different top 20s that I'd still like more than most other bands' music.
Whatta group!

1 Slates, Slages, Etc
2 New Big Prinz
3 Container Drivers
4 Frenz
5 Hit The North
6 Bill Is Dead
7 Bremen Nacht Alternative
8 Vixen
9 CnC Hassle Schmuck
10 The NWRA
11 Telephone Thing
12 Paint Work
13 Glam Racket
14 Kurious Oranj
15 The Chislers
16 Can Can Summer
17 Touch Sensitive
18 Victoria
19 Eat Yrself Fitter
20 Sparta 2XX

I think you have two of the tracks as 'local' i.e. on your laptop/whatever. (Paintwork and Cruisers Creek), which means 'we' can't access them.

Thanks, fixed it!

Looking over all the other votes, I could make a few completely different top 20s that I'd still like more than most other bands' music.
Whatta group!

OTM

me too

Everybody needs to give a good (re-)listen to "Before The Moon Falls":

01 Wings
02 Before The Moon Falls
03 Winter
04 The Man Whose Head Expanded
05 Take An Older Lover
06 Fantastic Life
07 Various TImes
08 Leave The Capitol
09 New Puritans
10 C'n'C-S Mithering
11 Gut Of The Quantifier
12 Hip Priest
13 Sparta FC
14 No Bulbs
15 Bill Is Dead
16 Who Makes The Nazis
17 Paintwork
18 Spinetrak
19 I'm Into C.B.!
20 Totally Wired

These are my selections wot didn't make it:

7. It's The New Thing
11. Hexen Definitive/Strife Knot
17. Flat of Angles
18. I Am Damo Suzuki
19. Disney's Dream Debased
20. Ludd Gang

Some not that far out of contention, I see. But I'm quite alone with my "It's the New Thing" luv.

I did this:

01. Smile
02. City Hobgoblins
03. Athlete Cured
04. Guest Informant
05. Gut of the Quantifier
06. Lay of the Land
07. 2x4
08. I Feel Voxish
09. Bremen Nacht (LP version)
10. Totally Wired
11. Frightened
12. The Steak Place
13. Hexen Definitive/Strife Knot
14. The Classical
15. The Man Whose Head Expanded
16. New Face In Hell
17. I Am Damo Suzuki
18. Shoulder Pads #1B
19. Riddler!
20. Bill Is Dead

..but really agonized over some of the tracks I left off.

Also, NO ONE else voted for Shoulder Pads?!? What is wrong with you people etc.?

i know, i wrestled w myself over that one. since i tried to skew pop, i should have made room. it really is a favorite. hey! luciani too. tbh, i cruelly shortchanged bend sinister/domesday payoff, my real first fall LP.

New Face in Hell
How I Wrote 'Elastic Man'
Rowche Rumble
Leave the Capitol
Flat of Angles
Psykick Dancehall
LA
An Older Lover etc.
Container Drivers
Jawbone and the Air-Rifle
Lie Dream Of a Casino Soul
Bonkers in Phoenix
4 1/2 Inch
Before the Moon Falls
Iceland
Wings
Fiery Jack
Hurricane Edward
Winter
Kicker Conspiracy

Total points by year:

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b356/olem/ilx_The_Fall_points_by_year_zps006e9f47.png

Dates generally assigned by first appearance of studio version on album or single, or of live album release when no studio version exists. Exceptions/notes:
-- "Blindness", "Job Search": 2004 Peel session broadcast date used.
-- "Stepping Out": Taken as the 1978 Live at the Electric Circus track.
-- "Session Musician": Date of live recording (1981) used, rather than 2005 live album release.
-- "Antidotes": As the Peel session is specified, assigned to 1998 (date of broadcast) rather than 1999 (when it appeared on The Marshall Suite).
-- "Hot Cake": Taken as the 2010 album track, as the 2009 single track has a "Part 2" in the title.

That's pretty far from SD

"Container Drivers" and "Dr Faustus" also twice in list, the former should thus be pushed up to #21 if I calculate correctly.

Also "2 x 4".

Number of tracks per year:

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b356/olem/ilx_The_Fall_count_by_year_zps5538bde3.png

Average score of each track by year:

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b356/olem/ilx_The_Fall_avg_by_year_zps232c2459.png

where the hell is fizzles??

Good question. Might be under cosh at work?

feel like i haven't had time to sit in this thread.

I enjoyed glancing at every ballot and thinking 'yes, great ballot'. In other polls I think, 'no, come on, really?'; not here.

Thinking I should have done a post-90 or 95 ballot myself. I've enjoyed listening to that end more.

Funny how even a band as long-lived and multi-faceted as the Fall emerges with a huge emphasis on the early years.

That IS interesting.
Even though many (most?) of us have loads of time for much of their last 30 years, I guess when push comes to shove...

Most bands' golden 'early years' don't last as long as that though.

The longer the fall go on for, the longer time period the "early years" takes up.

^^^ well put

where the hell is fizzles??

― Flat Of NAGLs (sleeve), Thursday, May 2, 2013 4:42 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes, don't fizzle out, this thread needs you