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
― Portsmouth Bubblejet, Wednesday, 14 October 2020 16:37 (three years ago) link
+1 would love to see your playlist gerald
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 14 October 2020 16:40 (three years ago) link
> "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^
― Deflatormouse, Wednesday, 14 October 2020 17:46 (three years ago) link
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 UnutterableJim's The Fall / Bourgeois Town / My Ex-Classmates Kids / Reprise: Jane - Prof. Mick - Ey Bastardo - Are You Are Missing WinnerSusan Vs Youthclub - singleGreen 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 LPBlindness (version) - InterimI Wake Up In The City - 2G+2Pacifying Joint / What About Us? / Assume / I Can Hear The Grass Grow / Bo Demmick / Youwanner / Clasp Hands / Trust In Me - Fall Heads RollReformation! / Fall Sound / My Door Is Never / Das Boat (edit) / Systematic Abuse - Reformation Post-TLCAlton Towers / Wolf Kidult Man / 50 Year Old Man (edit) / I've Been Duped / Can Can Summer / Tommy Shooter / Senior Twilight Stock Replacer - Imperial Wax SolventO.F.Y.C. Showcase / Bury Pts. 1+3 / Hot Cake / Slippy Floor (edit) / Chino - Your Future Our ClutterTaking Off / Nate Will Not Return / Greenway / I've Seen Them Come / Age Of Chang - Ersatz GBSir William Wray / Hittite Man / Victrola Time - Re-MitMister Rode - The RemaindererDedication Not Medication (LP version) / Auto Chip 2014-2016 / Quit iPhone - Sub-Lingual TabletWise Ol' Man (edit) / All Leave Cancelled - Wise Ol' ManFol De Rol / Brillo De Facto / O! Zztrrk Man / Groundsboy - New Facts Emerge
And these MES guest appearances:Not Clean - GhostigitalFledermaus Can't Get It / The Rhinohead / Family Feud / Duckrog / Chicken Yiamas / That Sound Wiped / Dearest Friends - von SudenfedReal Good Time Together / Mettle Claw - MES & Ed BlarneyBlow Up Muscles - MESMolocular Meditation / VS Cancelled - MES & Jan St. Wener
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Wednesday, 14 October 2020 19:47 (three years ago) link
missing "Loadstones" but lots of great stuff in there!
― sleeve, Wednesday, 14 October 2020 20:14 (three years ago) link
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.
― Mark G, Thursday, 15 October 2020 08:44 (three years ago) link
Gerald’s selection is missing OFYC’s most breathtaking track! But excellent work otherwise
― covidsbundlertanze op. 6 (Jon not Jon), Thursday, 15 October 2020 13:24 (three years ago) link
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
― Chip-vill-A (imago), Thursday, 15 October 2020 13:44 (three years ago) link
Auto Chip 2014-2016 is miraculous though yeah. I think Smith is a big part of that one though! HOW BAD ARE ENGLISH MUSICIANS!
― Chip-vill-A (imago), Thursday, 15 October 2020 13:45 (three years ago) link
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.
― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, 15 October 2020 14:17 (three years ago) link
tough to go wrong with those at your first two, tbh
― sleeve, Thursday, 15 October 2020 14:19 (three years ago) link
*as* your first two
I mean, it worked! Turned me into a huge fan.
― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, 15 October 2020 14:27 (three years ago) link
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".
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Thursday, 15 October 2020 19:17 (three years ago) link
My first was 458489 A-Sides, which I immediately liked, but I don’t think I truly “got” it until I heard Grotesque.
― spastic heritage, Thursday, 15 October 2020 19:18 (three years ago) link
"Words of Expectation" on the first disc in the Peel Set is my very favorite thing in the world
― error prone wolf syndicate (Hadrian VIII), Thursday, 15 October 2020 19:23 (three years ago) link
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.
― visiting, Thursday, 15 October 2020 19:36 (three years ago) link
mine was hearing "The Man Whose Head Expanded" on the radio around time of release, first record I heard/got was Wonderful & Frightening World
― sleeve, Thursday, 15 October 2020 19:57 (three years ago) link
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.
― visiting, Thursday, 15 October 2020 20:03 (three years ago) link
yep, I love that tape version
― sleeve, Thursday, 15 October 2020 20:31 (three years ago) link
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.
― Stevolende, Thursday, 15 October 2020 20:41 (three years ago) link
i started with Grotesque and it worked, had everything in short order afterwards
― rip van wanko, Thursday, 15 October 2020 20:46 (three years ago) link
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.
― eatandoph (Neue Jesse Schule), Thursday, 15 October 2020 21:05 (three years ago) link
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
― covidsbundlertanze op. 6 (Jon not Jon), Friday, 16 October 2020 00:35 (three years ago) link