Album Tracklisting: Lay of the Land / 2 × 4 / Copped It / Elves / Slang King / Bug Day / Stephen Song / Craigness / Disney's Dream Debased

Re-issue Extras: Oh! Brother / God Box (7" Single 8th June 1984)
C.R.E.E.P / Pat-Trip Dispenser (7" Single 24 August 1984)
Draygo's Guilt / Clear Off! / No Bulbs (Call For Escape Route E.P. 12 October 1984)

Band Line Up: Mark E. Smith - Vocals / Brix Smith - Guitar, Vocals / Craig Scanlon - Guitar / Steve Hanley - Bass / Paul Hanley - Drums, Keyboards / Karl Burns - Drums, Bass / Gavin Friday - Vocals on Copped It , Stephen Song & Clear Off

Critique: Another year , another Fall album and another record label. Smith's relationship with Rough Trade had always been problematic. 1983 saw another problem appear in that relationship. Namely The Smiths. Smith was annoyed that all Rough Trade's time and money were being directed towards Morrissey & co and that Rough Trade were not realising the full potential of the band. He also felt that The Fall deserved more respect from the label being an already established act. Matters came to a head when the label refused to back a full length video for the Perverted By Language album. In the end the band did it themselves for £500 and released it on Ikon Video.The band eventually signed to the biggest independent label not affiliated with the big 4 , Beggars Banquet for (if the press releases were to be true) 5 Bauhaus singles of their choice. The first fruits of this relationship were the single Oh! Brother followed quickly by C.R.E.E.P. , a song that totally split fans of the band who loved it & loathed it in equal measures. It was heavily rumoured it was written about Morrissey but Smith denied it. Brix Smith said later on that Morrissey used to send fawning sycophantic fan letters to Mark on a regular basis who jokingly said one day he'd publish them.
Also around this time Mark was contacted by a young ballet dancer called Michael Clarke who wanted permission to use songs by The Fall during his show. Smith agreed and liked what he saw and the two of them appeared on The Old Grey Whistle Test on the BBC performing Lay Of The Land with Clarke wearing pants with the arse cut out of them. Smith said that the rest of the bands parents had tuned into the show to see them playing on TV only realise the band were barely visible at the back of the stage & all they could see was Michael Clarke with his arse hanging out. At the end of the performance a pantomime horse was pulled onstage & had cartons of milk shoved down it's throat.
Also joining The Fall around this time was Gavin Friday of The Virgin Prunes who lent his vocals to three of the songs on the album

Songs You Need:

Lay Of The Land - A fantastic pounding bassline that drills it's way into your skull and refuses to leave it , It's even got something that resembles a guitar solo in it .....BOOM

2 x 4 - Another catchy song dominated by a fantastic bassline , I'm surprised it was never released as a single.

Copped It - The slightly off kilter guitars added with Gavin Friday's vocals really give this song an abrasive twist. This song is really representative of what The Fall of this era did best , commercial rock songs with a slight subversiveness to give them a real sinister edge.

Slang King - Kind of like an old style Fall song but Brix's vocal harmonies and the swathes of keyboards floating over the top of it make this much more listenable.

Craigness - Craigness is one of those songs where you can never remember the title of it but you recognise how it sounds the moment you hear it. Kind of like 'Oh it's THIS one'. I love the simpleness of this song. Just a simple jangly riff repeated over & over with Smith talking about a neighbour with one eye & blond curls.Then towards the end the drums kick in to turn the song into some kind of 70s glam rock stomp.

C.R.E.E.P. - Even if it isn't about Morrissey it's still one of the most catchiest songs the Fall have ever written with some nice vocal harmonies from Brix.

Verdict: The Wonderful And Frightening World Of The Fall is a great place to start if you've never listened to anything by the band before. It's much more pop orientated than anything the band have done before but it still retains elements of the things that made The Fall great in the past. It's a commercial album , but it's a commercial album on the bands own terms. Smith said himself at the time he'd spent 6 years being the starving serious artist and it was time to have some fun. A wonderful album bursting full of twisted pop gems.
8/10

^ good informative read there.

I'm listening to Extricate just now. NOthing mindblowing, but it's a solid album.

I do have a soft spot for Extricate , especially Telephone Thing.

I like it a lot more than the other albums from that era like Shift Work & Code Sinister , I never really got to grips with those.

I'm just getting into the Fall properly now, i don't think i've ever felt this overwhelmed by a band before! This guide helps a lot, thanks :)

Album Tracklisting: Mansion / Bombast / Barmy */ What You Need / Spoilt Victorian Child / L.A. / Gut of the Quantifier / My New House / Paintwork / I Am Damo Suzuki / To Nkroachment:Yarbles

* Barmy was replaced on non UK pressings of the album by the Cruisers Creek single.

Re-issue Extras: Couldn't Get Ahead / Rollin' Dany / Petty (Thief) Lout (7" Single 14th June 1985)
Cruisers Creek (Edit)/ Vixen

Band Line Up: Mark E. Smith - Vocals , Violin , Guitar / Brix Smith - Guitar, Vocals / Craig Scanlon - Guitar / Steve Hanley - Bass / Simon Rogers - Keyboards , Guitar , Bass / Karl Burns - Drums , Backing Vocals on Rollin Dany

Critique: In 1985 The Fall were on a roll , not even the loss of the Hanley brothers could slow things down. Paul Hanley had enough and quit to start his own band. He told the press ' I didn't join the Fall to play with Mark E Smith , I tolerated Mark E Smith to play in The Fall'. Steve Hanley went too , but only for 6 months after his wife gave birth. The band bought in Simon Rogers who was doing music with Michael Clarke to replace them meaning that Karl Burns became the sole drummer in the band. This new line up released a double A side single of Couldn't Get Ahead , and Rollin' Dany the bands first ever cover. The original being sung by Gene Vincent. The following single Cruisers Creek along with it's B sides L.A. & Vixen was a much more poppy affair with Brix handling the vocals on both B Side songs.
The album followed three months later amongst universal praise. Lyrically the album was as random as per usual with such diverse topics as Can frontman Damo Suzuki getting his own tribute , What You Need was based on an episode of The Twilight Zone where a man could guess whatever someone wanted. Spoilt Victorian Child dates all the way back to the Live At The Witch Trials era Smith having wrote the lyrics but been unable to find some 'Really daft English music' to go with it , which Rogers provided when he joined the band. To Nkroachment:Yarbles takes it's influence from A Clockwork Orange (Yarbles being testicles) Paintwork & My New House illustrate the growing domestic bliss between Mark & Brix having just bought a house together.
Smith praised the production of the album by John Leckie (Later of Radiohead & Stone Roses fame) saying that The Fall had never sounded clearer & all the right elements had been bought forward in the mix. Leckie himself said he went for home bedroom recorded feel.
The band played two of the new songs on the Channel 4 show The Tube. The band looked visibly different , Brix having smartened them up. Smith himself appeared in riding boots , a leather trenchcoat and amazingly eyeshadow. In the following interview he was asked how he felt about the band losing their anoniminity with their new found fame , Smith replied 'The sort of people who follow The Fall are the salt of the earth , they're not the type of people to attack you in supermarkets'

Songs You Need:

Bombast - Fantastic bombastic (sorry) opener in which Mark warns the bastards & idiots will 'Feel the wrath of my bombast'

Barmy - A song which has a great catchy riff. Shame the band can't take credit for it , It was stolen from the song Valleri by The Monkees.

What You Need - A more traditional Fall song with the driving bassline and the lyrics basically being one big list

Spoilt Victorian Child - A full on blast of the garage rock that The Fall became known for on earlier albums

L.A. - Brix Smith's mostly instrumental signature tune about life in her hometown with a lovely 60s surf feel to it.

Gut of the Quantifier - A song in which Mark speaks out against Half-wit philanthropists and cosy charity gigs. A reaction to Live Aid perhaps?

Paintwork - One of the most melodic songs ever written by The Fall , almost approaching an acoustic ballad , but not quite. Not even the rather annoying tape manipulation in the middle spoil it too much.

I Am Damo Suzuki - A wonderful tribute to Can's frontman. The pounding rythmn has Tago Mago written all over it and there are also Can references scattered through the lyrics.

Couldn't Get Ahead - Another of the Fall's most recognisable singles , this one about the dreariness of everyday life.

Cruisers Creek - Another example of Brix's American pop influences finding their way into the band.The very thought of The Fall doing this kind of thing 3 or 4 years earlier would be unthinkable , yet it works really well.


Verdict: Although This Nations Saving Grace isn't my personal favourite Fall album I can easily see why it is their most well known album. Firstly this is the most American influenced album The Fall have ever released , both with Smith's early Rock n Roll influences on songs such as Rollin Dany & Brix's pop influences on Cruisers Creek & L.A. It's also not quite as poppy as Wonderful And Frightening World Of The Fall so fans of the old style Fall still have something for them too. It's the mixture of those two elements that make this a great album. Also unlike the album that came before it this album is solid the whole way through. If there was a problem with Wonderful And Frightening World it was that the middle of the album was a bit drawn out with filler material. This Nations Saving Grace has no such problems as the only song that really let's the album down is To Nkroachment:Yarbles , and even then it's not actually that bad , just a bit weak compared to the rest of the album. Even the B Sides such as Petty (Thief) Lout & Vixen don't bog down the album.
The first time I ever heard this album I was really shocked by it , I was expecting some dreary northerner moaning about life in Thacherite Britain. Thankfully it's nothing of the sort. What it is is an acessable avant garde pop album with some wonderful & witty insights & observations.
Pitchfork apparently gave this album a 10/10 rating & put it at number one in a list of the best ever albums from the 1980s. I'm not going to go that far. As I have stated in a number of occasions this isn't the best album of the 80s , hell it's not even the best Fall album of the 80s *cough*HexEnductionHour*cough*. But what it does happen to be is a very very good solid album that demands listening to , even from non fans of the band.
9.5/10

awesome, thats my 2nd favourite Fall album after Hex Enduction Hour.

The Fall are touring Britain in March by the way. I'm def hitting up one of those.

That's when the new album is due out.

this kit has 40 parts, doesn't it...

26 for now

Although I could probably stretch it to 1000

Urban, are you into Half Man Half Biscuit? They're like 80's jangle-indie with sardonic speak-sing lyrics about daytime TV over the top.
Well okay they aren't much like the Fall but if you don't know of them already you'd definitely dig them.

Dragnet is possibly my favourite Fall album. It's not as complete as some other albums ('This Nation's...is a close second) it's just the Lovecraftian, amphetamine-driven spell that gets me everytime.
Have you ever seen the great MES live?

Yes I am , but only for the past couple of years or so. I was put off for a long time because it seemed every gobby student I ever met was into them.

Not yet , but i'm working on it. As I don't live on mainland UK any gig I go to means air fare & hotel bills & time off work so I don't get to go to many gigs.

haha I sympathise but i'd have been grateful to have met more than the odd person at uni who was into anything even remotely like HMHB...
www.hmhb.co.uk

this site list ALL of the 80's pop-references in each song and it tripled my enjoyment of them once I knew who, say, Fred Titmus was....

the Fall though, they'll be touring until he dies so you still have time! i saw them once in Oxford 3 years ago for the Fall Heads Roll tour, fantastic album, great performance (a pure garage-rock racket). Having said that MES adjusting his dentures and mumbling into the mic is a far cry from the impassioned nihilism of yesteryear...

As long as he's a difficult moody git with a band behind him i'll be a fan :D

credence must be given to the Peel Sessions Box Set!!! I got this for 20 quid in HMV, I think they might have mislabeled it or something. Anyhow if you have more than one Fall album and you think you like them alot of the songs they did for these sessions put the album versions to shame, really. And there are some wicked covers on there - 'Beetle Bones n' Smokin' Stones', 'I Can Hear the Grass Grow'...

Not mislabeled

I got mine for £23 , and that was on the day it came out.

I've recently been filling the gaps in my Fall collection and am discovering some lost gems - you need to crack on with this thread mate! Warning: sad fanboy banter follows...
I disagree with you on 'Room To Live', the spirit of Hex runs through it I think, and it's just lopsided and typical of that era...

Yet it's the 90's stuff that I'm unearthing, totally with you on 'Extricate', it's very accessible and just kicks off the post-Brix period perfectly.
Everyone bangs on about 'the Infotainment Scan' being the peak of their early 90's 'techno-y' period but I'm not sure, it sounds stupid but the second half of 'Code:Selfish' and 'Middle Class Revolt' really do it for me.

Would be great to read some coverage of the later stuff ('Levitate', 'the Unutterable' etc); a real goldmine of the usual lyrical genius and pop undertones IMO.

anyone got any links that will work on mac?
The last few ive tried have been incompatible.

I could try and sort you a few if you like. Can't be too sure if they'll work though. Worth a try eh. I'll PM you some links in the near future, see how they go

Any chance you might continue this thread Urban? I'd be pretty interested to see what you think of the Infotainment Scan and Middle Class Revolt in particular (two of my personal favourites, I'm told they're not all that big with a lot of Fall fans though)

Cheers that would be fantastic.

Urban! Continue!

Most Fall fans I know of quite like Infotainment Scan.

Did you know it's their biggest selling album to date?

Wasn't it the only one to break the top 10 in the album charts or something? It's an immense album, definitely one of their best in my opinion (music just doesn't get much better than Service if truth be told)

Digging the first album right now, it's solid. It's a shitload of songs though and it starts to get boring as the album goes on. Love 'It's the New Thing' though.

The Fall's new album Imperial Wax Solvent is an excellent album. They certainly don't sound like a band that is on it's 45th album. A lot of their albums are hit and miss propositions and their best work is singles or on EPs.

The Fall has basically doing variations of the same agit-prop musical theme for thirty years, but the band's music remains vital because what they do is highly stylized and completely unique. I really love the Fall but a non-stop diet of Mark E. Smith's jaded free association lyrics can become mind numbing.

The Fall is important to the history Manchester music scene as the Joy Division, Stone Roses or Oasis, but is rarely acknowledge for their contributions to the Manchester sound.

I think most of their earliest work on Rough Trade Records is their most immediate and inspiring. I first encountered the Fall's music when a bought their 7" Totally Wired single in 1979 at the recommendation of Mike Dreese the owner a living room sized store that sold collectors comics and imported punk rock music in Boston. I was hooked there wasn't really another group doing what the Fall did, and there still isn't.

The best collection of the Fall's early music on Rough Trade is Totally Wired- the Rough Trade Anthology. The Rough Trade Anthology pulls together a lot of the earliest Fall singles, choice album cuts and some of their rarer EPs like Slates. There are some early Fall songs like Leave the Capitol, Prole Art Threat and Middle Mass that are forgotten gems and hard to find.

The original 10" vinyl EP of Slates had an awesome sound. Some of the remixes of done in 90s to the songs sound too tame. Slates is still my favorite Fall release and the music on Slates improves with repeated listening.

Great thread! Looking forward to the next instalment. Also, Gavin B. is absolutely right about the sound on the original vinyl of 'Slates' being superior. It's a fantastic record and definitely one of my favourites from The Fall (there are many...)

:yikes:

Can't believe a whole year has passed since I updated this.

Bend Sinister coming up soon.

Album Tracklisting: R.O.D. / Dktr Faustus / Shoulder Pads 1 / Mr Pharmacist / "U.S. 80's-90's" / Terry Waite Sez / Riddler! / Shoulder Pads 2

CD Extras: Living Too Late / Auto Tech Pilot*

*Each format had different bonus songs , I'm going by the CD version for this.

The album was released in the United States as 'The Domesday Pay-Off Triad Plus' and also included the 'Hey! Luciani' & 'There's A Ghost In My House' singles as additional extras.

Band Line Up: Mark E. Smith - Vocals , Tapes / Brix Smith – Vocals, Guitar, Keyboards / Craig Scanlon – Guitars / Simon Rogers – Keyboards, Guitars / Steve Hanley – Guitars , Bass / Simon Wolstencroft – Drums, Percussion / Paul Hanley – Drums ('Dktr Faustus' & 'Living Too Late' only)

Critique: So where do you go on from your most successful & critically acclaimed album to date?
Well if you're Mark E Smith you get back together with the main person who helped you create that success in producer John Leckie and promptly spend the entire recording time arguing with him. Smith was annoyed that Leckie wanted to bombard the album with 'psychedelic shit' , Leckie was annoyed because Smith wanted to remaster the entire album from a muddy sounding copied cassette of the album he was listening to in his walkman thus burying all his production. Needless to say neither man looks back at this particular album with any fondness.
You can really hear the tension between the two men in the songs of this album. On the one hand you have the atmospheric tracks such as R.O.D. & Gross Chapel - GB Grenadiers with their echoey guitars reminiscent of The Bunnymen or dare I say it U2 , which sound like some of the most mature songs The Fall had ever written up till this point.
On the other hand you have the garage rock that Smith knows & loves so well. Bournemouth Runner after a slow doomy beginning launches into a 60s bubblegum pop song. As well as that there's a killer cover version of The Other Half's Mr Pharmacist which Smith really makes his own.
Brix Smith has much less of a role here as she did in previous albums although she does contribute backing vocals most notably on Dktr Faustus & Terry Waite Sez. While not being the most classic Fall songs they do sum up nicely what the mid 80s Brix era Fall was about.
There are also a couple of oddities on this album. The first being 'U.S. 80's-90's' A song about Smith having some trouble with Boston immigration. No matter how much I hear this song i'm convinced it's a piss take of the Art Of Noise , I've never seen anything to suggest that but it sounds like a complete rip off , and I can't imagine Smith enjoying a band that has someone like Paul Morley involved somehow.
The other oddity is Shoulder Pads 1 & 2 (Shoulder Pads 2 is just a reprise) a lovely bouncy pop song that heavily borrows from the unlikeliest of sources. Keep reading & you'll see.

Songs You Need:

R.O.D. - Interesting choice for an album opener , it doesn't so much grab you in, It sort of entices you in with some lovely jangly guitar work and THEN hits you

Dktr Faustus - Decent Brix era song where you can hear her repeatedly shouting out 'FAUST BANANA , FAUST BANANA , FAUST BANANA' over & over again , if thats what turns you on.

Shoulder Pads 1 - A catchy addictive pop song that totally rips off the theme tune to 'Are You Being Served'. I mean how can that NOT be a highlight of an album.

Mr Pharmacist - It's around this time that Smith would put a cover version on every Fall album , and this is probably one of the best he ever did.

Gross Chapel - GB Grenadiers - This is one of my favourite songs by The Fall , it's just dripping in atmosphere. Windswept is what this song sounds like to me. You could almost imagine the band doing a video of this on some freezing cold moor somewhere.

Terry Waite Sez - Short & sweet song mostly written by Brix about the famous hostage. Terry Waite's brother actually phoned up the record company & asked for a copy of the lyrics in case it had a clue as to where he was being kept.

Bournemouth Runner - More old school 60s garage Rock n Roll , I can never get enough of The Fall doing this kind of stuff


Verdict: Hated by Smith , hated by the producer , hated by critics , even hated by some fans. It would seem Bend Sinister really doesn't have a lot going for it. In fact I ignored it for a long time for exactly this reason. Bend Sinister does take a while to grow on you but once you get it there's plenty on offer on this album. On what would have been Side One on the original album there isn't a single bad track. It's the 2nd half of the album where things begin to fall apart. I'm not sure why Living Too Late was released as a single as it has filler track written all over it. Other low points are Riddler! & Auto Tech Pilot which are so forgettable I can't even remember what they sound like even though I only heard them about 20 minutes ago. The cassette version of the album had a live version of City Hobgoblins , I would have much rather had that instead to be honest.
Bend Sinister is a curious album to rate because personally I think the better songs on the album are better than anything on Nations Saving Grace , however the second half of the album despite having a couple of good tunes doesn't come anywhere close to being as good as anything on that album.
Originally I wanted to give this album a high score but the poor second half of the album means I have to drop that. So think of it as me giving the first half of the album 9/10 and the second half of the album 5/10 , giving it an average score of....

7/10

I've never been totally keen on Bend Sinister. Not that I've ever seen it as a bad album, just not as inspiring as This Nation's Saving Grace or Kurious Oranj when it comes to their mid-to-late '80s stuff. I agree with your choices of album highlights, although I'd personally have given US 80s-90s a nod (and I think I'm Going To Spain's their best cover, but I'm a bit of an Infotainment Scan fanboy anyway).

Anyway, good to see this thread back in business. I don't have the Frenz Experiment (which I believe is the next LP along), so I'll be looking forward to the next installment.

It's a really great song...

This thread blows my mind and reminds me about how far behind I am with my Fall collection.

Alright, Urban you really know your stuff when it comes to The Fall. I only have the albums 'Shift-Work' (1991), 'The Infotainment Scan' (1993) & an 'A-Sides' compilation album from 1990 which I like all the tracks from, especially 'Dead Beat Descendant' & 'Mr Pharmacist'. Also 'Living Too Late', 'Hit The North' & 'Hey! Luciani' are others that come to mind.
I also really like a song called 'Edinburgh Man' from the Shift-Work album.
Im intriguied to know what are your thoughts on these three albums?

it's funny. I have none of the Fall's music, never heard a song, and never even heard of them till i joined this site, but i just clicked the download button for both of the starter kits and am about to listen to both the entire way through.


anyways lets see if i hate this or not, ok?

Great thread and great band, I really need to get some more of the fall's albums. Hard to find here though:(

I thought I had all The Fall studio albums, but thanks to your thread I found out I didn't and had to figure out which ones I was missing. Turns out it was only four albums; Totale's Turns, Seminal Live, Are You Are Missing Winner, and Reformation Post TLC.
The Fall (band) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia If you look Seminal Live and Totale's Turn are missing on that list... I don't know why I missed the other two albums.

That's a list of studio albums.

Seminal Live is half live / half studio.

Right now I have everything but Seminal Live... I was able to one torrent for it that had seeders, and it went idle half way into for days. I can't find it anywhere else. Do you have an up?

Gotcha covered - sit tight for a bit and I'll get it up. Some of the studio songs that make it up are easily among their best.

Urban, I demand that the Frenz Experiment be reviewed :D I've had the album for a while now, yet to listen to it properly (though I remember the semi-title track being particularly immense), so it'd be interesting to see what you think of it.