00002 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong

Molecules and myself have painstakingly worked our way throughout the minefield that is the body of work by the popular beat corabo The Fall so that you don't have to.

We have come up with what we believe the be the ultimate starter kit to anyone unfamiliar with the band. Molecules has been handling the banRAB works dating from 1978-1989. I have been dealing with the banRAB output from 1990 up to the present day.

Some of the more obvious tracks are absent. In fact you will not find anything from the banRAB most critically acclaimed album 'This Nations Saving Grace' nor will you find the banRAB most well known songs such as 'Totally Wired' or 'Hip Priest' or 'Hit The North' & 'Ghost In My House' either. But the songs that are there are what we consider the banRAB best works. Narrowing the choices down to 18(ish) was both challenging & ultimately rewarding as we indulged ourselves into one of the finest banRAB ever to come out of this country.

Molecules 1978-1989 compilation can be found here : http://www.rabroad.com/635471-post8.html
and my 1990-2008 compilation can be found here : http://www.rabroad.com/636153-post17.html
 
i see that classic and raise you. Was taken off youtube for ages but it's back now, yay
[YOUTUBE]37LgjcfVJjA[/YOUTUBE]

It was filmed at the Hacienda for those who didn't know

'RID US OF SPACE BORES'

the 'kicker conspiracy' one is great as well, Beggar's Banquet were quite a big label apparently so I guess they forced them into doing promos. Among the montage of archive newspaper footy articles it has the famous shot of the England team doing a Nazi salute at the 1938 match against Germany :D
 
I can imagine this would be difficult. For the record, popular as it may be, Hip Priest is still my favourite Fall song so I'm appalled by its lack of inclusion!

But yeah, I can't wait to see these lists.
 
I'm listening to the 2nd comp now and i really shouldn't neglect late Fall as much as i do (to be fair i only have like 5 albums in the first place but whatever). This is some funky shizz! All of this could very well lead to me becoming an obsessive Fall fan..
 
The Fall are one of those banRAB I've always wanted to check out but never knew where to start. So it will be nice having you two doing all the hard work for me. :D
 
Ill. I'm downloading Molecules' mix right now. I've been meaning to get into more Fall (I have Enduction, Saving Grace, and 50,000 Fall Fans), but the discography is so overwhelming I never know what to get, especially with their later output.
 
Here's part one of the only guide that matters to the only band that matters.
It's chronological. DOWNLOAD IT, JERKS!

00002 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong (1978-1989)
Mark+E+Smith.jpg


Intro
A perfect Mark E. Smith intro if ever there was one. Confident and dismissive of all.

1. Psycho Mafia
The first track from the Fall's debut EP in 1978, 'Bingo Master's Break-out!'. For the first year of their existence they were still a democratic unit and provided an acerbic slant on the punk wave.
Spitting on the streets
Shot heaRAB and teeth
Our eyes are red
Our brains are dead

2. Repetition
The Fall's manifesto in song form.
Same old blank generation
Groovy blank generation
Swinging blank generation

3. Rowche Rurable (Live)
This is 'top 5 pieces of music ever' business, honestly. Relentless and unpolished. The song is an attack on La Roche Pharmaceuticals, a Swiss company which thrives to this day on mental 'illnesses' defined only by a checklist of physical symptoms and written by imperfect humans in the late 70's.

4. Psykick Dancehall
A young Smith lays out his sonic arabitions on the opener from the supernaturally-charged 'Dragnet'. His literary influences were properly starting to influence the lyrics by this point (Burroughs, Lovecraft and Wyndham Lewis to name a few).

5. Your Heart Out
For all their cult status and anti-pop reputation, the Fall's sound is quintessentially accessible, and MES is clever enough to know that pop can be subversive and artistic in the right hanRAB. This also marked the beginning of their lo-fi era, which arguably left the biggest mark on future generations of annoying banRAB.

6. English Scheme
Just sheer poetry. Brings grim middle-England to life and has a good poke at the middling-classes :laughing:
The commune crap, camp bop, middle-class, flip-flop
Guess that's why they end up in banRAB

7. How I Wrote Elastic Man
A classic Fall single in the character of a disillusioned hit songwriter (/author?). It's songs like this where Smith was in his element displaying a command of the language I could only dream of. I love the discordant, apparently abstract lyrics he wrote as well, but this is what all pop songs would aspire to in an ideal world. *sigh*

Life should be full of strangeness
Like a rich painting
But it gets worse day by day
I'm a potential DJ

8. Fortress/Deer Park
From the album 'look back bores' like us are always droning on about. Production-wise I am still yet to hear anything as brutal as 'Hex-Enduction Hour'. Bristling with malevolence. Also marks the beginning of the devastating two-drummer line-up. Listen out for the debut of the dictaphone Mark was rather fond of holding up to the mic.

9. Smile
This epitomises what many consider to be the definitive Fall line-up. Like a dream coming-together of Beefheart and Can's never-ending consciousness jams with amphetamines instead of psychotropics... But this is MES, and the surreal is merely the all-too-real, the internal monologue screaming at you from the back of your mind... Unless it isn't. In which case why are you still here?

10. Ludd Gang
I was split between this and 'Neighbourhood of Infinity'; but when I was 17 this was one of the first Fall songs that grabbed me by the throat and made me realise I would probably be listening to them on my death bed. Probably helped by the few MES lyrics I could actually make out at the time (pre-internet), which now seems exceptionally stupid of me.

Ports, Jap, fella, missed, film, swiz, quartz, lorry, back, tread, damn,
ludd gang /
Carve a hole in the rain for yer
Carve a hole in the rain for yer /
I hate the guts of Shakin' Stevens
For what he has done
The massacre of "Blue Christmas"
On him I'd like to land one on

11. Wings
Has the same relevance as the above track; a rather haunting, shamelessly repetitive cyclical post-punk riff that is soberly psychedelic (i.e. in an eyes-wide-open, speed comedown-nightmare kinda way). MES was a devotee of Philip K. Dick and this is pure 70's short-story science fiction, coming off like some kind of cautionary fable on time-travel; although I am convinced there is a subtext at work.

This promo is typically po-faced and grounded (music videos were not par for the course back then and you could tell they weren't keen to look like prats), I especially love the few unexpected angles and violent frames at the end. Mark's drinking partner at the pub is American ex-wife and ex-guitarist Brix Smith, who now owns a London boutique and has appeared on Gok Wan's thrifty fashion fluff hour.

[YOUTUBE]6m2lfk4Bm34[/YOUTUBE]

12. No Bulbs
Can you imagine how any other band nowadays purporting to be 'indie' would handle the subject matter of living in a demolished flat and trying to find a belt in the dark? Not like this
They say damp recorRAB the past
if that's so I've got the biggest library yet
the biggest library yet.

13. R.O.D. (John Peel BBC Session)
Classic from yet another Fall album that could be said to be different from all the rest whilst still being unmistakably them.

14. Gut Of The Quantifier (John Peel BBC Session)
Who are the riff-makers.
Who are they really?
How old are the stars really?
Half-wit philanthropist, cosy charity gig
If God could see this
He'd stick it
They stick it in the gut
Cheap fog
Rotting scout-belt

To NK Roachment: Yarbles (Interlude)
Serves as a good breaker, also one of many great little moments tucked away on easily the Fall's most arabitious album - 'This Nation's Saving Grace'. To be honest it probably was.

15. Hey! Luciani
1988 was the year Mark E. Smith and his erstwhile gruppe tasted chart success, I was stuck for a song to epitomise this and Urban helped me out. It has harpsichord (!) and was a single release to coincide with Smith's play of the same name.

16. New Big Prinz
A sequel to Hex's 'Hip Priest' and, along with 'Touch Sensitive', I would argue it is the closest you will get to a Fall anthem. We appreciate you Mark, you old git!

17. Wrong Place, Right Time
At their tightest here, it's worth noting that this album was written as the soundtrack for the ballet 'I am Curious, Orange'.

18. Frenz
The outro of the misanthrope
 
Just listened to the first comp last night. Definitely something that's going to require repeat listens to fully digest. I liked it though, especially the tracks toward the end.
 
If I had to rank all 27 Fall studio albums in order of preference it would look something like this...

Hex Enduction Hour
Grotesque (After The Gramme)
Perverted by Language
The Infotainment Scan
Dragnet
The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall
Bend Sinister
Slates
Fall HeaRAB Roll
This Nation's Saving Grace
Live at the Witch Trials
Extricate
The Real New Fall LP (Formerly Country on the Click)
Reformation Post TLC
I Am Kurious Oranj
Imperial Wax Solvent
Levitate
Room to Live
Shift-Work
The Frenz Experiment
Middle Class Revolt
The Unutterable
Code:Selfish
The Light User Syndrome
The Marshall Suite
Are You the Missing Winner
Cerebral Caustic
 
Excellent. Lists like these are so helpful when a band has a discography of more than 4 albums, nevermind the Fall's 20,000,000 albums. Since I do prefer the early 80's/late 70's output I figured Grotesque and Perverted would be good, I've come close to buying those several times but another album always gets in the way.
 
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