Amateurish lo-fi rockabilly, Stooges and Velvet Underground influenced rock music with man of the street, working class poetry - yet not quite poetry and not quite of the street either. Combined with the mumbling rag in mouth alternating with shouting tunelessly vocal approach of singer Mark E Smith - a vocal approach akin to a drunken tramp in a pub talking and talking and talking, ranting and fucking ranting - "and i'll tell you another thing....", amazing insights! Describing The Fall is actually a very difficult thing. Especially going through all the different line-up changes, the different decades.... A two drummer Fall line-up appeared circa 1981, 1982 - a tribal thing with catchy scratchy guitars and groovy bass lines. The early image of The Fall was that of a bunch of average blokes with little money or dress sense. Moving on through to the mid to late Eighties, The Fall took on a bit of glamour with the arrival of Brix Smith, an American lady whom Mark E ending up marrying. The music moved into poppier territories and The Fall started selling records. Moving on into the Nineties and beyond, many many line-up changes later - The Fall go through a dance phase, softer phases, noisier garage rock phases. They go through phases of sounding almost like a proper band - yet if all this sounds like they aren't really very good - then think on. A Fall detractor may very well put them down by saying, "They're crap". A Fall fan may very well reply by saying, "They're crap! I love them to bits, they write fucking great songs, they're unique, they're prolific - and Mark E Smith is both godly, insane, and godly insane. " Well, you get the idea! Put simply, there's never been anybody else quite like them.
A Common Misconception
Not all Fall fans are John Peel loving students without a girlfriend, some of them even have proper jobs, some of their fans are even female... Okay, not many - The Fall were never gonna rival the like of Duran Duran circa 1983, but then again, The Fall are actually good.
How To Buy
Jesus, where do I even begin.... Yeah, The Fall catalogue is especially daunting to the newcommer, and not helped in recent years by the non avaliability of their albums proper and the glut of availability of cheap, shoddy compilations with even poorer quality artwork than Fall albums proper! When considering how to reccommend two or three Fall albums to start someones collection, what should we focus on? Covering each era? Covering each line-up?!? Well, the latter's out - they've had something like 40 different line-ups over the years. Always the same, always different - that's The Fall. So, what do we do? Well, covering both the pre Brix era and the Brix era and the post Brix era. That'll do, and that's what i've done. The pre Brix era is very well covered by a superb compilation of single tracks titled 'Palace Of Swords Reversed'. The sound of The Fall when people still considered them a punk band - it contains some of the catchiest songs you'll ever hear. The Brix era is problematic, fan favourites such as 'This Nations Saving Grace' could prove a little daunting to the newcommer, so I've plumped for 'Wonderful & Frightening World' instead. This particular album shows the poppier side of The Fall better than maybe any other Fall album and also includes a few, typically Fall, moments of bonkers delirious pleasure as well.
Lastly, i've chosen 'Code Selfish' to represent the post Brix years. The dance/techno era Fall, but before the dance side overtook the guitar side to the detriment of the music. Besides, 'Code Selfish' contains a clutch of the very finest Fall songs money can buy. I was considering choosing 'The Unutterable' from 2000 to represent the more recent Fall era, but although that particular album is pretty darn great, it sounds similar in places to the material contained on 'Palace Of Swords Reversed'. Or put it this way. If you were only ever going to buy three Fall albums, the three i've highlighted here would give you a good range of their different sounds and styles through the years without having to go out and buy thirty four albums to REALLY cover everything they've ever done. More extreme Fall works such as 'Dragnet' from 1979, or 'Hex Enducation Hour' from 1981 may very well be brilliant, but i'd never dream of starting a Fall-curious music fan on that stuff. Any or all of the three albums listed above should see you sorted alright, though.
Download The Fall
A selection of Fall songs to download from the web, also forming a nifty 58 minute CD compilation.
1) Lie Dream Of A Casino Soul
2) Theme From Sparta FC
3) Marquis Cha Cha
4) 4 1/2 Inch
5) Glam Racket
6) The Classical
7) The NWRA
8) Assume
9) Bill Is Dead
10) Telephone Thing
11) Spectre Vs Rector
12) Free Range
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