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ILM: Fall threads on the I Love Music forum

Why does anyone like the Fall?
This question might've been posed before, but there are too many threads to sort through so Im just aking it. They just sound like rubbish. Granted all I have is This Nation's Saving Grace and the Wonderful and Frightening World of the Fall, but I just don't see it. I've heard nothing but wonderful things about them, but when I sit down to listen to them, all I hear is an unrehearsed band with a tone deaf lead singer, and absolutley no hooks. I'm not a bubblegum pop-purist by any means, but their appeal eludes me. Is there just something wrong with me?

Are The Fall the most overrated band in the history of music?
Why, oh why have The Fall been allowed to get away with churning out horrible, unlistenable, tuneless drivel for over twenty years? Is one of the qualifications for a job at either Melody Maker or NME the ability to fawningly praise anything Mark E Smith does? If he put out an album of himself vomiting into a series of different shoes I am sure it would be lauded to the fucking hilt. This madness has to stop...now.

TS: The Fall vs. Pavement
I'm kind of surprised this hasn't been done, and I'm interested to hear opinions on this one. Go at it.

POO -- The Fall
Trolling for suggestions actually as my Fall collection is meager. From what I've heard I'll take "Hit the North Pt. 1"

Thread to post DAILY miscellaneous questions/comments/musings REgarding: The Fall
You don't have to like them - you just have to understand why they're cool.
Say what you will about the Fall ....

What are the best 10 Fall tracks of all time then?
I reckon:
1. Fortress/Deer park. 2. Jawbone and the air rifle. 3. Carry bag man. 4. Prole art threat. 5. Container drivers. 6. Hip priest. 7. Free range. 8. Frightened. 9. Cab it up. 10.=Wings, Winter, The classical, Glam racket, R.O.D. Leave the capitol, Kicker conspiracy, Totally wired, Big new prinz, Underground medicine, Oh jesus.... so many great tracks, I could name hundreds, in fact if I did this tomorrow it would probably be totally different.........what a band.......best in the world mate.

Fall (post-1985 / compilations): Search & Destroy
Stupid me, my first exposure to the Fall was that 2-CD B-sides collection - OK, but a bit much. I liked _Wonderful & Frightening..._ & _This Nation's Saving Grace_ fine & good, but when I got ahold of _Early Years_ & _Hex Enduction Hour_ (& _Hip Priests..._, which is a bit redundant), I was blown away. And _The Marshall Plan_ (their 2nd-to-last album?) is pretty good, too - reminds me more of the old-skool Fall than their mid-80s stuff.
So, what else would you folks recommend?

best Fall album for starters
Help me out. I've decided to take the plunge. I've downloaded a sample platter spanning many different years and I really like all of it. Where should I begin?

Early Fall - help me make a definitive C90
I've always wanted to make this tape. 'Early' means pre 84 (this is fairly arbitary but I think they moved into a different phase when they signed to Beggar's Banquet). Here's my stab at it. I don't have all the records, so please tell me what you reckon are the glaring omissions. There's a kind of limit of 24 tracks.

OPO/POO: The Fall
Pick Only from The Fall-uh.
I'm going with "Cruiser's Creek," as I've never shaken that signature riff from my head since I first heard it all those years ago.

so i just saw the fall
i am not an educated 'fall' fan. so i just saw the fall at the hollywood knitting factory. the sound was bad, the riffs were repetative and didnt always hold my interest and i couldnt understand a thing mark e smith was saying and he didnt move around at all except to fuckwith the musicians amps. however,it was really good and fun! my question is this: has it always been like this?

The Fall: Pick Only Ten
It had to happen...

I'm going to see the Fall this Friday...
I've never seen them, and I'm psyched. I haven't heard anything past "Extricate," though... I'm not expecting to hear any of my faves. I'm ready to be belatedly seduced into the Fall '90s-'00!

The Fall vs Motorhead
The first house I lived in in London was near Camden Road overground station, it was owned by a Russian emigre and everything was painted bright orange and light blue, except the ceiling which was purple and had glowing stars on it, there were oddly-shaped windows everywhere and abstract patterns on the stairwell, downstairs lived a barmaid who disappeared soon after her stalker was cabbaged by a brick thrown off the railway bridge. Mike Leigh bought the house for nothing for a film set ('Career Girls') and evicted everyone, what a working-class champion. Fucker. I suppose the ppl this house represented were too far beneath the waterline even for the likes of him. Y'know, the green-teeth end of Brit-hippie, where everyone has one arm and a clapped-out BSA, houseboats, gravelly speed, Kestrel, peasant skirts that collect mud. Dogs, dogs, DOGS. Fuck I hate dogs. They scare me and they just seem so undignified, boot 'em in the mouth and they blame themselves and come back for more, just like hippies themselves I guess. ......

Fall Covers
which are your favourite and least favourite cover versions recorded by The Fall?

Radiohead's "Creep" vs The Fall's "CREEP"
sorry to burden you with this, but it is late and i am drunk and i have never ever understood why the fall are not held in the kind of esteem that radiohead are, except x10. i see what "creep" is trying to do (quiet - then loud - how inspired) but "CREEP" still gets its hooks into my head and makes me involuntarily smile. um, am i alone in this ?

Is is just me or does the Fall's "The Classical" sound exactly like a Pavement song?
Ive heard the comparison between Steve-o Mack and Mr. Smith before, but the Classical is the closest sounding. The voices are almost identitical, the song structure, everything about it
Im not alone, am I?

they sound like the fall...
but 'they' never do. so many bands seem to get the 'they sound like the fall' thing (guess this is same as VU/stooges etc in that other thread). but what bands actually do 'the fall sound' justice?
i can only think of The Male Nurse, who i thought were (are?) a great band, and approximated that grubby fall82 thing very well (but they were sort of, well, camp too). i think its a shame the male nurse never really got any props, have they packed it in now?
do you agree re: the male nurse? and have any other bands succeeded here?

The Fall CD reissues
A lot of the Fall CD reissues on Cog Sinister have been badly mastered, sometimes from scratched vinyl copies. Does anyone know if this is the case with the "Live At The Witch Trials" CD?

The Kinks vs The Fall
Imagine being stuck in a lift with Mark E Smith and one of the Davies brothers

Is the Fall's 'Bill is dead' the most romantic song ever written?
Or is it's strength in revealing that legendary grouch Mark E Smith is just a pussycat after all?

Article Response: The Fall
First-time FT contributor Michael Flack reviews the new Fall album. Cool. Any comments?

Fall US Tour Cancelled
God Dammit:

The Fall's "Free Range" vs Wire's "Ahead"
vs the first five seconds of Rolling Stones' "Heartbreaker"

Have I been too hard on The Fall?
Frankly yes. Upon further examination most of my arguments appear to be motivated by a personal dislike for Mark E Smith, based only upon transcripts of interviews with hacks, and occasional radio / tv footage, all of which have been edited according to some agenda or other. And wishing to start a Smithesque rant at some of my bosses at work. Which is surely a spurious basis for disliking someone. On reflection, and given my recent re-evaluation of his work over the past two days I concede that many of your points are valid, and The Fall have made no small contribution to music. I cannot, however, find any praise for his taste in jumpers though.

THE FALL - "Are You Are Instant Winner?" (new LP) Did anyone hear it?
THE FALL - "Are You Are Instant Winner?" (new LP) Did anyone hear it?
Yup! That's the way they spelled it.. Did anyone hear it? I love "The Marshal Suite" and "Levitate". Their last on "The Unutterable" was decent but not mind-blowing.. How is the new one?

Taking Sides: Todd Rundgren vs. Mark E Smith
Mean streets of the Lower East Side = (Birmingham School of Business School (Dean: R. Wood) = Langley Virginia) = (Gotti v. Giuliani/ Liddy v. Agee)? Except Liddy was in the FBI, imagine the tableau, somebody burning themselves with a candle sitting across from Hoover in his fishnets, saying "They were watching goddamned WATERFALLS in there. Waterfalls!" "Relax Gord. One day they WILL put a statue of him up in Milbrook. This rat salad is rather good!"

c/d--Mark E Smith "Pander Panda Panzer"
Stunning avant-poesy or noisy irritating crap?

Brix Smith
Did she add anything to the Fall and was her own band, the Adult Net, of any merit?