A band I always heard people talk about, and I knew a few songs, but a while back I started going through the whole back catalogue on YouTube hoping to learn more about their slightly mythical status.

Conclusions are they’re actually quite amazing. Very musical. I have always liked songs about nonsense – if you can call subject matter such as lack or car parking spaces or the trials of shift working nonsense. M.E.Smith’s lyrics remind me a bit of Shaun Ryder.

A welcome change to all the supposedly cool dreadful ‘music’ filling the airwaves today. I really do feel sorry for the youth of today and the quality of music they are fed and taught to like.

Anyone care to comment?

I enjoyed it, Dunno how they’re gonna spin another series though since the murderer is deid.

I feel no one is going to better that contribution.

I thought this was about the excellent drama starring Jamie Dorman and Gillian Anderson. That was sublime TV.

Well I take the opposite view, tuneless shit and Mark E Smith has a voice only just preferable to fingernails being scratched down a blackboard. Surprising how peoples opinion can differ so much, especially as I also prefer….

songs about nonsense

Half Man Half Biscuit being a particularly fine example of that.

They headlined the Freshers Fair at my uni, supported by Lloyd Cole and the Commotions. I wasn’t cool enough to like the Fall and already didn’t like Lloyd, so got drunk instead.

They headlined the Freshers Fair at my uni,

+1. Oxford Poly 86.

Love The Fall! Still haven’t gone through all the back catalogue, isn’t there 30 or so albums? Its great how their sound constantly evolved, even going a bit dancy in the 90s. MESs lyrics are what made the group unique I think, plenty are tongue in cheek too which I find fun. Off the top of my head here’s a couple of my favourites:

Yes let’s.

In barked.

Staccato sentences.

I consider my self quite musical, in that I have always had it as part of my life but THE FALL! have mainly passed me by. I have a couple of Fall albums from back in the Peel era, and whenever I hear them on the radio or they come up on shuffle, I always say i need to invest some time into them.

These look like a good ‘tribute’ version though for a fun night out (remember those days!)

https://www.facebook.com/thefallenwomen/

A welcome change to all the supposedly cool dreadful ‘music’ filling the airwaves today. I really do feel sorry for the youth of today and the quality of music they are fed and taught to like.

Anyone care to comment?

Rage against the light old man,rage against that light . 😉 🙂

I really do feel sorry for the youth of today and the quality of music they are fed and taught to like.

haha, let me guess your parents thought the same about your music as a kid?

I saw the Fall when they did I am curious orange – a mate was a big fall fan, several hours of my life wasted. As above tuneless old toss

A welcome change to all the supposedly cool dreadful ‘music’ filling the airwaves today. I really do feel sorry for the youth of today and the quality of music they are fed and taught to like

People have been saying this forever. There is so much amazing new music coming out you just have to look for it.

If you just flick the radio on and listen to top 40 pop music it’s going to be terrible in any decade.

A welcome change to all the supposedly cool dreadful ‘music’ filling the airwaves today. I really do feel sorry for the youth of today and the quality of music they are fed and taught to like.

Said every middle-aged man, ever.

IHN, Sharkattack, Tabletop I disagree with your views on recent ‘modern’ music.

Sure there is plenty of good modern stuff around if you look for it, I understand that.

But are you seriously trying to tell me that the top 40 of say 2015-20 is in the same league quality-wise as the many years preceding?

Their version of Lost in Music is for me one of the great covers….

But are you seriously trying to tell me that the top 40 of say 2015-20 is in the same league quality-wise as the many years preceding?

God yeah, definitely. Remember those years when we had Star Trekkin and Jivebunny at the top? What about 16 bloody weeks of Bryan Adams?

But are you seriously trying to tell me that the top 40 of say 2015-20 is in the same league quality-wise as the many years preceding?

Have you ever watched TOTP2? Mountains of instantly forgotten, disposable pap.

For every Led Zep or Rolling Stones that people hold up as a shining example of when music was awesome there was a thousand wannabes and next-big-things clogging up the airwaves and then going nowhere.

It’s just that now it’s all laptop beats and autotune rather than acoustic guitars and bellbottoms so it sounds all the more confusing the older you get.

It’s not really a band is it?

I vaguely recall that Julian Cope was a huge fan, and slept on Marquee’s floor. As was my best mate. Saw then a few times but just tedious, being honest.

Some ramblings…

Being a resident of Prestwich, the home of The Fall, I have a bit of a soft spot for them.

Me and Terrahawk named the best bike race series so far this century after one of their songs, Hit The North.

I saw them half a dozen times and it ranged from genius to utter shite depending on the mood of Mark. The best gig I ever saw was them at The Ritz (Shift Work tour). The place felt like it would explode such was the energy. Worst gig I ever saw was also The Fall at The Free Trade Hall a couple of years later. Disinterested rantings in a cavernous aircraft hanger of a building.

Mark E Smith was briefly married to a college friend of mine, Saffron Prior. The dirty old git used to hang around outside Bury Tech waiting for her (she was legal and he wasn’t actually that much older, but you have a different view of things when you are 17). She still runs the fan club IIRC. She may have even been in the band at one point too. There were so many members of the band that I was actually scheduled to tour with them in 2024* had he lived. A couple of hundred former band mates turned up at his wake and there was a punch up. He would have liked that.

There is a mural of him on the side of the chippy round the corner from is old house.

* A lie

“If it’s me and yer granny on bongos, it’s the Fall.” – Mark E Smith.

My favourite band since around 1980 (thanks to John Peel). Only saw then live once during the Extricate tour in 1990. They even went through a ‘poppy’ phase when he was with Brix but that soon passed. Can sometimes be challenging musically but I don’t typically like popular music.

@cynic-al to the thread, @cynic-al to the thread.

I find them quite hard work to like, but I still enjoy them. I saw them in Leeds about 12 years ago and they were weird and entertaining.

Saw them once about 1990 probably Sheff poly. Bought a best of album around that time. I remember staying with a mate in Manchester uni whose flat mate came back from seeing them live one night absolutely fuming that he had wasted yet another fiver seeing them as they had one of their shit gigs. It didn’t stop him going to see them at every single opportunity though. That kind of describes being a fall fan to me. I hadn’t got the time/energy/emotional fortitude to invest in them so I did t take it any further.
My wife saw the Michael Clarke ballet they did the music for. She’s way more cool than me.

Hit The North

Tune!

I have just remembered that I saw MeS playing live in the band he formed with Mouse On Mars… what were they called? Shit… really can’t remember the night at all… scary.

My favourite story about the Fall concerns their appearance on Jools Holland: apparently, their contract specified that “Jools Holland will not play his boogie woogie piano anywhere near the Fall”.

Oh, and Theme From Sparta FC is my fave.

I did buy hit the north part 1 7” picture disc when I found it in a second hand shop.
My 19year old son has a grudging respect because MES did something with gorillaz once.

Sure there is plenty of good modern stuff around if you look for it, I understand that.

But are you seriously trying to tell me that the top 40 of say **insert last five years here** is in the same league quality-wise as the many years preceding?

Said every middle-aged man ever.

As it happens, on the rare occasions I do hear chart music, I often don’t like it. But I’m not supposed to like, I’m 46 FFS, it’s not aimed at me. And as stated above, the charts have always, always been 90% dross, 9% decent, 1% brilliant.

Love em. There is a big gap in my Fall collection, which started with the Rowche Rumble and How I Wrote Elastic Man 7”s (please to say I still have them). The mysterious releases around the 2000/2010s passed me by – there must be some gems in there. Recently picked up the Unutterable from 2000 and its brilliant.

Totally disgree with this though :

A welcome change to all the supposedly cool dreadful ‘music’ filling the airwaves today

…

Plenty of awesome music around now. More than there ever has been in the history of rock and roll.
(edit) and the top 40 is irrelevant, all the great music is on the web. It used to be important when we relied on radio to hear the new stuff. Those days have long gone.

a ‘poppy’ phase when he was with Brix

Who left him for Catgut Violay-tor!*

*Nigel Kennedy. Rock family trees eh?

Right! I am now going to prepare a short list of the top 10s from now and the bygone era and we will see just how bad things have got…

(PS If you don’t hear from me again it means I was wrong and STW was right). Gritted teeth face.

(PS If you don’t hear from me again it means I was wrong and STW was right). Gritted teeth face.

Bye then! 🙂

Looking at current top 10s tells you nothing about current music.

Come to think of it… how often were The Fall in the top 10 …?

https://www.officialcharts.com/artist/21777/fall/

Yes it does? It tells you the highest sales or so I always thought?

isn’t there 30 or so albums?

31 studio apparently.

You either get them or you don’t, everyone in the latter group thinks they are crap.

My favourite is the 80s Brix influenced more melodic stuff, but there are gems in every album (and misses also).

Utter genius and a bit of a knob it seems…

It tells you the highest sales or so I always thought?

So… “long tail” isn’t it… there is more good new music out there than ever before… what relevance is it which songs are the most played/bought/streamed if looking at the quality of new music available?

And anyway, The Fall, and lots of other great bands of the past, never troubled the top 10… do you ignore them…?

They troubled the top 100 a lot more times that I would have thought though looking at your link

Yes it does? It tells you the highest sales or so I always thought

So you were into Boney M, Abba, Mr Blobby etc etc. all the biggest sellers back then, were you?

Ah, I can’t even be arsed. My theory is, if you can’t find new music to listen to, it’s YOU who has lost interest, not the state of music at fault. People blaming it on age.. crap it’s just because people lose interest, not because of the age they are.
Spent today listening to every track (that I hadn’t heard already) on here –
https://thequietus.com/articles/29370-the-quietus-top-100-tracks-of-the-year-2020
Some really excellent stuff. And some not so. I bet there’s only about 4 or 5 that bothered the (totally irrelevant) top 40 there.

Annnnnyway!
The Fall eh

The bassline on Blindness.

Which was sampled recently and I can’t think who it was (Argh Kid maybe?)