The Fall

[SGR]

So we don't have a thread on The Mighty Fall yet? Let's rectify that.

I'm a Fall junkie. One of my biggest life regrets will be never getting to see them live.

What's your favorite Fall album? Favorite Fall song? You have any Fall hot takes? Do you hate The Fall? Let's discuss here.

My favorite Fall track - which happens to come from my favorite Fall album, Bend Sinister:

[SGR]

Oh yeah, my Fall hot take - besides Levitate, Middle Class Revolt is the best '90s Fall album.

[Lexi Darling]

So we don't have a thread on The Mighty Fall yet? Let's rectify that.

I'm a Fall junkie. One of my biggest life regrets will be never getting to see them live.

What's your favorite Fall album? Favorite Fall song? You have any Fall hot takes? Do you hate The Fall? Let's discuss here.

My favorite Fall track - which happens to come from my favorite Fall album, Bend Sinister:

Musically that track absolutely rules, as does most of their stuff I'm familiar with. I still can't get into Mark E. Smith's vocals for the life of me. I wish I could see what you and other Fall fans see in his vocal performances, but for now I just have to try not to focus on them, and when I do that I definitely enjoy their music. Maybe one day the vocals will click?

[SGR]

Musically that track absolutely rules, as does most of their stuff I'm familiar with. I still can't get into Mark E. Smith's vocals for the life of me. I wish I could see what you and other Fall fans see in his vocal performances, but for now I just have to try not to focus on them, and when I do that I definitely enjoy their music. Maybe one day the vocals will click?

MES can occasionally surprise with his vocal performances - have you heard "Bill is Dead" or "Edinburgh Man"?

[SGR]

My favorite song from PBL - what an absolutely viscious bassline:

[SGR]

One of my favorite Fall tracks that's divisive among Fall fans. It sounds like a goof, just the band messing around, creating this weird, bouncy, jazzy pseudo-lounge track. It sounds irreverent and silly, and that's exactly why I love it. Even more hilarious, they decided that it was fitting to cap off an album as the last track, an album that is already overly long. When those synth horns hit in the chorus, it's just *mwah* chef's kiss.

[SGR]

One of my all time Fall faves from Levitate. It sounds like the soundtrack to madness, like a theme that would play in the climax of a horror movie as the protagonist makes one final desperate attempt to escape from the deranged psychopath chasing them.

@Lexi Darling, forgot to make this suggestion, but have you ever listened to The Fall when you were slightly inebriated? To the uninitiated, that might make the music/vocals make more sense. 

[grindy]

Time and time again I realize that I just don't need any of their stuff besides the first album.
Not that they don't have other good music, they certainly fucking do, but whenever I listen to anything else by them, thoughts start creeping in that I could just be listening to Live At The Witch Trials and have an equal or most likely greater amount of enjoyment. It's also just so fucking consistent, every track rules, no filler or meandering unlike on their other albums, even the best ones.
I also happen to enjoy MES vocals and on some of their later stuff they're kinda mixed into the background. I get what they are trying to do but I like to be able to hear him clearly.

[Lexi Darling]

One of my all time Fall faves from Levitate. It sounds like the soundtrack to madness, like a theme that would play in the climax of a horror movie as the protagonist makes one final desperate attempt to escape from the deranged psychopath chasing them.

@Lexi Darling, forgot to make this suggestion, but have you ever listened to The Fall when you were slightly inebriated? To the uninitiated, that might make the music/vocals make more sense. 

Maybe, haha. Probably not going to happen anytime soon though, I only drink on special social occasions. But I will keep that in mind should things change!

I think one thing that hinders me from enjoying Mark E Smith as a vocalist and main personality is because it always feels to me like the context of his lyrics is lost on me. I don't even have a vague idea of what he's talking about most of the time, and his vocals command attention so much that it's hard to really get into it on a conceptual level. I don't like his voice and I can't decipher his lyrics so the only thing I have to latch onto is the (often really great) riffs.

[Marie Monday]

Time and time again I realize that I just don't need any of their stuff besides the first album.
Not that they don't have other good music, they certainly fucking do, but whenever I listen to anything else by them, thoughts start creeping in that I could just be listening to Live At The Witch Trials and have an equal or most likely greater amount of enjoyment. It's also just so fucking consistent, every track rules, no filler or meandering unlike on their other albums, even the best ones.
I also happen to enjoy MES vocals and on some of their later stuff they're kinda mixed into the background. I get what they are trying to do but I like to be able to hear him clearly.

I feel the same about some bands and although the Fall isn't one of them for me I totally get why it would be for others. What's weird is that of all their albums, the Witch Trails is the one that doesn't really click with me, even though I can tell that it's much better than some of their albums which I enjoy much more. I've never understood why I don't love it that much, it's so funny how some things strike a chord with you and others just don't.
I share the love of Mark E. Smith's vocals, for me they were one of those revelations which change and shape your relationship with music. His lyrics too, even though they don't make sense or are indecipherable half the time. Like probably everyone, when I mishear lyrics, what my mind makes up often has a kind of surreal associative quality which makes discovering the actual lyrics a disappointment, but not with Mark E. Smith's. He somehow manages to capture that.

[SGR]

Time and time again I realize that I just don't need any of their stuff besides the first album.
Not that they don't have other good music, they certainly fucking do, but whenever I listen to anything else by them, thoughts start creeping in that I could just be listening to Live At The Witch Trials and have an equal or most likely greater amount of enjoyment. It's also just so fucking consistent, every track rules, no filler or meandering unlike on their other albums, even the best ones.
I also happen to enjoy MES vocals and on some of their later stuff they're kinda mixed into the background. I get what they are trying to do but I like to be able to hear him clearly.

That's funny, Witch Trials was definitely one of my gateway drugs into the rest of the Fall's discography, but I rarely ever return to it these days when I'm in the mood for some Fall. The album as a whole just sounds so different from the rest of their discography, in that it's much more a straight-laced punk rock approach than the rest of their material. The pronounced keyboards on the record do give it a different identity from the rest of their early material though. And it's truly impressive they recorded the whole thing in a single day.

I think I know what you mean about MES's vocals being mixed into the background in some of their later stuff - this track off their 2013 album Re-Mit for example. You've got multiple vocal tracks of MES playing at different times in the track, some in the foreground, some in the background, and then you have additional vocal tracks of Elena Poulou and some guy speaking a different language. It's definitely auditorily stimulating, to put it mildly.

[SGR]

Maybe, haha. Probably not going to happen anytime soon though, I only drink on special social occasions. But I will keep that in mind should things change!

I think one thing that hinders me from enjoying Mark E Smith as a vocalist and main personality is because it always feels to me like the context of his lyrics is lost on me. I don't even have a vague idea of what he's talking about most of the time, and his vocals command attention so much that it's hard to really get into it on a conceptual level. I don't like his voice and I can't decipher his lyrics so the only thing I have to latch onto is the (often really great) riffs.

If you ever get into them more deeply, you'll inevitably run across this crowd-sourced site which annotates and provides references and explanations for all the lyrics.

http://annotatedfall.doomby.com/

But if not, it's okay, you won't be the only Fall hater on this board....right, @Trollheart? 

[SGR]

Oh, I think I mentioned this on MB, but if any of you want an excellent record-by-record overview book about The Fall's discography, this is the best book on the subject by Steve Pringle.

https://www.route-online.com/all-books/you-must-get-them-all

I used to hang out frequently on the online Fall forum, as did Steve, and as a result, I got myself an autographed copy of the book. 

[SGR]

I know Brix hated what MES did to this track that she composed, but I honestly love it. It's so raw and rough - it's like auditory caffeine.