The 90s has always been the decade which seems to incite more discussion on this board than most. :rant:

It appears to be a decade which forum members either love or hate with no real middle ground.

Personally, I have always liked it. The Infotainment Scan is one of my favourite Fall albums and the Fontana records are never too far away from the stereo. :)

The 80s is a stronger period but the 90s certainly has its moments. In fact my two least favourite albums come from this decade.(AYAMW & Reformation)

(I suppose one could get annoyed with the fact that there were no less than 14 compilation albums released in this period but the noughties has already surpassed this. :o )

Where do you fit in?

I really love the Dave Bush stuff. Late 90s has its moments, but basically... meh.

Not keen on Shift-Work or Cerebral Caustic - apart from that I tink all the 90's albums are very good/great.

MCR is also not much cop. Has some top songs on it, though.

Although I am not so keen on the albums from 1990 -1995 the live shows I attended in this period were all fantastic and were what kept me buying the records and listening to the Peel sessions. There were some genuine highlights in those years though, usually on b-sides of singles.

I couldn't tell you the last time I played anything recent apart from The Unutterable. I still slavishly buy them but I've not been excited like I used to be. I like Interim next, because of what it is.

I don't dismiss the '90s, but it took me years to appreciate the full picture.

I only heard The Light User Syndrome, Levitate and The Marshall Suite in the last 2-3 years. Clearly very interesting music, but I'd given up at Cerebral Caustic, thinking (stupidly) that they were a dead duck.

I ticked the first option, but would have preferred one that said: "Most of the 90s stuff is 'meh', though there are a few tracks here and there that I like".

It's not snobbery - I just *don't like* most of the stuff from that period.

The 90s output is, without exception, utter shit.

Nowt wrong with the 90's, apart from Shiftwork and perhaps MCR. Others from this time were a little hit and miss, it's true.

Every decade has it's own highs and lows, a trend that will presumably continue.

Can't see where "snobbery" comes into it - you either like it or you don't. I always find it a little sad where people seem to glorify certain eras just to appear diffeerent from the rest.

The weakest period for me is Frenz - IAKO - Seminal Live - Extricate, although if I had to pick the worst album (charitably leaving aside Seminal Live as a "not a proper album" album) it would be Cerebral Caustic.

:o

With the exception of Extricate I'm afraid I have to agree with you.

Frenz is very good. So there.

Frenz would have been very good, if it had been comprised of other songs and had a different sound.

Nonsense on a stick. It contains many heart-smashing songs. And also some most welcome albeit baffling tunes about East German athletes and carveries.

Drivel on a spatula. It's an album that faffs around for 40 minutes not knowing whether it wants to be profound, mysterious, topical or silly.

And the tunes are lousy.

You are a complete fool.

This is all true, although I'd probably forgive the first bit if it wasn't for the second bit.

I know that Extricate is generally rated highly - as with TRNFLP, I fail to see why.

For me it was a bit of relief after the preceding couple. And Sing, harpy! at the time sounded bang on the money.

Playing TRNFLP is to enter a world of magic and wonder, in all its forms.

Extricate is a bit less crap than the preceding couple, true. I didn't really give it a chance at the time - it was the first Fall album I'd been sent as a review copy, and after the lingering death of the Brix era I wasn't feeling kindly disposed towards the gruppe. But it still sounds weak to me now - some OK songs and some less OK ones, nothing much to write home about.

"Bill Is Dead" was totally new territory, also. That was the big song for me.

That's not how you spell "tired trad rock".

Surely "satisyingly accessible return to form"...?

I think this is how all latter day Fall albums should be reviewed. :applaud:

In its remastered form, I can honestly say that I prefer AYAMW to RNFLP and FHR. Much of the music on those two albums just sounds like generic indie-rock to me.

I'll concede Bill Is Dead, mind, although musically the "new territory" is sort of... generic indie-rock... it does have a gorgeous tune, and I unreservedly love the lyric.

Clearly bonkers.

Well, he was in AC Temple.

They didn't fuck around.

As such, his parameters of "generic indie-rock" probably include everyone who ever made a video.

World's most baffling post. :unsure:

Please stop it.

Today, if possible.

:lol:

To be honest, I'm probably a curmudgeonly Hanley/Scanlon purist.

At the same time, I'll always insist that all periods of the Fall have deliberately included filler, half-baked tracks, and other forms of the unfinished. The one consistency in MES's opinings on the music of others is his praising of something so terrible its good or something accidentally great.

I think all Fall albums strive to be imperfect; they can never be fully canonised by professional rock writers who publish and write handbooks on rock for the uninitiated.

I'm sure it's just coincidence that the period of which I'm least fond of the The Fall's music is in a certain decade - it was also a time when my thoughts were elsewhere music-wise.

Start making sense then. Thank you.

The most recent 3 elpees have been inferior to the majority of the 90's output.

Especially the last one.

I do not concur, but like the cut of this man's jib.

For me:

Yes, yes, yes- Code Selfish, Infotainment, Middle Class and Levitate

No. no no- Shiftwork, Cerebral (their worst probably) and Marshall Suite

Just like a typical album, you have to take the good with the bad!

if the last one's meant to be other, I went for that, some of the 90's ones (Levitate, Shift Work, Infotainment Scan, Marshall Suite) are among my favourites, some of the others aren't ;)

Shiftwork has always struck me as the one Fall album in which MES is trying to be mainstream and commercial, within his own limits. The vocals seem to have been rehearsed and redone, the production and music is closest they get to what was fashionable "alternative" music at the time. The variation of Extricate is trimmed back, but we don't get the density and separateness of Selfish, which isn't trying to sound trendy or chart-friendly. I don't think he has many interesting lyrical ideas, apart from the bile of Idiot Joy and War Against. Whenever anyone suggests he should try to knuckle under, play the game, get a hit, I just think "that's what he tried with Shiftwork". I still like it though.