Mine's gotta be Psykick Dance Hall from Dragnet, but most opening tracks are belters in my opinion

Not only should this be under "Polls" but it's been done before.

In case you're interested, just CLICK HERE TO SEE THE POLL...

B)


(By the way, "The Classical" wins everything all the time. Just so you know.)

Mansion immediately springs to mind, but there are so many. They know how to start a record don't they? Jims "the Fall", The Classical, DIY Meat and Eat Y'Self Fitter also spring to mind.

yes eatyself is great , which makes me pissed off wi meself for getting PBL+.

I love the fade in to loco man-love the idea of the fade in then BLASTOFF.

Yeah, I voted in the poll too but indeed The Fall are masters at kicking things off. I can't think of an opening track on any of their records that didn't/don't make me go YYYYEEEAAAHHHHHH!!!!!

....well, maybe 15 Ways....

But especially Eat Y'self Fitter, The Classical, R.O.D., Lay of the Land, Green Eyed Loco Man, Cyber Insekt, Jim's The Fall, Psychic Dancehall, Frenz, Frightened, So What About It, Ladybird, The Joke, Touch Sensitive...hell, that's most of 'em innit?

Is anyone still interested in that definitive Fall tracklist thing I was going on about months ago? I think around song 5 people stopped voting so I nixed it. that and the fact I lost the internet for 4 months. Probably more the latter.

I voted on it and thought that you'd got fed up with doing it. Please reactivate it...I'm ready for more.

I think I voted on it, too, but as it kept going it was getting more weird and arbitrary. It's easy to have a definitive concept in one's head about what a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd track should be like, but I have no idea what makes a 7th track a good 7th track. That, combined with the fact that the albums all have different numbers of tracks in the first place, guaranteed that the polls were going to drop off at least somewhat...

So what should a 3rd track sound like, exactly?

its a tie between the classical and the joke. two great opening tracks.

I can't vote either, so it's:
1. Frightened
2. Lay of the land
3. Touch sensitive
4. Psykick dancehall
5. Cyber insekt

I'm not sure it's possible to say what even track 1 should sound like... each of the above introduces and in a way defines its album to me, except maybe for Touch, which is a bit anomalous (but not half as much as the horror that follows).

apparently a third track should sound exactly like New FAce in Hell, Hard Life in Country, Hip Priest, and Sparta FC.


I'll resurrect them, please vote some more so that "I'm a Mummy" isn't the winner of the best forth album track as it looks to be...

(granted I like the song but c'mon now)

It depends on the first two, but typically I like a third track to take things down a notch and spread out a bit at the same time. After a killer beginning and an equal follow-up, the third track is where things can start getting artier or deeper.

i think everyone should just vote for the classical.

Now come on kids,

we can do better than just saying 'the classical', great yes, but so are so many others

Psykick Dance Hall, So What About It, Pay Your Rates, Eat Y@sElf Fitter, Big New Prinz,

the joke is great, so is the classical, big new prinz is a classic, so many choices.

absolutely, couldn't agree more.

glad that we could agree.

i'd say 15 ways...
middle class is a brilliant album

Have embarked on a mission to listen to all studio lps again. I was a big fan early 90's as thats when I got in to the Fall, so MCR brings back good memories, sadly, I can't say it's a good lp anymore. In fact bar Hey Student, it rarely gets out of first gear. 15 ways is one of the poorest opening tracks and there are only a handful in total, even on shitter albums, there are better opening tracks.

I don't know, your tastes may have changed but that doesn't mean "15 Ways" isn't great for the style it represents. As a pretty good approximation of a Smiths song, it works.

Ohh, "The Classical" by miles!

Lay of the Land for me, every time.

It's just such a great statement of intent for the whole album - draws you in with the chanted intro, 4 stick clicks and then.... BLAMMO! In with that killer riff. Seconds later, In with Hanley's killer Bass. Double salvo, floors me every time :D

I'm talking about it as a song; chords, construction and how much it grips me. Not what it represents

I'm just saying that, esp. where the Fall are concerned since they've done so many different things, my criteria changes from album to album regarding what makes any of their songs "good." I mean, most of the complaints I see about Middle Class Revolt is that it's not like Hex or PBL. Of course it isn't. But for 1994's Fall, I think "15 Ways" is better than, say, "City Dweller" or "The Reckoning."

Of course its not Hex or PBL, but I'm talking in terms of opening tracks, I agree compared to many tracks on the album, its a better song, but compared to most other opening tracks its near the bottom of the pile.

You can tell agood fall album by how it fairs after the first track and maybe one or two after that. ie Code : Selfish which goes seriously downhill after track 3.

Of course, if they'd put "Symbol of Mordgan" first on MCR then we wouldn't even have the argument:- it would be the best opening track on any Fall album by miles. B)

Your argument falls to the ground because Immortality and Two Face are the best tracks. Just ahead of Free Range..

Ah subjectivity.. dontcha just love it?

Anyway best track is Hey Student

I actually agree that Code: Selfish falls apart very fast, but like R. Totale, I quite like "Immortality." But I can't even remember what song 3 is (Birmingham, Free Range, then...?). "Birmingham" is a great opening track, though. No one discusses this one much.

Return. Grinding guitar Riff, signature Fall, crappy keyboard sound behind it

See, that whole album is basically unmemorable to me. Return??? Even the title means nothing to me.

i hate the thought of code, so i barely listen to it, but when i do i quite like it, quite like mind-insipid-prefer live return actually and birmingham sounds big but drones on , but not in a good way.

best start...? TNSG or even green eyed for the fade in...context again for me---the album had great expectations and elays and there it was..fade in to kaboom

Ah so you can be critical then, what about this was good for 92, just as MCr was ok for 94??

Yeah and it's obvious that Crew Filth is the best track....

Totally obvious. :applaud:

I listened to Code Selfish on the way home on the bus today and have to say the first seven or eight tracks are great - Time Enough At Last completely outranks other slowies like Bill is Dead or Edinburgh Man in my opinion.

Free Range is the best single the modern day Fall has ever released (prior to that I would say Man Whose Head...) and my fave rave track by far on the album.

I'm always critical. Do you mean negative? Most of the time I don't really see the point in blabbing on and on just to disparage things for the sake of disparaging. The popular model here seems to be if someone expresses a complimentary sentiment toward something, everyone else needs to choke it back down.

Code:Selfish is my least favorite Fall album, because the material to me (other than Birmingham, Free Range, Immortality, and Two-Face) is completely forgettable. I may not like the *style* of Shift-Work, but the material is fairly strong. Code: Selfish is like that, only without the strong material. It sounds like it was padded out.

The Infortainment Scan, and to a lesser extent MCR, really work for me... in the case of MCR, maybe it would have been different if they tried to flesh it out with their own recordings rather than all those covers, but I like the covers... done presumably because they didn't have enough strong material to deliver a full-length album in 1994. Note that all the B-sides to the singles of this time also appear on that album, indicating a shortage of original material.

The early 90s, in British alternative rock/pop especially, were chock full of skater and dance bands with too much technology at their disposal, i.e. Jesus Jones, BAD II, EMF, PWEI, Carter USM, etc. I think Code: Selfish falls in line with that a bit. By 1994 the Britpop phenomenon had broken out and the Fall's indie pop intentions seemed much clearer and less of a fashion.

Subjectivity kicks in again! Overall I think Code Selfish is stronger than Infotainment, and I think "Birmingham School Of Business School" is one of the weaker tracks, and a poor opener. It's my 2 and a half year old son's favourite piece of music though, along with "Girl" by The Beatles and "Girl On A Swing" by Kevin Ayers.

Having said that, the version of BSOBS at Glastonbury was stonking.. If only it had been like that on the album.. So it's the performance rather than the song I dislike.

Crew Filth is still THE tune.