Do you rate the Fall above all other Groups?*

Note: Dosent include Solo artists (obvioulsy)

I personely cant decide between The Fall and The Smiths.

Most people wouldn't be on this site if The Fall wasn't their favourite group.

well, stephen, you have a point...
but i personally find that i enjoy what i read here more so than any other so-called "forum" because folks here are intelligent, and have diverse tastes and opinions..yet, we're ALL Fall fans.
most of you may disagree with my particular tastes in tunes...but, to each their own.

my faves ever are:
The Fall (of course :P )
Wire ( B) ahhh, you all should know the magick that is them by now...)
Duran Duran (ok, whatever :finger: , i love 'em)
Bowie (again, whatever...)
The Rolling Stones (no matter what, yet i realize how shit they've become...but still :ohdear: )
and...a few more...BUT those above artists are my absolute faves...end all/be all. :zip:

Betwixt two bands at different ends of the musical continuum - The Fall vs Orbital :)

The Fall is definitely my favorite band.

2. Pavement
3. The Rolling Stones

Er...the Stones as they were...or as they are now? More info please?

To have done so much for so many years, to keep going, keep things fresh, to have covered so much territory while remaining always themselves and for near totally consistent brilliance, The Fall are the best. My favorite. They ARE rock and roll. As Mr. Peel (R.I.P., John) said: the band by which all others must be measured.

That said, I also love the hell out of the Swell Maps and a couple of newish bands that trip my trigger are Wolf Eyes and The Coachwhips.

The Fall, The Beatles, The Velvet Underground and The Rolling Stones have been battling it out for more than twenty years.

fall, minutmen, suicide, pere ubu, velvets, stooges, can, faust, beefheart/magic band...

if i judged the velvets on the strengh of there first 3 albums,
No group would be left standing.

The reason im such a huge Smiths fan is that hardly any other groups have recorded such consistently good matirial with only a handfull of duff tracks.

squarehead, that is a drool-worthy list you got! Every one a winner.

I can't think of any bands that are better than the Fall in my eyes. I can however think of a few solo artists that will maybe just swing it(which I am not going to mention as this is for bands only).

Solo artist would prove a little bit tricky for me.....
I would have to have Bowie overall, but with hounerable mentions to J.Cash, Post-Beatles Lennon, Leonard Cohen and a whole heap of others i dont have time to list.

I voted for it's close between the Fall and Wire. But I think the Fall have undeniably been more consistent and constant, and more instinctive than academic.

So in spite of my ambivalent vote, looks like it's the Fall after all.. :wacko:

After The Fall everything else seems...short.

I voted "Other". In the Rock genre, The Fall is my favorite, hands down. But overall, I like King Tubby, Madlib, MF Doom, Sun Ra, Kool Keith, FSOL and Boards of Canada better. Some of those are groups and some of them are solo (sort of). Whatever.

The Fall - by a mile. Have their own dedicated draws in the CD cabinet and account for about 85% of my music listening. -_-
Second place is tied by about 25 other groups, (including Sonic Youth, New Order, Bogshed, Blur (yes, you read it right), The Who), but they're all a long way behind.

I put yes, but im obsessed with music in general :D

Jim

Use some common sense. Does anyone prefer their recent material who's also familiar with their early work?

The Fall dominates my non-jazz collection....the next band coming closest is Sonic Youth, closely followed by Beefheart

At the moment I'm mainly into music on the Thirsty Ear Lable

Having a collection of over 2500 CDs/LPs/Tapes its difficult to single out any one favourite!

I'd say they were, but I tend to listen to other groups more.

thanks! everyone here has such impeccable tastes that I'd swap record collections and prob be very happy.

Heard Joy Division/New Order first, so they'll always be up there, but The Fall have been in the top three for over twenty years (even if I missed out on some of the 90's albums, I never stopped playing and loving the ones I did have). The Mekons and Aussies The Triffids are also at the very top for moi.

No other band has inspired such sustained devotion in my life as a music listener and consumer so far. I'd have to confess that my enthusiasm isn't as great as it was during the first year I discovered the band, and I think part of the reason I've continued to follow them as closely as I have recently has a lot to do with these message boards. During any given week I may listen to some other artist more, but The Fall persist where others come and go. I truly believe that there's no one quite like them (which you can probably say about a lot of artists... but there's quite no one quite like The Fall! :D ).

The Fall are atypical for me (not a big retro/rockabilly/garage fan -- sorry, folks) and so I spent a long time not considering them my favorite... but I think in the long run, it's the fact that they are atypical for me that has caused them to win out.

Prior to recent considerations, Cabaret Voltaire were always my favorite band, but their dormant status since 1994 has stunted my longterm affection for them somewhat. Wire are also a long-standing favorite, but this was sullied by the cash-in feeling I got from their last tour and the SEND record. The Legendary Pink Dots are the fourth in my holy pantheon, but they never quite rock, so they don't satisfy all my moods.

As you can tell I'm a big fan of bands that combine traditional rock instruments with an abundance of electronic experimentation.

The Fall. I dig them above the others, and that's been the case for many many years. I'm very fond of others, but not many that are here and now contemporary.

Most rock that I listen to repeatedly is done by bands and artists that have ceased to record or exist. This would include 50's r'nr, garage, psych, rockabilly, certain prog and rock bands, but I'm just as likely to listen to some old R&B and jump blues.

Anymore I listen mostly to classical music and jazz. I don't smoke a pipe, though.

The Fall remind me of a racehorse (please allow an awful metaphor coming up).

I have a picture of all my top 5 or 6 favorite bands as race horses...a gun goes off and they start. It's close for a long time, but slowly bit by bit one band falls a bit behind until it is only The Fall left in the lead by a nice margin.


I love the Fall because I never grow tired of them. Some bands who I thought would always stay in league with The Fall have tended to fall off in recent years, though I still have love for them. I think this is evidenced by just how many Fall fans from the late 70's/early 80's are still in love with the group. I highly doubt there's a message board out there with veteran Sex Pistols fans discussing the band on a daily basis. There are also quite a few people on this board who stopped following them for awhile, but seemed to have come back full swing. This is another mode of behavior I haven't seen with many other bands.

The fact that MES experiments with different new sounds in a genuine way helps quite a bit too. I mean when Bob Pollard releases a new GBV album and talks about how different his approach to recording it was to his last--in the end after 2 or 3 significantly different sounding albums--all the new albums only sound marginally different. They definitely don't cross or incorporate any radical new genres of music like The Fall have consistantly done.

the only place where The Fall hurt is in emotionally involving songs. They have some beauties--Iceland, Birthday Song, Garden, Recovery Kit, ext, but none that reach the level of say a Joy Division song or a late 90's Swans song. This can somewhat be overlooked as I grow increasingly apathetic with age however...sadly

I am not short of common sense. Nor are you, it seems. But you never know... :D

The Fall.
Then Wire..
Then Can.

If Wire manage to progress from their current minimal speed punk phase (like they did in 1978!) - and The Fall bring out another "Interim", things might change!

For me its a close tie between The Fall and Pulp. I listen to The Fall a lot more simply because they have around five times more albums than Pulp (remarkable given that both groups formed around the same time). Sometimes other bands such as blur, sonic youth, go betweens, you am i, or just whatever band I have seen most recently bob up to the top.

Also on around the same level as The Fall I would put Lou Reed (definitely not velvet underground), Leonard Cohen, MES and Ben Lee.

Sorry if that came off as snippy. I just found it a silly question.

I had no idea Pulp has been around that long!!

Pulp's early records are notoriously bad compared to their breakthrough 90's poppy fare, but they're actually dark, eccentric little indie records (with some Fall influence). If you'd like to hear the Jarvis Cocker that fell out of a high window to impress a girl and continued to use the wheelchair to which he was confined as a prop on stage after he no longer needed it, you should check out Freaks, or better yet, the EP compilation Masters of the Universe.

"Little girl with blue eyes, there's a hole in your heart, and one between your legs.
You've never had to wonder which one he's going to fill in spite of what he said."

I wouldn´t say that The Fall are my absolute favourite band, although I´ve certainly been listening to them a lot this year. But when it comes to being obsessed with music... I´ll second that. It´s actually getting worse over time...

These are probably my favourite groups/artists (in alphabethical order):

AC/DC, Anthrax, Baby chaos, Bad religion, Frank Black, Black sabbath (early), Byrds, Camper van Beethoven, Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Cop shoot cop, Elvis Costello, Cracker, Creedence clearwater revival, Miles Davis, Dead Kennedys, DAF, Bob Dylan, Easybeats, Bill Evans, The Fall, Fläsket brinner, Fugazi, Grateful dead, Hoodoo gurus, John Lee Hooker, Hunters & collectors, Iron maiden, Joe Jackson, Jesus lizard, Joy division, Kinks, Made in Sweden, Magazine, Mano negra, Bob Marley, Charles Mingus, Monster, Motorhead, Nirvana, Nitzer ebb, Nomeansno, Tom Paxton, Pere ubu, Pixies, Pogues, Radiohead, Ramones (early), Rollins band, The Roots, Sick of it all, Slayer, Supergrass, System of a down, Therapy?, Thin Lizzy, Van Halen (early), Tom Waits, Walkabouts, XTC, Neil Young

When it comes to classical music, I prefer Shostakovich, probably with Bach as 2nd.

(I might have forgotten a few... but you get the idea...)

The problem is that I´m not pleased with all this, even if I try to be. I keep buying things I haven´t heard before. But then again, if I had been pleased with what I listened to 20 years ago, I would never have been interested in for example The Fall... :)

Olof

Currently the Fall are vying for top place with Sleater-Kinney and KaitO but over the years The Fall have rarely been my favourite group just the group who has interested me for by far the longest

Maybe a stupid question on a Fall message board, but do you actually like the Fall more than any other band or act?

Judging from others' posts, I bet there are quite a few "no"s.

I'm a "yes", by the way

Good thread!

I'm a definite 'yes' too.

I'm a little surprised (but pleased!) to see that you still say 'yes' though EG, especially after your views on the London gig.....!!

:lol:

I'll say yes, but with the qualification that I think Can are better. Through their continued output though, The Fall are now firmly my favourites.

ta tfe. it was a shocking gig, but check the guy's track record

I'd have to say yes ... I havent been this passionate about a band since I fell in love with the Beatles at age 10. Currently, they top anybody for me, but here's a list (for my own amusement) of bands that could fill ou the no. 2 spot:

The Birthday Party
Sonic Youth
Joy Division
Telelvision
Captain Beefheart/Magic Band
The Beatles
The Velvet Underground
The Stooges
Tangerine Dream
Faust
The Shaggs (seriously)
Jandek (again, seriously)
The Pixies

... and I hate Pavement - Conduit for Sale is a poor man's New Face in Hell, The ending of Trigger Cut is a poor man's Psykick Dancehall, Our Singer is dead man's Hip Priest, and Two States is also known as No Bulbs - the sequel.