All the bands you get into turn to shit the minute you touch them? Play safe, get into hip dead bands, or bands who never will be any good at all, ever, like The Manic Street Sweepers, Stereophonics, Oasis and Coldspray.

"Extricate", the worst Fall album EVER? Jesus Christ!

Highlights:

Sing Harpie
I'm Frank
Bill Is Dead[I]
Black Monk Theme Part One
Popcorn Double Feature
Telephone Thing
And Therein
The Littlest Rebel
British People In Hot Weather
Arms Control Poseur

I disagree with you. Strongly, baby.

Daren, I think I see the analogy you make between Missing Winner and Room to Live, but there's a real originality to the sound of RTL and Fall records in general during that period that raises them to a higher plane. Songs like "Joker Hysterical Face" and "Solicitor in Studio" sound genuinely different in a way I can't explain; for instance, in the heaviness of the guitar and bass playing the same part in unison, sounding slightly out of tune as if coming from some twilight netherworld on "Joker." By contrast Missing Winner's musicianship is quite conventional, sort of like a capable but indistinguished bar band fronted by the elder MES. RTL isn't super hi-fi but it's well-mixed so that it comes across with an edge that most of Missing Winner (bar "My Ex-Classmate's Kids") doesn't. Missing Winner would of course benefit from being better mixed and mastered, but despite all the throwaway weirdness of "Ibis Afro-man" it doesn't stand out like the earlier stuff. It is however very "fuck you" (I've described it that way myself!) in a way that brings it above Cerebral Caustic and maybe a few others (I'd say Shift-work, Code: Selfish and Kurious Oranj).

As I said on another thread, Marshall Suite is indeed excellent. However I might think so because the first latter-day Fall stuff I heard was on the Past Gone Mad comp, which has four Marshall Suite songs on it. Still, to put it a bit tritely, it really rocks.

Well, I have to agree with the low opinion of Are You Are Missing Winner, though I enjoyed the fact that MES and Co delivered such a *statement*: - 'we dare to and will produce something slovenly'. The illiterate title hints at the content too which adds to the attraction, but I wouldn't call it the worst ever as it occasionally fits my mood or aural needs perfectly.

The title of Worst Ever Fall Album must go to: SEMINAL LIVE. Despite it including Mollusc In Tyrol and Pinball Machine the live stuff sounds average and uninspired. It's still better than most stuff produced that year though.

AH! It's got Dead Beat Descendant on, hasn't it!!!! Forgot about that. Re-think....

A compilation of Kurious. Frenz and Seminal Live would be killer.

IN DEFENCE OF THE INFOTAINMENT SCAN:

Of course we all have equally relevant viewpoints, but I re-listened to The Infotainment Scan today and think it a masterful album. All the tracks are solid apart from Ladybird, which is just 'great'. Why is it so good? It has the droney 'Paranoid Man In Cheap Sh*t Room', a tune even the Hex Is The Best Diehards surely love; 'Service' which has wonderful lines such as: 'Don't want to wake up and find out, I've learned the word: 'entrepreneur'. ' Roll the word around in your mouth.' It evokes brilliantly the philosophical dilemma we all face when carving a living out in these times. 'Grudgeful' is a stomping rave tune, bettered only by 'A Past Gone Mad' which has the savage lines about Bono (oops, shouldn't mention him on this board), Ian McShane and others; 'Lost In Music' and 'Spain' are both light covers delivered both sympathetically AND sardonically at the same time ; 'The League Of Bald Headed Men' : the title alone is genius and the tune delivers too with Hanley's driving bass. Just what did Hanley think of the bald head jibes - also see North West Fashion Show - , a man can only take too much! Did this lay the ground for the split!? 'Fireworks' could be better but 'Glam Racket' couldn't.

Only my opinion, but The Infotainment Scan is another shade to the 'always the same, always...' engaging Fall.

You're only allowed ONE album per member.


My vote goes to:

ARE YOU ARE MISSING WINNER

This was the subject of my very first post. I haven't changed my mind in this regard. To me the worst Fall album is The Infotainment Scan. Yes, yes, I know, it's "a brilliant pop album", it contains work by "the incomparable Dave Bush" (he
sure as hell was, albeit in a way he didn't intend!), etc., etc. As I said at the time,
it would be a boring world if we agreed on everything.

oh gr8 this poll again :devil2:

erm.... today i will say i am least liking 'kurious oranj' :zzzz:


probably said that one last time..........just don't like it much....too much sugar on it for me :sick:

i'd probably agree but then again the worst of the fall is better than the best of most others.

Don't know whether that counts, but my vote goes to:

2G+2

Since it was the closest to a real album they brought out in 2002 I consider it a real album, much in the same way as Seminal and Totale's Turns. Truly disappointing.

If it doesn't count my vote goes to Light User. Could never understand why apparently so may people like it so much...

AW cmon-winner is excellent. Does the illiterate title refer itself to the iliterate and country on the click society we live in-i.e don't bother spelling it corrctly just use spell check..and Dolly Parton/Lord Byron saying patriotism...clearly wrong but who would know in our so called post-modern society when/where history was so yesterday

I'll say the same as last time - Missing Wiener. It annoys me because it should be very good...it's a missed opportunity.

Apart from that the worst is "Shiftwork", which is just boring, 6/10 type business from start to finish, really. But even thought I listen to it less than AYAMW, I don;t think it's as bad; I don;t think about it at all, really...

I'll second that. I just don't see (or hear) the appeal of Light Loser. Perhaps someone would be kind enough to point out what should be the high points of that piece.

I'll third it. hate old white train. and that fucking drummer thing. never listen to it. Some of the tracks are good live though.

never liked ayamw until recently (suddenly "got it" for some reason & couldn't stop playing it for weeks), but still haven't been able to get into levitate (pending?), so am going with levitate for now...(though do love 'i'm a mummy')

You don't like The Light User Syndrome? You're all mad. Mad I tell yer. He Pep, Chinilism, Spinetrack. Das Vulture is a Nutter Weiner.
Oh hang on, is He Pep on that album? Yeah, yeah I think it is.
Oleana.
Those are the high points for me on the album Dan C.
As for crap albums by The Fall - er... can't think of one.

There aren't any Fall albums I hate, but Cerebral Caustic is probably my least favourite. Only a couple of tracks are really memorable and it just feels half hearted.

I thought Light User Syndrome was quite weak too. It was a big relief when they released Levitate, I was starting to think that the Fall were losing it.

Thanks chrisgoodhead,

I gave another listen to try to reprieve LUS. Unfortunetly I find He Pep and Das Vulture hard to listen to. It's like they didn't spend as much time on the rythm portion as the bass riff. If Brix's whiney vocals could be mixed out of Spinetrack I might appreciate it more. Interlude just kills Chinilism for me. Oleano isn't too bad but lacks a hook. In all I think it's the drumming that I find so irritating throughout. I do like D.I.Y. Meat and Last Chance to Turn Around though. The bonus tracks on the re-release help (I didn't realise Pink Floyd were short). Ok, one bonus track helps then the other does more damage.

Considering I like Bremen Nacht and The Steak Place I'm probably a poor judge for LUS.

Agree with the above vis Cerebral Caustic. Managed to achieve the almost unthinkable and stop me buying Fall product for half a decade. Making up for lost time now, natch - mainly thanks to The Unutterable which I heard for the first time this year.

If I go off the one I play the least then it has to be The Wonderful and Frightening Turd.

I second Cerebral Caustic, on which the songs are largely indistinguishable. The production is dirty but in a way that submerges everything rather than making it seem "raw." Rich Kidd wrote a review of it somewhere that pretty much sums up what I felt, which is that you can listen to it many times and still not remember what the songs are like (though "The Joke" has endured as a live standard). It sounds like MES & co. tried to create the aural equivalent of an insomniac's headache. However, Trouser Press was thought it their "best album in years" (http://www.trouserpress.com/entry_90s.php?a=fall).

Light User Syndrome isn't bad but it's too long. "The Colluseum" especially drags down the second half. It at least sounds more lively than CC does. "He Pep!" and "Cheetham Hill" are the standouts for me, I really like that siren sound on the latter.

My sentiments exactly.

I think Infotainment Scan is great. Song for song it may be the most consistent Fall album ever, if not the best. I second most of what Grimo says (I like "Fireworks" and "Ladybird" fine). Mark Prindle shares Drjohnrock's low opinion of it, though (http://www.markprindle.com/falla.htm).

Cerebral Caustic - poor cover starts the alarm bells. It still has enough good parts to make it better than most other stuff. The Joke, Rainmaster, Feeling Numb, Don't call me darling, Life Just Bounces, The Aphid, One Day and Pine Leaves are all enjoyable. Don't Call Me Darling is irritable because it stays in your head for days after listening to it. The other three tracks (only three) are spread out enough where you have to get up too often to skip tracks. I use this album when I need exercise! :blink:

Funnily enough, the average "Middle Class Revolt" started to put me off The Fall and "Cerebral Caustic" did it for me for a few years. It's got a couple of great songs - "Darling" and "Numb" - and some good to middling ones, but it's not up to the past standards it was then measured against. That said, they've made worse albums since - "Levitate", "Light User" and "Winner".

What with all this "remastering the early Fall" that is going on, they could perhaps get round to remixing said "Shiftwork" and "Middle Class Revolt" stuff and do something about the ABYSMAL 80s PRODUCTION VALUES which have no place in the work of the Fall, do something about the drum "sound" etc? And when they are done can we who bought the fucked up ones the first time trade 'em in for proper mixes?

but it has to be Are You Are .......which just sounds "it'll be great when he finishes it" as someone or other said of Picasso

Totally agree about the production on "Shiftwork" and "Middle Class Revolt", although I don't think the actual content is fantastic enough to bother remixing. Bad drum sounds were a bit of a problem throughout the Wolstencroft years - perhaps that was how he actually liked to sound :huh:

Worst album though has to be "The Marshall Suite" - I can't believe no-one else has mentioned it. Just the apalling cover of The Saints' "This Perfect Day" (one of the finest records ever made) is reason enough to win the title, but Marshall Suite contains at least 9 other equally worthy justifications. I just wrote off the group when I heard it, being convinced that a Hanley-free Fall was just not The Fall.
Of course, subsequent albums have proved me wrong, and Marshall Suite fortunately remains an isolated aberration.

Cerebral Caustic and AYAMW have the least good tracks. But both are kinda interesting to listen to, just to see what was kinda going on with Mark. With the latter, I don't think the sound is down to a big, uncompromising artisitc statement that much... it was put together way too quickly and there aren't a lot of very good songs. Mark probably needed something to pay the band with really fast, I guess. For something that's rawer and less arty than Unutterable, the Real New LP is the real deal as far as I'm concerned.

Although of the two, CC is the less inspiring.

Yes I think that would have to go down as my least favourite any day of the week.

I'm surprised about the high number of votes garnered by AYAMW..... after years of - to my ears - largely fair-to-middling work, this album rekindled some of the 'fuck you' Fall attitude I feel was typified on early 80s stuff (it reminds me of Room To Live it an odd, 'don't ask me to explain' way). I was really blown away by it when I first heard it, and originally thought it was more consistent than the Unutterable. Admittedly, I thought Gotta See Jane was poor, and I tend to skip Ibis and Ey Bastardo, but I also tend to skip Detective Instinct and Papal Visit... see the link?!! That said, Bourgeoise Town, Kick The Can, Ex-Classmate, Crop Dust, Jim's 'The Fall'... brilliant!!
I'm reminded of an earlier discussion about 'lost tracks' for Fall compilations, and as I've just done 3 for a mate, the albums I really struggled trying to find tracks worthy for inclusion were Code:Selfish and Cerebral Caustic.... and cos C:S was when interest first started to temporarily wane, that gets my vote.
Code : Selfish

The Marshall Suite is an amazing Fall album, I just had to add that in there...especially "the crying marshall"

Hands down the worst album is Are you are missing winner.....i still remember my extreme anger at that piece of shit after the previous years amazing album. It didn't seem possible that a band could be so great and then so terrible in the span of one year.

very 'fuck you' though :huh: isn't that just 'fuck lazy'?

y say 'fuck you' to fans of the fall.....what have we done wrong :cry:

coherently with my bestFALLalbum choice i should vote for the first one, LIVE AT THE WITCH TRIALS, but my recordseller got it only after GROTESQUE, which good-humored me a lot...
...and DRAGNET means a pretty funny memory to me: in 1979 during a 'music shop' radioshow for "l'altra radio canale 99" i introduced this album broadcasting spectre vs. rector; after one minute or so the boss of the radio burst into the studio informing me the stylus was broken; my answer was ha ha ha!!!
sorry, there's no worst ever FALL album for me

cheers
marco

Oh, don't get me wong! I wasn't comparing AYAMW to RTL in any way bar a sense of attitude... I have always considered RTL to be an largely overlooked masterpiece, and I completely echo your sentiments about Joker.. and Solicitor.. Genius!!
What I like about AYAMW is that, for me, it fits into a great run of Fall albums (Levitate - TRNFLPCOTC) - all of which I play regularly. I found the majority of 90s output a bit too patchy for comfort, but the last 6 years or so have been a great return to form. Not as great as the faultless first decade, perhaps, but great nonetheless...

Dan C. Try He Pep! on the Peel Session 2cd set. It sends shivers up my spine. Don't know why but it does. Anyway, it'd be a boring world if we all liked the same albums and songs...

I'll put the Peel Sessions on my shopping list and check out He Pep. Thanks Chris.

Okay, back to topic - Worst Fall Album Ever. For me this is Extricate.

This is because I only got into the Fall in 1988 with the Kurious Oranj one, and I liked Seminal Live but saw it as an in between proper albums thing. When Extricate came out I was very disappointed (and it wasn't the governments fault) and I thought it was part of a trend I had noticed in that as soon as I started to like a band they turned shit.

Between 1988 and 1990 I had bought a huge amount of Fall stuff and it was all fantastic, discovering gems like Drganet, Grotesque, Slates, Hex, PBL, TNSG... After all this, Extricate was a bit of a let down.

So I guess I found the Fall at the wrong time to appreciate this album, and I wonder if I had found them a few years later, whether I would regard Extricate as well as TNSG etc.

As it is though, I don't. A huge let down after an amazing year of discovery is how I see it.

I've had a HELL of a lot of thinking to do on this one...WORST Fall album???
Is there such a thing?? Anyway after much deliberation I have to say Code:selfish.

Songs like "Married, 2 kids" and "Gentlemans Agreement" just make MES sound old and tired and half-arsed, and I can't stand "Just Waiting" either.

Even its high points don't do it for me, I never liked "Free Range" and the only one I really really like is "Return".

yarbles

And the Peel session version is better than the one on the album too!

Whatever the worst Fall album is it wipes the floor with most groups BEST albums.

Bend Sinister was my first Fall album, and I waited with baited breath for the next one... The Frenz Experiment was a massive disappointment, with none of the atmosphere or sense of menace of Bend Sinister, so to me Frenz will always be the worst Fall album.

worst album: shit-work! in general i don't like fall albums from frenz up to middle class revolt that much - although you'll find lots of good "songs" there. but "good song" doesn't always mean "good recording" or "good production". and fall albums of that era were produced in a "clean" way that i definitively don't like. i liked ayamw very much though you hardly find a good "song" there. but the sound is great. might be a journey into the past, but that's the sound i expect when i listen to a fall record. anyway, shift-work's just crap. a real shame!

:girly:

...so curious onkel martin!: your remarks about SHIFT-WORK resemble the ones i heard from a "sound aesthete" friend of mine whom i had lent that cd...
...it's the first ever cd i've bought, it was used and i love it for this reason too!


cheers
marco