TopTenREVIEWS presents the music career and reviews of Fall
Fall
CAREER SPAN:
Decade
Album Score
# Albums
Ratings and rankings are based on all available critic reviews for each album.
Overall Band Score:
3.2921
Fall Album Rankings
1
The strongest-ever Fall release, This Nation's Saving Grace , is unquestionably the best record to emerge from the Beggars Banquet Fall era (1984-1989).
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2
For the uninitiated, entering the wonderful and frightening world of the Fall can be an overwhelming experience.
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3
Bypassing their edgy, early singles and concentrating on their artier, more eclectic work of the mid- and late '80s,458489 A-Sidesencapsulates nearly all of the Fall's many attributes.
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4
Easily one of the high points of the Fall's 20-years-and-running career was their release of 1984's The Wonderful and Frightening World .
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5
Enforced change, unplanned sometimes scary and potentially threatening change, often works out for the best. Thus was the result of Mark E Smith and Brix Smith parting ways.
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6
The Fall were formed in Manchester by dock clerk Mark E Smith.
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7
Notable line-up changes occurred prior to this album. Bramah and Pawlett left, Craig Scanlon and Stephen Hanley joined on guitar and bass allowing Marc Riley to switch from bass across to guitar.
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8
The title cleverly encapsulates the contents - the Fall's B-sides (45s) from 1984 to 1989. The Fall were a first-rate singles band, and the flip sides were often their equals.
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9
Punk may have been the initial spark for the Fall, but by 1983 they had made it clear that whatever trend was next was not for them.
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10
Something happens to The Fall guitar sound here, something happens to The Fall, full stop. Maybe it was the growing influence of Brix, but they sound more democratic, less Mark E Smith dominated.
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11
Calling this collection absolutely essential damns it with faint praise.
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12
[Fall Heads Roll] is of head-turning quality.
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13
Brix left again, but a new creative force entered the group.
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14
First impressions reveal shouted vocals and the absence of the murkiness that characterised 'Dragnet'. Further listening reveals lots of catchy guitar riffs and a helping of rockabilly.
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15
What happened? 'Hex' was intended to be the last ever Fall album, because Mark E Smith was pissed off at something or other - but lo and behold, 'Room To Live' arrived less than a year after 'Hex Endu
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16
So named due to this being a collection of stuff released on the Kamera label, for a long timeHip Priestswas the only way to listen to material from the mightyHex Enduction Houralbum, as well asRoom t
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17
If you've managed to make it this far in life without discovering The Fall, put off whatever purchases you were planning next and buy, instead, three records: This Nation's Saving Grace , Hex Enductio
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18
Three cheers to the good people at Beggars Banquet-- because of their efforts, a whole slew of mid-to-late 80s Fall is once again readily available on this continent.
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19
So, how to shake things up, how to make life interesting? Why, record the music for a ballet of course! I mean, what else are you gonna do? One thing it did do was give The Fall an actual reason to re
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20
Quite why The Fall left a successful marriage with Phonogram / EMI, i'll never know. They did get paid twice for this album, though. Once by Phonogram, once by Permanent Records, their new home.
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21
A great set-list here if you love The Fall's material of the early to mid-nineties. Listening to a double CD album of live Fall material is a little trying though, too much information.
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22
Grant Showbiz ( fabulous name! ) producer of such notable Fall albums as 'Dragnet' and 'Grotesque' was quoted as saying prior to this release "this line-up could really do some amazing things if only
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23
A much-hated album among the cognoscenti when it was released-- and I suspect most Fall faithful still don't care for it-- this one's got the inescapable whiff of "contractual obligaaay-shun": five ne
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24
Another Fall live set! This one was recorded in 1982, so no it doesn't feature Brix. The 1997 CD re-issue was apparently mastered direct from an original vinyl bootleg copy....
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25
The Fall are back! One strange thing. In the first song, i'm sure they sing 'we are the new fall'.
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26
A six track mini album, the essence of the more straightforward side of The Fall, at this stage. Well, musically at least, the lyrics are the same brilliant strangeness as ever.
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27
The entire band left this time, bar Mark E Smith of course but also bar Julia.
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28
While many of the songs themselves are solid, the final mix The Real New Fall LP (Formerly Country on the Click) , the latest release by The Fall, definitely leaves something to be desired.
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29
This hodgepotch compilation titled 'Interim' is mostly an excuse to showcase the current and almost certainly temporary incarnation of the longest running soap opera, in what I hesitate to term as' al
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30
The opening 'DIY Meat' is just as lacking in substance as much of 'Cerebral Caustic' but the sound is fantastic, very raw and the bass of Stephen Hanley note-worthy in particular. It carries on, too.
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31
Doesn't the fact The Fall were signed to a label called Permanent Records strike you as being funny? It does me! Anyhows, here's another Fall album.
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32
Things were indeed about to change, Brix re-joined. Craig left ( or was sacked? ), but only after the recording of this album.
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33
A compilation covering alternate versions, live tracks, etc. This was originally a bootleg released in 1994.
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34
The "various years" referred to on the cover end up being only three (1988, 1993, and 1997) and the recording dates and locations of the New York and Austria recordings are up for debate with fans wh
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38
The follow-up to Cerebral Caustic turned out as one of the strangest things the Fall had yet released, though it was also fairly prescient in terms of what would follow.
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41
The Fall's first post-Craig Scanlon album also introduced Julia Nagle, who took over keyboards from the departing Dave Bush and also contributed some guitar.
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48
Two clichés to get rid of right away are that Time Enough at Last is another unnecessary outtakes-and-live compilation to clutter the Fall's unwieldy discography and that it's for hardcore fans only
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53
A high point of the Fall's short and not entirely rewarding tenure at Matador Records, the four-song Why Are People Grudgeful? EP is a clattering post-punk racket in the spirit of the Fall's classic
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