I have been fortunate enough to have been invited to be part of a select coterie of judges to vote on a massive competition to rate every track recorded by the mighty Fall by Steve Pringle, author of the excellent You Must Get Them All, a guide to The Fall on record. You can find the whole monstrous endeavour here.
We have just finished stage one, in which every track was rated in a series of 15-track groups, using Eurovision scores (if you don't know how Eurovision scores are allocated, who even are you?). This meant that 5 tracks per group got zero points. We were invited to share thoughts on each round, and I elected to write about those to whom I gave the goose egg, which probably indicates a negative outlook, but hey ho. Steve only had space to quote a few notes from each of us in the final blog posts, so here for your edification or enragement, are my full comments on all 160 tracks which scored nothing. Feel free to disagree (the rest of the voting panel often did, after all). Also, you can se how many times I repeated myself over the weeks.
The Littlest Rebel: There’s a question on how one should judge a track, of how one discerns its purpose. On Extricate, this track fits in nicely and does its job well. I feel that the album would be less without it. But, do I want to put it on and listen to it in isolation and then walk away? Do I want this tidy but foursquare 60s bop commanding my full attention? I’m not sure I do. So, bye then. (The harmonica is good, mind.)
Laptop Dog: Computers are rubbish, says man who decided what they were in 1983. Laptops are rubbish says man who has never used a laptop. People who like laptops are rubbish says man who once saw someone he didn’t like using one, which is a bit like criticising socks because Kenny G wears them. Course, I’ll tell you what’s really rubbish: uninteresting snare drum rhythms mixed too loud.
The Joke: Everyone likes tracks that begin Fall gigs, because no matter how average they might be compositionally, they are the gateway into an hour or so of gigging excitement (or, in many cases in The Joke’s tenure as opener, at least confirm that the gig will go ahead in some form or other). But, you know, it's not really good musically or lyrically, and we must confront that truth.
Jap Kid: Why hasn’t this been merged with I Come And Stand At Your Door? It’s getting short shrift on its own. Of course, Levitate is a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a MES production credit, and this track works perfectly as part of its half-arsed half-drunk half-finished genius, but outside of that environment where logic is jettisoned and sense is a distant memory, it can’t stand up for itself.
ROD: This is the track I suspect I’ll be alone in down-voting. There’s a lot that’s good about it, and it very near made the grade, but ultimately I find the attempt at gothic eeriness in the verse too obvious, and the chorus too short and clunky, and I wish that Craig would stop noodling about and play a riff or go away. You disagree, you think this is brilliant, but you’re wrong and if this competition helps you to realise that, then it was not entirely pointless.
Rose: You hear that wah-wah going? Remember you started it. Now make it stop and think about what you’ve done.
Pearl City: Of all the songs exploring why businessmen might want to eat Chinese food, this may be the best. Pyrrhic victory, though, because it’s going down.
Why Are People Grudgeful?: Mostly they’re not. There’s nothing wrong with this, it’s unlucky to lose out, but still, Sir [Joe] Gibbs’s version is better, and Lee Perry’s People Funny Boy which inspired it might be even better. Mark had great taste in Jamaican music, but he didn’t have the knack of replicating it.
Muzoweri’s Daughter: I’ve always found the migraine guitar and the spavin-gaited changes of tempo incredibly annoying, but it’s the lyrics that really turn me away from this song, which always just sound like “ooga-booga, silly Africans” to me. I’m prepared to believe something else is intended, but I’m damned if I can tell what it is.
Last Orders: I do love the sound of extremely early Fall, that clash between punk snottiness, nursery rhyme simplicity, and preposterous stadium tom fills, but I’m not sure that this is the track to celebrate them with.
High Tension Line: Some tracks achieve no points, and some tracks have no points thrust upon them. I always expected the give this mostly harmless single a point or 2, until I found that I hadn’t. Them’s the breaks. It always makes me want to listen to Lamonte Young instead, anyway.
Rollin’ Dany: I don’t begrudge The Fall kicking back and knocking out an old rock n roll tune every now and then, but it rarely results in gold. Dany has already been a double A-side, which is more than it could possibly have expected, so I’m not going to give it points as well, otherwise it will have to go and have a lie down.
Get A Hotel: As forgettable and inoffensive as the artworks in the Travelodge lift lobby. The best part is a Big Youth lyric.
Don’t Call Me Darling: Another that lost because it didn’t win. A plump-bellied roadhouse boogie enlivened by Brix’s grunge-angled chorus delivery.
Hands Up Billy: Awful song, end of. The only real pleasure I get from this is imagining it’s about James Herriott examining a goat for bowel troubles.
New Formation Sermon: This is a backroom jam. The Fall should improvise, extemporise, and ad lib, but they must never jam.
Junk Man: I respect the ugliness of this cover, it sounds like a Punch & Judy show with a terrible hangover, but that may not be something we always want in our ears.
WMC-Blob 59: I think that this works perfectly on the album, and always feel it’s unfair when it is referred to as one of the first piss tracks, but I can’t vote for it in isolation; Jesus, I’ve already given points to Papal Visit, the Fall Fans’ Proper Song Protection League will be after me as it is.
A Lot OF Wind: Oh, great Mark, share with us your searing insights into our society! What’s that? Giles Brandreth’s knitwear is garish, and the discussion on Pebble Mill At One tend towards the inconsequential? Truly thy satirical eye is laser-focussed, Lord.
I African Mancunian: This could have been good had it been finished, but it wasn’t so it isn’t.
Age of Chang: Group 5 is pretty tough, and this would have got through on other rounds. Musically this is generic, but the vocals sound as though they’re played from a musty cassette found in the vestibule of some eldritch monastery, which is a vast tick in the Pro column.
The City Never Sleeps: I like the way that the cheesy synth has a different voice pretty much every time it shoulders its way in, but a one-off clunky cover was never going to make it against such opposition.
Anecdotes + Antidotes in B#: Less a song, more a pitched pile of rubble. I like it, actually, but not enough.
Wise Ol’ Man: A typical, but perhaps forgettable, example of a late Fall pop tune. Yet another that I’d like to have given a point to in round 5.
Hark The Herald Angels Sing: I fear that this is a joke I don’t get.
Tragic Days: What is this? There is no musical or non-musical reason for this to exist. It is meaningless to judge it against any existing parameters. It can consider its lack of points a victory, I guess.
Tom Ragazzi: If Anecdotes got zero, then Ragazzi definitely gets zero.
Pilsner Trail: Like a sketchbook for ideas that would reappear in different songs, this is interesting, but was rightly discarded by the group.
The Ballard of J.Drummer: A pervading myth in Fall criticism is that Mark was a great story-teller. In fact, he was mostly pretty poor at linear narrative, though he could sketch a great lysergic vignette. Sadly, as well as being a barely coherent Western exemplum and/or spot of half-arsed Burns-baiting, this track is also musically valueless.
Hungry Freaks, Daddy: In which The Dudes take a bludgeon to a cornerstone of counter-culture rock, and flatten 80% of the song. Incidentally, I’m always surprised MES liked Zappa so much, I’d have thought a lot of it were too smug and muso for him (I know it is for me).
Hey! Fascist / Hey! Student: It’s not terrible as a clod-hopping grease-punk track, but what really disappoints is that in 1993 MES sat around and thought “What’s as bad as actual Nazis? Oh yeah, students. They’re the same. They’re exactly the same, let’s suggest they all get kicked in the head. That’ll tell them”.
Birthday: If John Quays did indeed get “out of his face to The Idle Race”, this hideous cruise-ship rendition of one of their songs would have sobered him up in milliseconds.
Recipe for Fascism: Levitate is a gloriously strange experience. The bonus disc is merely a strange experience. This track is barely an experience.
Victoria: Good song, I feel obliged to note. And not a bad cover, they bring some new things to the original. But there’s just not quite enough to it to get to the next round. We are very slightly amused.
Insult Song: Of all the micro-genres of Fall songs, the “Mark ribs the band” category is my least favourite; I don’t give a shit about your japes, I’m not your friend. This is definitely the best of the batch, but it’s still getting a duck egg.
Outro: Dum dum dum....dum dum dum...dum dum dum...dumb dumb dumb...
The $500 Bottle Of Wine: SHanley’s rolling millwheel bass nearly got this one over the line. The wine might have been rich, spicy and full-bodied, but this is a thin and tasteless concoction.
986 Generator: Why are The Fall playing this generic country vamp, and, more to the point, why are they doing it for what feels like nine hours?
Over! Over: That forced “I’m mad, me!” laugh destroys this hasty respray of a half-inched tune, which otherwise might have snuck into the victory paddock. I don’t love it, and I never did.
White Lightning: Give me enough snakebites and black and I dare say I’d wow the indie disco busting moves to this sprightly take on an old rock warhorse, but ask me to pick it as a Fall track worth celebrating, and you’ll expect short shrift.
Mr. Pharmacist: Extra! Extra! Garage chug staled by extensive exposure!
Stay Away (Old White Train): When Simpo couldn’t find Karl Burns when writing The Fallen, I can only assume he was hiding from the shame of this vocal.
Where’s The F***in Taxi? C**t: I have been to the Jude The Obscure pub in Oxford on a few occasions. It gets mentioned in this track. You’ll have to take my word for it, because you’ll never listen to it again.
North West Fashion Show: It’s Mark Ribs The Band: The Remix. oh joy. Also, surely Richard and Judy couldn’t have bastard offspring...at least, not with each other.
My Door Is Never: Shoots for krauty hypnosis, hits clumsy playground chant. Like lots of RPTLC it was better live.
Hollow Mind: In the name of all that’s holy, let the corpse of Jerusalem rest, this shambling reanimated cadaver can aid no man.
Afternoon Disco: This is a lightly diverting funk sketch. I can imagine it sprouting into a good track, but this never happened.
The Bad Stuff: Some of the sawdust bulking out the budget-range sausage that is RPTLC.
Clasp Hands: Unlucky not to make the cut in a tough group, this cheeky rocker trundles like a toy train, held together by elastic bands and fuelled by Woodbine butts.
Overture from “I am Curious Orange”: An attractive, melancholy chord progressions with some elegantly simple picking. It’s a pity Brix didn’t make something more of this, or at least had the courage to leave it an instrumental.
The Usher: Unlike lots of the shorter tracks on RPTLC, this feels slight, rather than unfinished, and it’s actually rather pleasing.
Symbol of Mordgan: What training do you need for discussion, at your own level, regarding whether someone failing to learn a riff whilst listening to the radio is worth putting on an album?
Hot Aftershave Bop: This track was destined for a half-cut boogie, not the hallowed pantheon. It won’t mind getting voted out.
The Book of Lies: The pronunciation of “lah-hah-hize" is surely one of the least appealing moments in The Fall’s catalogue. The rest of the song is alright.
Live at the Witch Trials: Like a little pond snail, this does a very useful job in its natural habitat, but shrivels and dies swiftly on removal.
The Coliseum: Sometimes the thing that turns an OK track into a good one is someone stopping the tape after the first four and a half minutes.
O.F.Y.C. Showcase: Created in a lab to work well opening gigs, this doesn’t excite as much as the rest of the album when isolated.
Vixen: Passable whiny chug
Bournemouth Runner: There’s a hollowness here, a feeling that the constituent parts don’t hang together, that something is missing, whether it be more musical material or just a bit more chutzpah in the performance. Funny topic for a lyric, mind.
Beatle Bones ‘n’ Smokin’ Stones: A pretty decent stab at the Beefheart song, considering it was almost certainly unrehearsed – but that harsh guitar tone sounds like toothache.
Jingle Bell Rock: My colleague used to have a reindeer that sang this song, which she’d turn on multiple times a day every December. This version is much better than that, but the trauma runs deep.
Idiot Joy Showland: Congratulations, barn door hit confirmed, Marksman Smith.
Underground Medecin: Far from a bad little piece of early Fall, but we just don’t need so many “we’re ace cos we take drugs, yeah?” songs.
Cruiser’s Creek: A very unfair zero for a chunky, if slightly overlong, single.
Touchy Pad: The second zero I regret having to award, for a concise and mysterious piece of late Fall weird.
No Respects/No Respects Rev: It mostly lost points for that pointless non-version that fades out.
Cloud of Black: I just listened to this, to check what it was like, but I’ve alredy forgotten.
White Lines: Pffffft.
D.I.Y Meat: The Fall do classic rock. I’m quite fond of this one, actually, but someone’s got to go.
Zandra: B-sides gonna B-side, I guess. Good on ‘em, not doing nobody no harm.
Just Waiting: This is the round where we test the truism that the covers are the worst tracks. This is fine, quite a nice little indie country lope, and probably better than the average cover, yet here we are. Props to Grass Grow for sounding great.
Popcorn Double Feature: Poor song + overly smooth reading = 0
Legend Of Xanadu: I adore this song, just one of Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Titch’s corkers, but MES just can’t manage the vocal. I’ve voted for Light/Fireworks anyway, so it still sneaks in.
Hit the North: Frankly, this only got relegated because all those mixes dilute the taste.
Second House Now: Frankly, this only got relegated because the lounge band intro gets on my thruppenies.
Ivanhoe’s Two Pence: Nice enough little track, though it’s essentially what you get if you cross Time Enough At last with Paintwork, and take out the oomph.
Zagreb: There’s nothing wrong with this, but since when has adequacy been an artistic yardstick?
Gotta See Jane: Worst cover of all; there, I said it.
Pledge: Pleasingly ramshackle, but yet another entry into the catalogue of 21st-century songs where Mark is angry about something despite clearly barely understanding it.
Xmas With Simon: Christmas songs annoy me at the best of times.
Butterflies 4 Brains/Whizz Bang: Far from being a bad song, but if only it whizzed and banged a little more.
White Line Fever: MES as Tony Clifton, serenading a suspicious audience, with equal contempt displayed on both sides.
Oswald Defence Lawyer: One of those Fall songs where everything’s in place, but it doesn’t gel. Here we have a repetitive riff, revisionist history, and baroquely obscure imagery, but it still drags.
Noise: Mark ribs the band, but this time over a loop; be still, my beating heart.
Louie Louie: Meaningless to judge this: they’re playing Louie Louie badly, they know they’re playing it badly, they’re happy they’re playing it badly. Shorn of experiential context there’s very little we can do with this except file it historically.
The Crying Marshal: Crunchy and chunky, but doesn’t have the strength to hold onto the life raft.
Cheetham Hill: Equally scrunchy sonically, but again a touch featherlight, so it’s out. There’s no need to go berserk.
Life Just Bounces: A mildly annoying ascending/descending figure coupled with lyrics that were clearly written as prose and squeezed into the metre.
O! Zztrrk Man: The murk is commendable, but the net impact is minor.
The Wright Stuff: As much as I adore Eleni singing the riff between her teeth, this one is going down.
Assume: A good honest barrel along a greasy riff which doesn’t deserve zero, but neither does it deserve to win any awards.
The Acute: Do I look like I have on my forehead “I’ll accept any quarter-arsed shit with The Fall on the cover”?
Squid Law/Squid Lord: Tell us you want to cover Junk Man without telling us you’re covering Junk Man.
Solicitor in Studio: There’s an awful lot to like here, but 1982’s output was so preposterously brilliant that this pales. Killed by context.
I’ve Been Duped: It was always nice to give Eleine a spotlight/Mark a fag break, but on record it’s somewhat lacking.
Happy Holiday: I own 2 versions of this. Sometimes I’m not proud of my choices.
Latch Key Kid: IWS is a great album, but really this sounds like all the other bits of the album squished together.
Kick the Can: Who will win in this epic battle between thin garage and stunted rockabilly? Boredom will.
Say Mama / Race With The Devil: I actually rather like Say Mama, but the forced and unnecessary smash into that boozy take on Race infuriates.
Nate Will Not Return: This is not great, with the power to irritate, it is dead weight, I have sealed its fate.
Room To Live: Round 21 is so tough I’m reduced to slightly arbitrary choices for what to eject. I’ve never liked Riley’s chintzy little guitar line on live versions of this track, so, farewell, then...
Octo Realm / Ketamine Sun: Octo is hilarious. Ketamine is a decent example of The Fall’s “clearly influenced by” category, but it isn’t enough in a tough group.
Susan vs. Youthclub: Speaking of ketamine, this sounds like a pop song in a K-hole after a couple of bongs and a Benylin spritzer.
Mask Search: This is what people who haven’t heard a Fall album since 1987 think they sound like after 2000. in their defence, they did this once.
Choc-Stock: Its heart is in the right place, but it’s just too much of a bloody mess to truly love.
Spinetrak: Not so much bad, as overly typical of the era.
Italiano: Why on earth wasn’t this lumped with Oleano, when it’s clearly the original demo idea? Obviously never going to get through. It doesn’t even sound very italian (though On My Own does).
Van Plague?: I nearly put this through for “rancid kid drowned in lagoon” alone.
Ol’ Gang: Had this been an instrumental, I’d be pouring points on it. Alas, Mark’s input is not only unnecessary, it mars the whole experience with poor timing, lazy rhymes, and tedious moaning about management types.
On My Own: Nice little track, but nice gets you nowhere in this world, bub.
Tuff Life Boogie: Adequate B-side shimmy let down by annoying vocal hook.
Theme from Error-Orrori: Such a sluggish performance, it’s like some rough beast slouching towards Italy to be ignored.
Irish: You know when you make a bar of soap from all the slivers from the other bars of soap, and it works, but it’s a bit sloppy? That’s what this is regarding final-era Fall songs.
Serum: Quite good, in its way, with a fat rhythmic punch, but lacking in true character.
Terry Waite Sez: I never worked out what this is for. The only thing of which I am certain is that the tale about it being about a different Terry Waite from down the pub is steaming shite.
And Therein: A song that is not bad at all in its original form, but proved too easy to teach new band members, and so we are burdened with a clutch of uninspired plods along its riff.
Dead Beat Descendant: There’s a little clutch of terpsichorean late 80s tracks, about bops and boogies and dances. They’re all perfectly alright, and none of them are particularly special.
The War Against Intelligence: Fine, but ironically short on ideas.
Gibbus Gibson: A strange ditty, and one to which it is sad to give no points, but equally one which cannot command anything more.
Jam Song: If you need to have it explained why a Fall track called “Jam Song” gets zero you’ve missed the whole fucking point.
Middle Class Revolt: A socio-economic trend report wandering in a digital miasma, albeit one with a slightly annoying keyboard line.
I’m Frank: Jaunty, priapic, and rather good. It lost a point for sounding cock all like Frank Zappa, which was enough for an early bath in this group.
Extricate: This chugs mightily pleasantly, but it won’t chug its way to the medal podium, will it?
Arid Al’s Dream: That lovely guitar part should have had a better song to house it. This is decent fare, but you can see why it was thrown away on a compilation.
Stepping Out: Strong, in its way, and must have been powerful at those very early gigs, but it;s an example of nascent promise, rather than fully fledged glory
Psycho Mafia: Like my comment on Stepping Out, only much more so.
2×4: Merely one of the crowd from the Beggars era. It’s a nice crowd to be part of, mind.
What About Us?: Not a bad tune, all things considered, but I’ve always thought the response to a serial murderer in the healthcare profession being “drugs are cool, heh heh” to be a little depressing.
Hilary: I might have scored this more highly if they’d not recorded Grass Grow, it's like Houdini revealing his tricks.
Groundsboy: Sad to see this one go, it’s an odd and unforced little track painting a micro-vignette.
Distilled Mug Art: The “three voice memos playing at once” feel is good, but that guitar noodling is so drab.
Greenway: Beware of Greeks bearing riffs, in case you end up making stodgy pap like this.
Dice Man: I like punk attitude and Bo Diddley as much as the next man, but this, alas, is inessential.
Snazzy: The strangely antiquated slang of the title is the best thing about this. In that spirit, I declare it to be “cruddy”.
Funnel of Love: A fair shot at a cover, but it doesn’t quicken the pulse.
Two Face!: For (another) Batman-influenced song, this is somewhat lacking in BIFF! POW! and KRAKK!
Reprise: Jane – Prof Mick – Ey Bastardo: Mark ribs the band, except it’s only one of the band and there’s some boring drums and I don’t bloody know it’s just atrocious and can I turn it off now?
I’m Not Satisfied: Mark’s love of Zappa doesn’t seem congruent with many of his opinions (although I think really Mark had a love of Mothers of Invention, not the other twelvety hundred solo albums). This is not a great shot at a cover.
Pittsville Direkt: The only interesting thing about this song is how uninteresting it is. Even giving it a listen for this round, I found it hard to pay attention.
Married, 2 Kids: Has some funny lyrics, but musically it leaves the Colman’s uncloven.
Session Musician: Top tip: if you’re going to write a song berating hack musicians, ensure your own composition isn’t generic.
To Nkroachment: Yarbles: I prefer the instrumental version (and would have merged them together, but I’m not in charge, so whatever).
Don’t take the Pizza: The song is OK, if hardly top tier, but the coy obscuration of the word piss annoys me, from the band that would release Where’s The Fuckin Taxi, Cunt?
Lucifer Over Lancashire: That “son of shave and a haircut” rhythm becomes rather annoying after a while.
Das Katerer: The timing is clunky on The Unutterable. The version on Post-Nearly man is better, but I suppose is not admissible as evidence.
Breaking the Rules: Why not just play the cover, instead of writing some new but not very exciting lyrics? Is it a tax dodge?
Mad.Men-Eng.Dog: I’m a big fan of a Smith tape collage, but in this case the tape is apparently made from hessian and silt, and it’s just a bit too art brut(ish).
Scenario: Two found texts shoved together without any real meaning, plus a riff you already stole once this album, does not equal songwriting glory.
Happi Song: A very nice little ditty, but little ditty it is, and little ditties aren't quite enough to go through.
Jungle Rock: I love the greasy barely tuned sound of this, it feels as though it will leave a sticky residue on your speakers, but the novelty song is not precisely towering genius.
Segue: A travesty. At least it’s short.
Loop 41 Houston: I’m rather fond of Loop 41. I’d like to hear the previous 40, instead of a chuckle-headed Dean Martin cover.
The Steak Place: Better than I remembered it; not as good as I’d like t to be.
Portugal: Kind of a fun bubbleglam pastiche, but I just feel achingly sorry for the letter writer, supercilious though his tone is. If someone threw snotballs at me at work I’d quit too.
Systematic Abuse: And then a little later, the band filed the same charges. Anyway, this should be a great krauty groove, but somehow it isn’t - just more evidence of RPTLC being undercooked.
Unutterable: I was going to write something about this track after listening but I have already forgotten how it went.
Rude (All the time): Blaney may well have been a good friend to Mark, but he certainly added some crappy old guitar strumming to some of the songs...and here there’s not really anything else.
Ibis-Afro Man: Unlike many people, I see this as a noble failure rather than a farce, and I salute it as it inevitably disappears form the competition.
Quit iPhone: Certainly the best of the “Old man yells at iCloud” group of late Fall songs, but it can’t quite hold onto a point here.
Cary Grant’s Wedding: I’ve just never worked out what this is supposed to be. Is it time for “What do you mean, ‘What’s it mean, what’s it mean?’?”?
