What 3 The Fall albums should I get?
 

I have the Frenz Experiment, which I love, and Perverted By Language, which I haven't really given much of a listen

Hex Enduction Hour and This Nation's Saving Grace for sure. The third one is a toss up..... Might as well start with their first record, Live At The Witch Trials. I find that one to be pretty underrated.

~Jeremy~

Slates!

Definitely This Nations Saving Grace. After that Extricate, Bend Sinister, Frenz Experiment and Hex Enduction tour. Any of those 4 are worth checking out.

The Peel sessions boxset is probably your best bet - same price as three LPs, gives you a better idea of the Fall by era.

i'd go with that ^

1. This Nation's Saving Grace
2.
3.

I suggest:
This Nation's Saving Grace
Your Future, Our Clutter
Live At The Witch Trials.

Also, The Complete Peel Sessions 1978-2004 is very recommendable.

Live at the Witch Trials
Dragnet
Hex Enduction Hour



I wish it was longer.

GROTESQUE, bitches, and then Hex Enduction Hour.

The Peel Sessions box set is your best bet. After that I'd just start from the beginning (Live at the Witch Trials) and go from there. If I had to have just three that you've not already got, though, then I'd probably say Dragnet, Slates and Hex.

i have 0, the perfect fall collection

Well, one of those bands it takes longer than usual to realize they're quite shitty indeed.
But the first few years were flawless.

Those are exactly the 3 I'd pick if forced to pick only 3. Except I would have listed Live at the Witch Trials first.

1. GROTESQUE (this one is quite clearly their best album, imo, it sums up everything they do well, has probably their best song "NWRA", I mean it's just unbeatable really)
2. SLATES (it's just an ep, though, so get REAL NEW ALL if you want; it's amazing, by far their best late-period album)
3. HEX (I started here and never looked back. Epic as hell. Still, it's not as strong as GROTESQUE, "WHO MAKES THE NAZIS" is really boring imo... still, DEER PARK is worth the price of admission. "say, have you ever had the chance to meet fat captain beefheart imitators with zits -- who is the king shag corpse?!")

I actually think the best is EARLY YEARS, but all the cd's have put songs from it as bonus tracks. Like, LIVE AT THE WITRCH TRIALS cd re-release has REPETITION, BINGO MASTER'S BREAKOUT, DRAGNET has FIERY JACK and whatever.....

.
get hex followd by the last one your future our clutter follwed by nations saving grace..then get the box set peel sessions thing then fill in the gaps in history.

actually dont listen to any of us, just go out and get random fall albums but avoid the myriad of live albums as some are shockingly awful.

the fall are in my top 10 bands of all time and even I wouldn't reccomend stuff like SHIFT WORK and ... some of their more electronic stuff where they experimented with dance music.... I mean a lot of those albums have great songs, but they're not really why I listen to the Fall. Also, yeah, the live albums suck. But as far as their studio albums go, I actually think FALL HEADS ROLL is
completely worthless, I know Pauly disagrees.

Nonsense! Levitate is probably my favourite album of theirs (at least, it's tied with Perverted...). But for a beginner, they're probably not ideal. Heads Roll is great, even if it is the moment where they sounded a bit like the Country Teasers. Blindness! Aspen!

this

ive got one word for you adam... BLINDNESS!!!! that makes that album completly unworthless! oh and harold shipman song!

I actually originally mentioned LEVITATE as being great/underrated. Hardly nonsense, though, I have every Fall album for years now, and I'm not alone in my dislike of their middle stuff in the grand scheme of things; read the perfect sounds forever reviews on them sometime hah.

Then again most people don't seem to like room to live either and that album rules, aside from MARQUIS CHA CHA. I think it wa salmost like an sy thing -- it was their album after hex how do you go from hex to MARQUIS.. CHA CHA? Like sy and daydream to goo. Not a bad album but daydream was epic as hell and then goo wasn't. You get it, you get it.

I don't like I CAN HEAR THE GRASS GROW. BLINDNESS is just too long and just makes me think of some shitty car.

"marquis cha cha" rules. maybe my favorite on RTL (either that or "joker hysterical face.")

the only song on that album that's pretty mediocre is "detective instinct."

shrug

they're in my top 10 bands ever... I like to think I have a pretty decent perspective on them as I've listened to them more than almost any other band ever....... and marquis cha cha is probably one of maybe 20 songs by the mI just don't like at all.

Then again I hate EAT YOURSELF FITTER -- and kinda find a LOT of perverted to be weaker than most of their material -- and people worship the ground its novelty ass walks on so who knows.

I can't trust the opinion of an American on the Fall. I'm sorry. But it just doesn't make any sense that you would like it. Really though, what do you see in it? I mean, I struggle as a southerner, but I have at least visited Salford and am from the same country.

I've stopped being an apologist for 90s-00s Fall - if you don't like it, you don't get them. I AM THE RULES.

(I'm joking. A bit).

Man, The Fall are one of the frist bands I ever got into, PERIOD. It was like.. Melt Banana, Dillinger Escape Plan, the Fall... this addiction has lasted half my life now.... or at least since Napster was invented!

I don't really know how to answer the "what do you GET"? I like how loose but in control the music is. I love the ranting. I mean, just brilliant riffs, all the time. Every instrument. I actually play live similiar to how the Fall sounds on records (which is surprisingly difficult to get on record). Like NWRA.. kinda just a guideline of what to play, and competent as hell players somehow play it perfectly, just playing in and around and about the melody but never seeming to gel cohesively into the section, it';s almost like jazz, you are supposed to hear the notes thst sbnsd==ddddd.... because they never really hit it, but you know how it should sound... and then SHIFT-UH... and the rolling for 4 minutes straight.. they make reptition beautiful, they've always taken a great melody and just made it go on forever.... cuz there's no such thing as repetition when it's that brilliant, i mean 2 drummers 2 guitarists a bassist keyboards on their more full band records, how can it ever really "Repeat" honestly? every time you play music, it may sound the same initially but music is like snowflakes. no matter what you're going to change. NO MATTER WHAT THERE WILL BE CHANGE. even if we don't pick up on it immediately.

i think with the fall it's all about the little changes.

it's all about the fills.

totally wired... the whole song sounds kinda plain and bland, at least upon first listen. what makes the song to me are the two brief as hell parts where the bass has that fill, that DUNDUNDOODOO,

LIFE LEAVES YOU SURPRISEEDDDDDDDDDDDDD-uh

i never paid attention to a band's lyrics, the Fall lyrics rule. i can't always relate, i definitely don't always want to.

the fall is, to me, one of the few perfect bands; tful 282, slowdive, beefheart, stereolab, and a very very very small little pinkynil with a bump of coke metaphor for perfection's iddeea of what a PERFECTBAND IS TO ME.

Ah - yeah, I suppose for me, while their music is entirely brilliant, what sets them apart from every other band is his lyrics. There are cockier bands, probably, but none as erudite ('Just six inches higher than your outstretched middle finger'). And I tend to see a lot of that as being about British humour, Manc football culture, the perversity of council estates and part-time witches washing dishes.

I think that, unlike most indie bands at least, they come from a world where bands play for people to dance to - they don't really sound like a Northern Soul band, but it's that kind of culture they relate to. I get the impression that a lot of DJs listen to them, like they're the only indie band that a lot of the diggers listen to. And the lack of musicianly faff is brilliant. There's a moment on Are you are missing winner where the guitarist goes half a note into what should be a solo, and cuts it dead (perhaps after a glare). Or the RPTLC funk element...

One of these days I'll write a proper article on the Fall. One day...