Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Totally Wired
2. New Face In Hell
3. Fit And Working Again
4. That Man
5. Container Drivers
6. Rowche Rumble
7. How I Wrote Elastic Man
8. An Older Lover Etc
9. Cary Grant's Wedding
10. Pay Your Rates
11. City Hobgoblins
12. Middle Mass
13. Gramme Friday
14. Leave The Capitol
15. English Scheme
16. New Puritan
17. Prole Art Threat

Disc 2:

1. The NWRA
2. The Man Whose Head Expanded
3. Lie Dream Of A Casino Soul
4. I Feel Voxish
5. Hip Priest
6. Hotel Bloedel
7. Winter 1
8. Ludd Gang
9. Smile
10. Tempo House
11. Hexen Definitive / Strife Knot
12. Wings
13. Eat Y'Self Fitter
14. Kicker Conspiracy

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #115099 in Music
• Released on: 2008-02-26
• Number of discs: 2
• Format: Box set
• Running time: 147 minutes

CD Description
2 CD compilation of early recordings from Mark E. Smith's legendary outfit. Featuring some of the most influential music from the punk era. The Fall's angular and abrasive music combined with Smith's acidic and often indecipherable lyrics provided a blueprint for myriad acts from Pavement to Elastica and onto The Strokes.

Customer Reviews

The Best Value Rough Trade Fall Comp
For anyone looking for a concise summation of the Fall's Rough Trade recordings , this is a great double CD.It is drawn from the Fall albums Grotesque (8 tracks),Slates (5 tracks),Perverted by Language (9 tracks), plus 4 tracks apiece from the live albums Totales Turns and A Part of America Therein.Also contained is an unavailable elsewhere version of 'I Feel Voxish'(the original is on PBL)
So the new Fall fan has the choice of shelling out approx £40 for the above 5 albums or picking this up for a tenner.So I think thats pretty good value,especially considering all the dodgy Fall compilations which are available and that you could be tricked into buying.

Another Fall compilation.
There are too many Fall compilations and this is another- perhaps capitalising on them being an influence on The Strokes (compare Last Nite to Pay Your Rates). This is mildly unsatisying as the Rough Trade era was split by a tenure on Kamera records, producing the brilliant Hex Enduction Hour and the dire Room to Live. Personally I think the compilations' Early Fall, In the Palace of Swords Reversed, Hip Priests & Kamerads and 1993's Castle Collection are better compilations of this era.

This gives us highlights and glimpses of a bigger picture- we get some songs from the abysmally recorded live album 'Totales Turns (Its Now or Never)'- awful stuff. Then we get some tracks from the fine 'Grotesque (After the Gramme)': Pavement influencing New Face in Hell, the hilarious Container Drivers and the sinister state of things up there with 1982's Winter 1, English Scheme. Great singles from the Step Forward era are only represented in mediocre live takes- such as Rowche Rumble here. Thumbs down...A few of those great singles and tracks from 1981's Slates are here- Totally Wired ("I had a jar of coffee and I took some of these..."),How I Wrote "Elastic Man" ("they will stop me in the shoppies and they will ask me...") and Leave the Capitol.

Disc Two offers mediocre live takes of songs better represented on the 'In a Hole' & 'A Part of America, Therein' albums. The original version of Eat Y'self Fitter is found on the budget price Perverted by Language. The singles The Man Whose Head Expanded, Kicker Conspiracy and Wings are great- but this is not the full Fall story- just another confounding compilation. For the best Fall stuff from their great early era you need: Live at the Witch Trials, Dragnet, Early Fall, Grotesque, Slates/A Part of America Therein, In Palace of Swords Reversed, Hex Enduction Hour, Hip Priests & Kamerads and Perverted By Language. This just takes advantage of a deeply compiled era already...

The Fall....nuff' said.
A great cd of bits and pieces on disc 1 and a complete gig on disc 2. Still good to hear Mark E snarling to this day.