Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Ladybird (Green Grass)
2. Lost In Music
3. Glam-Racket
4. I'm Going To Spain
5. It's A Curse
6. Paranoia Man In Cheap Sh*t Room
7. Service
8. The League Of Bald-Headed Men
9. A Past Gone Mad
10. Light/Fireworks
11. Why Are People Grudgeful?
12. League Moon Monkey Mix

Disc 2:

1. Ladybird (Green Grass)
2. Strychine
3. Service
4. Paranoia Man In Cheap Sh*t Room
5. Glam-Racket
6. War
7. 15 Ways
8. A Past Gone Mad
9. Why Are People Grudgeful?
10. Glam-Racket
11. The Re-Mixer
12. Lost In Music
13. A Past Gone Mad
14. Instrumental Outtake
15. Service
16. Glam-Racket
17. Lost In Music
18. Lost In Music
19. Lost In Music

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #38479 in Music
• Released on: 2008-02-26
• Number of discs: 2
• Format: Box set
• Running time: 130 minutes

From Amazon.com
With 22 albums to his credit since 1977, the question you have to ask about any new release by Mark E. Smith is: How is this Fall album different from all others? The Infotainment Scan is the first release under the strange pact between Matador and Atlantic Records, but there's nothing new or noteworthy about the English group's tuneless drones and Smith's odd monotone vocals (he singsa lika thissa). Smith pursues his usual Kafka/1984 fantasies on songs such as "Paranoia Man in Cheap Sh*t Room" and "Ladybird (Green Grass)" as the latest in an ever-changing cast of sidemen dutifully churn along, but it's all been done better before. Try the 1990 compilation 458489 A-Sides. --Jim DeRogatis

Customer Reviews

Expanded-reissue of 1993 Fall album...
After the reissues of 'Room to Live' and 'Perverted by Language' listeners might be expecting 'The Wonderful & Frightning World of the Fall/Escape Route' & 'This Nation's Saving Grace' - instead comes a two-disc reissue of semi-official live album 'In a Hole' (a NZ-only release I recall?) and this LP from 1993.

The original 10-track album followed up 1992's 'Code: Selfish' and the electronic-directions suggested by the 'Ed's Babe'-single ('Pumpkin Head Xscapes' epitomising this). MES & co had been moving in this direction since 'Hit the North' (maybe earlier with 'I'm into CB' & 'The Man Whose Head Expanded'?) through 'Extricate', 'Shiftwork' & 'Code: Selfish.' The production is split between Rex Sargeant, Mark E Smith & Simon Rogers - the latter having been a Fall-member in the 1980s and involved with the classic single 'Everything Begins with an 'E' by E-Zee Possee! This version of the Fall found MES with long-time cohorts Steve Hanley, Craig Scanlon & Simon Wolstencroft with Dave Bush (keyboards/electronics) who would be jettisoned soon after, later to join the expanded/imploding Elastica.

The pre-emptive 'Why are People Grudgeful?'-single is now included, which along with the Peel-single 'Kimble' showed MES was in a Lee Perry state of mind. 'Glam Racket' is probably directed at Suede, though could also have the Auteurs, Blur, or Denim in mind! The cover of Chic's 'Lost in Music' is quite poor and one of the Fall's more amusing cover-versions - the Barry Adamson version with several Bad Seeds works for me more.

'The Infotainment Scan' saw the Fall take the Cog Sinister imprint from Fontana to Permanent and was the beginning of their lower profile in the mid to late 1990s. I hope the reissue programme continues with 'Middle Class Revolt', 'Cerebral Caustic' & 'the Light User Syndrome' as they seem ripe for rediscovery. The (middle)mass of Fall-product in the late 90s was quite confounding, quadruple live albums and all that...

The other cover 'I'm Going to Spain' is charming stuff that holds its own with the Fall's more sensitive moments, e.g. 'Edinburgh Man', 'Bill is Dead', 'Disney's Dream Debased', 'Time Enough at Last'. MES was rumoured to be quite taken with Ibiza dance-music at the time, and there's an electronic-rave feel to a lot here - songs like 'A Past Gone Mad', 'Service', 'It's a Curse' & 'Light/Fireworks' (a relative of the D*O*S*E-collaboration 'Plug Myself In') the kind of songs that New Order should have made on the stinker 'Republic' around the same time. The old krautybeefheartydroneyrockabilly-Fall are here too, with the great 'Paranoid Man in Cheap Sh*t Room' (title altered from an episode of 'The Twilight Zone' to include 'Sh*t') and 'The League of Bald-Headed Men', which Hanley, who was quite bald at the time, co-wrote!

The bonus-disc makes this an obligatory purchase, replete with alternative/session versions, some of which are familiar from the epic 'Peel Sessions' box-set. There are hints of 'Middle Class Revolt' with versions of '15 Ways' and 'War', as well as that storming version(s) of 'Strychnine' (also covered by the Cramps on their debut 'Songs the Lord Taught Us'). Anyway, another Fall album to have - probably say that of every Fall-album! The wonderful and fantastic reissue programme moves on...

Classic Reissue
Is there such thing as a bad Fall album? This is another solid slice of satisfyingly nutricious music, Mark E style. So much better than the stuff that today's new guitar bands push out.

I've seen this album compared to Franz Ferdinand's debut. If you like FF, then certainly you'll like this, but I don't find them at all similar, it's simply that guitar band fans can't fail to like The Fall.

Disc 2 is also well worthwhile, but there's only so much Sister Sledge anyone can take on one disc, Mark.