When I was 14 years old, I was one of those people who, like the oft-repeated cliche, would listen to John Peel in bed most weekday evenings (I would be in bed, I mean – he was presumably in a radio studio). It was only a matter of time before I was exposed to The Fall, famously Peel’s favourite band, who have doggedly been led by Mark E. Smith, with his trademark stream of consciousness spoken word delivery for nearly 40 years.
1984 saw the band make their eighth album, and the second with guitarist Brix Smith, who had joined the band the previous year and brought a pop sensibility to The Fall’s uncompromising sound. This addition did not necessarily go down well with all Fall fans but for me, the mid to late 80s Brix years are definitely The Fall’s golden period, with the classic line up of the band also including Karl Burns (drums), Stephen Hanley (bass), Paul Hanley (also drums!) and Craig Scanlon (guitar).
The Wonderful and Frightening World… followed hot on the heels of two really commercial (for them!) singles, ‘Oh! Brother’ and ‘C.R.E.E.P.’ Having heard these two pop-tastic singles, I was starting to get hooked, and when I saw The Wonderful and Frightening World… in Birmingham’s (now sadly long-gone) Cyclops Records for £4.40, I had to have it. After a never-ending bus ride home, I practically danced into my bedroom and excitedly put the needle onto Side One.
What I wasn’t expecting was a man who sounded like hippy Neil from then-popular TV show ‘The Young Ones’ talking over a chanted background of ‘Lay, lay, lay, lay…’. ‘Armageddon…’ intoned ‘Neil’, ‘…This beautiful tree…’ At this point, I honestly thought that I had a mis-pressing on my hands, this surely couldn’t be The Fall? As this went through my mind, though, the hippyisms dissolved and The Fall came clattering in to complete the rest of ‘Lay Of The Land’ in their trademark no-nonsense manner. ‘2 by 4’ came next…goodness, no sign of light yet, another all-out anti-pop bludgeoning for the ears. ‘Gonna hit him on the head, with a 2 by 4’ came the vocal that described quite accurately the way I was feeling on that first listen.
‘Hmmm, is anything like ‘Oh! Brother’ or ‘C.R.E.E.P’ on the horizon?’ I wondered to myself. Well…no. Next up was ‘Copped It’, featuring the wonderful (and frightening) Gavin Friday from Virgin Prunes, who adds a deranged backing vocal to Mark E. Smith’s barking lead. If anything, the songs were getting less accessible as the album progressed. Friday is described in Mark E. Smith’s sleeve notes as ‘a friendly visitor’, rather than the provider of backing vocals.
And all this before track four, and Side One’s closer ‘Elves’, which is a close cousin of The Stooges‘ ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’, while simultaneously making that song sound like Abba in comparison.
The main thought going through my mind by this stage was ‘I wonder if I could get my money back from Cyclops’, but I turned the record over, sadly noting the lack of both ‘Oh! Brother’ and ‘C.R.E.E.P.’ from the album’s track list.
Side Two began with ‘Slang King’ and with it a definite lightening in the mood; the nearest song I had heard to my beloved ‘C.R.E.E.P.’ so far. ‘Bug Day’ then throws a curve ball, easily the gentlest song on the album, with quite an ambient sound to it with Smith’s (Mark E., that is) vocals sitting atop a soothingly repetitive bass line and various found sounds.
‘Stephen Song’ was instantly my favourite track on the album, with more unhinged backing vocals from Friday, as well as Brix Smith and a totally addictive hook running all the way through it. ‘Craigness’ and the brilliant ‘Disney’s Dream Debased’ carry the relatively lighter, more tuneful tone through the remainder of Side Two.
‘Well, maybe it isn’t too bad’, I thought, as the needle returned at the end of the second half. I stuck with it and gradually it took hold in my brain – those amazing Stephen Hanley bass lines, those Brix Smith guitar parts and backing vocals, the amazing Mr Friday and of course, at the front of it all, Mark E. Smith. I bought the two ‘missing’ singles and my Fall collection was beginning to take shape.
Little did I know that I would go on to buy what seems like another hundred Fall albums over the next few decades. If I had had Spotify and not invested a good week and a half of my 14 year old’s income on this record, I probably wouldn’t have made it to the end of track two. Just goes to show, eh?
The album cover is a complete lesson in Fall-ness; like all the Fall records from this period, it features superb artwork by Claus Castenskiold and various annotations from Mark E. Smith – for instance, there is a description / comment under each song title, such as the one under ‘2 by 4’ that reads ‘Into our midst came fiend…into our midst came friend. Stomachs gnawed as track of fame debuted on KGB pantomime TV show one Friday. Boh’. Well, quite.
Incidentally, when a CD version of the album appeared for the first time in 1988, it included ‘C.R.E.E.P.’ and ‘Oh! Brother’ as well as their attendant B-sides, a lot of them in the middle between ‘Side One’ and ‘Side Two’, thus making for a very different listening experience. It is funny to think that by now, more people are probably used to that being the actual album track listing, than the original nine-track vinyl release. The CD also added the wonderful Call For Escape Route E.P. which came just after the album’s release, and included the priceless ‘No Bulbs’, which could very well be the best thing that The Fall have ever recorded (so far!).
1984 was a very good year for The Fall and if you have never heard this album, I urge you to give it fourteen listens and then decide whether you like it or not, just like my 14-year old self.
