The Fall Album: “Are You Are Missing Winner [Bonus Tracks]”

Easily one of the greatest bands in music history, The Fall have managed to beat all odds and release one of their most relevant and inspiring albums to date, after more than 30 releases. This record owes more to Witch Trials or Grotesque than to any of the 80's or 90's Fall (which was also great, for the most part) but it has an amazingly crafted sound, with the vocals blaringly up front, and a super saturated mix on the music, giving it an urgency and momentum that keeps you moving.This is a great record.

Reminiscent of Velvet Underground or The Stooges along with some old-school brit pop, and even a Motown cover for kicks! After 20 years of going strong, The Fall have released one of their best albums, in my opinion. Certainly my favorite album of 2001. Just goes to prove that no matter how many "duds" you release over a couple decades, you're bound to get a "winner" in there somewhere. (hee hee, a little joke). The great thing is that even the very worst Fall albums are 1000 times better than most of the garbage you hear on the radio! So don't waste any more time with the all the clony phonys, The Fall are the REAL DEAL, mate!

You can't have too many Fall albums, but as they keep coming at you at such a phenomenal rate it is impossible for all but the most committed collector to keep up. Of course, the Fall have kept up a prolific rate since 1978. Line-ups seem to change daily but Mark E Smith remains always at the helm ("If it's me and your granny on bongos, it's The Fall"). 

This curiously misspelled album title dates from 2001 and mixes Smith's errant poetry and music with a handful of covers: from Gene Vincent, Iggy Pop and the slightly more obscure R Dean Taylor, a Motown writer and singer from Canada, who, perversely, The Fall have covered before (There's A Ghost In My House) to Leadbelly's Bourgeois Blues (renamed, and wrongly attributed to Robert Johnson), a song he recorded for the US Library of Congress archives in 1938 telling how he and his wife visited Washington DC in June 1937 and were turned away from hotels and restaurants because they were black. 

Sometimes the cuts and splices are as intrusive as a Jean-Luc Godard film, and probably as deliberate, and as ever, the result is an addictive and idiosyncratic assault on the senses. Is he having a laugh, though?

I cannot fathom how people can call this the worst Fall album. That makes absolutely no sense at all. In all fairness, The Fall means many different things to many (not enough) people. Some people think "Extricate" or "Infotainment Scan" are in the Fall's top ranks. I completely disagree. Granted there has never been a Fall album that doesn't have great tracks on it, but to me the 90's were the Fall at their weakest (lots of great tracks, but no great entire albums...and there is not a dull moment on this or any of the bonus tracks).

This album marks their return to dirty rock n' roll after a decade of over-produced, over-polished, too poppy for my Fall taste, to their early r'n'r glory. If you think of their 90's material as "Live at the Witch Trials" this is most certainly "Dragnet" (a favorite of mine).

Fall fans complaining about the music being confrontational? Give me a f'n break! Do you not understand their sense of humor? The Fall have always been one of the best r'n'r groups in history, to me, and "Are You Missing Winner" is a redemption, a sweet/evil salvation after the spotty 90's output. This album was the first in ages to return the full evil grin (Joker Hysterical Face) invoking zippy greatness not fully seen in far too long.

I see this as a return to the simplistic core of the Fall after too much time spent over-reaching and semi-pandering to the expectations of a larger audience, the best start to finish album since "This Nations Saving Grace." The Fall can never be massively popular, thankfully. This album helps trim the fat of the spineless fan-base.

Keep r'n'r dangerous, if the writer thinks too much all the danger and fire are gone. This is a gloriously noisy zippy mess, in all the best ways. Do you have a problem with challenging music, and therefore do you really like the Fall?

Hell, I even like it more than "The Real New Fall LP."