Your favourite track please.

Frightened was the first ever song I heard by the Fall so I'm voting for this. Plus it's very good.

The title track is actually more frightening than "Frightened".

I voted for Music Scene, one of the first entries in MES' long running lyrical broadsides against the phoniness, greed, stupidity of the music business. Like MES, I'm suspicious of the music biz. Unlike MES, I haven't spent my entire adult live in a business I purport to despise. A great track nonetheless.

How often do you play this album? I find it tends not to stray from the shelf very often...

Yeah, but look at the dust under CC!

Top 3 for me!

And the other 2 are?

One of my all time favourite albums, by anyone- and still completely unique in sound... that keyboard, that scratchy guitar, those drums. Wotta band.

I love the young MES voice too- I seem to remember some reviewer in Sounds describing him as sounding like a cross between Howard Devoto and Eddie Waring-

"it's an up and undahhh!"

Hex & Grotesque.

Pretty common selections, I think :D

Industrial Estate for me. Love how it ends, then threatens to start back up again. Always makes me think that the song encapsulates a typical day of drudgery, and just as you think it's over (brief period of silence / sleep) it all starts up again.

Would’ve voted for ‘Frightened’ (it is actually my favourite) but everyone else seems to have voted for it…so have voted for ‘Two Steps Back’ instead. I just love the keyboard and guitar on this track (as well as the bass, drums and vocals…) and can’t understand why it’s not considered an all time Fall classic.

Can’t quite see why ‘Industrial Estate’ is held in such high esteem myself, it’s OK but hardly deserves it’s place as runner-up to ‘Frightened’…

Or its place on 50,000 Fall Fans, I would argue.

I don't understand complaints about this album. Show me a better album from that year in any 'rock' genre. Early 80s/late 70s were a rich period music wise by my count, and this takes the cake. A startling debut.

Surprised how poorly Music Scene is doing.

Yes, it's basically a shout, a rant, with obvious "punk" lyrics.

I went with "Rebellious Jukebox" - first Fall song I ever heard. If I was as old now as when I first heard it, I wouldn't have been born yet the first time I heard it. :blink:

I'm still trying to work this out and my brain cells are rapidly diminishing doing so...

I do ike "Frightened", but no way is it the best track on this album.. Rebellious Jukebox.. "I'm searching for the now.." one of MES' best lyrics

Rebellious Jukebox :wub:

Today I remembered an interesting tidbit re this record:

Early 80s, before MTV and when 'new wave' music video programs were rarely on TV, there was a Toronto show called New Music (on the indie City TV) that would typically interview bands, show concert footage, and run new videos. Quite cool and cultish in its day.

The theme for several years was 'Various Times' sans vocals!

Crap Rap 2/Like to Blow!!!

Come on, those are great drums, and a fantastic almost-certainly one-note-only keyboard part throughout.

I think it's fair to say it's better than most of the second half of the album at very least.

It just has to be the creeping, ominous opener Frightened ("someone's always on my tracks").

The next choices would be No Xmas for John Quays and Futures and Pasts.

My first Fall LP was Dragnet in early 1980. Since then I bought all successional regular albums shortly after their release. LATWT only followed in 1986. If I heard it prior to that, maybe I would like it even more. :unsure:

I'm clearly in a small minority here, but LATWT is my fav Fall album. Everytime I listen to it, it sounds fresh. Part of this is probably MES's voice sounding clear and un-slurred. I also love the organ, bass and just every damn thing about it. The way the band keep playing on and on during 'Music Scene' when the producer (?) is trying to get them to stop every 20 seconds or so is magnificent. Plenty of albums have come close to the same genius level, but have never quite topped it.

I admit to being a bit condescending in a way here, seeing as I rave over other Fall albums much more than this one, but Rab is right, objectively. Generally speaking the first LP by any outfit is the best. The title track on LATWT is the Fall, the beginning and the end, really. If you ever played only one Fall track, that should be it. Like the title sequence from 2001, or the Mona Lisa painting. The first bike you ever rode, the kiss you had when you were 15. The unmatchable stuff. We can argue all day about what follows, but LATWT is, at first, as good as it gets. Improved on, sure, but never the same. The lyrics of that track, reapproach them today. As good as any blues song, ever....

and LATWT has the best DRUMS sound of any album I've ever heard.....

I tend not to play Fall albums anymore, I just listen to the 400 or so live recordings I have, no time for anything else.
That notwithstanding, LATWT is one I would play more often than most.

Scanario: You get bailed up for yr fave 5 or 10 live boots? Even from this year? Do tell, I'll go a-hunting.....

I agree.

A Lot of great tunes here. 'Rebellious Jukebox' is one of the tunes, that got me into The Fall. 'Frightened' is fantastic. 'Futures And Pasts' on the Peel Sessions Box is amazing...

But my personal favourite on here is 'Two Steps Back'. Simple, relaxed tune. "Everybody likes me. They think, i'm crazy...". Great!!!

Frightened.

Really surprised to see frightened so far ahead of Rebellious Jukebox.

The drum sound is indeed very good, but for some reason this is the only Fall LP where I don't think the actual drum playing gels with a lot of the songs/the rest of the band. I haven't listened to it ten times yet, though, so may very well change my weak mind about that.

I'm sure it would've blown me away if I'd heard it at the time of release but from my late vantage point I'd say it's an incredible debut that I like considerably less than almost everything that followed.

Various Times is amazing, easily my favourite on the expanded edition. I voted for Rebellious Jukebox after having heard the album twice, but I can imagine getting a bit tired of that one after twenty or so listens, which often happens with instant favorites. Today I'd go for No Xmas or Two Steps Back. If only the Hanley bros could've been there on Music Scene...

Jukebox

Mother-Sister followed closely by the title track.
Predictably the ones with the fewest votes! :lol:

:blink: The drums are WAAAY too high in the mix, plus Mr. Burns was indeed showing off.

Best track? John Quays, of course, but if i was younger i'd incline towards Frightened.

A thought: What if Frightened had been a Peel Session track? :o

1. Frightened
2. Rebellious Jukebox
3. Music Scene

No Xmas For John Quays, :unsure: though I really prefer the version on the Peel Sessions # whatever, Music Scene follows very closely. :P

Long time since I voted, but it can only have been Frightened for me despite virtually everything else on there being a gem: it's just the greatest song of all time on the greatest LP of all time. I still recall hearing Peel play it for the first time, I think it was the first thing he played off the album, and I was just blown away then and ever since.

I voted 'Underground Medicin'... I'm surprised it doesn't have more votes. It is one of the best MES vocals (& lyrics) ever, IMO...