The Fall Cup: Introduction / Index


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Welcome to this trawl through / evaluation of the back catalogue of one of the most special and unusual groups of the last 40-odd years. Let's get a few things out of the way up front, shall we...

Firstly: Ranking or scoring pieces of music is, of course, ultimately a reductive and pointless pursuit; the notion that there's a 'best' Fall song is ridiculous, especially given the expansive and diverse range of material that the group released over 40ish years. But that doesn't mean that we can't have a lot of (hopefully) thought-provoking fun attempting this ludicrous task.

Secondly: This is (kind of) in response to a recent Twitter poll organised by Iain Crawford (@icrawford17) which resulted in a narrow victory for 'The Classical'. Iain specialises in running polls for a variety of different artists and isn't (or at least wasn't) a committed Fall fan. He did an absolutely sterling job though, especially given the multitudinous complexities of the group's back catalogue. An 'open' poll like that certainly has its merits, particularly in the large number of votes (722 in the final) that it attracts. However (and I know I'm in danger of sounding horribly elitist here), you couldn't help feeling that some people didn't always really know exactly what they were voting for. Tracks like 'Live at the Witch Trials' and 'Perverted by Language', for example, consistently gained substantial support despite the fact that the former is a 50-second sonic doodle and the latter was a never-properly-finished work in progress that was only ever released as a 90 second live snippet. 

We thought it might be interesting and worthwhile to take an alternative approach - not a better one, just a different one - to evaluating The Fall's work. This competition is going to be scored by a panel made up of five members of the Fall Online Forum.

The Panel

1. Steve (i.e. me, who's writing all of this up) - author of You Must Get Them All

2. Eric (aka 'Deus Erac' on the forum) - who has written about The Fall as well as a huge variety of other things on his blog for many years).

3. Richard (aka 'gappy tooth') - music promoter, writer and long-standing member of the Fall fan community

4. Lewis (aka 'Rainmaster') - a veteran of the Fall Online Forum, and its second most prolific poster 

5. bzfgt - architect of the wondrous resource that is The Annotated Fall


The Songs

The original Fall in Fives blog considered 525 songs. This has been reduced to 480 by:

  • combining, where, appropriate, some tracks that had seperate entries on the blog (e.g. 'Crap Rap 2 / Time to Blow' and 'Octo Realm / Ketamine Sun') 
  • omitting some songs that were never properly released (e.g. 'Reece Stick') were simply alternative versions (e.g. '(We Wish You) A Protein Christmas') or later morphed into something else (e.g. 'Tunnel')

The Format

Group Stage 1

32 groups of 15 songs (the groups were selected using an online random list generator). The panel will award points 'Eurovision' style, i.e. 12 / 10 / 8 / 7 / 6 / 5 / 4 / 3 / 2 / 1. The top 6 from each group will go through to round 2.

Group Stage 2

16 groups of 12 songs. The panel will award points from 1-12 to the tracks. However, they can redistribute the points a little, e.g. by awarding their favourite 15 points and giving three songs zero - basically they have 78 points in total to give out. (Two limitations: they can give no more than 20 points to one song, and they must award points to at least 8 songs in the group.) The top 4 from each group go through.

Last 64 / 32 / 16 / Quarter Finals

These will be done on a straight knock-out basis

Last 4

Rather than a straight knock-out, the last 4 will go into a round robin competition (imagine the group stage of the World Cup). Each tie will be scored as either a 4-0 or 3-1 win, or a 2-2 draw. The song with the greatest total will win (tie-breaks as necessary).



Index of posts:

Stage 1
Groups 1-2 (an early exit for Bill Is Dead)
Groups 3-4 (High Tension Line goes out; Rowche Rumble just scrapes through)
Groups 5-6 (Ghost in My House falls at the first hurdle)
Groups 7-8 (Victoria and White Lightning suffer the same fate as Ghost)
Groups 9-10 (Mr Pharmacist is the high profile track that takes a tumble)
Groups 11-12 (We say goodbye to Hey! Luciani and Bournemouth Runner)
Groups 13-14 (Idiot Joy Showland fares surprisingly badly)
Groups 15-16 (Marquis Cha-Cha and Hit The North take an early bath)
Groups 17-18 (No qualification for John Quays - or U.S. 80s-90s)
Groups 19-20 (Group 19 was possibly the most divisive so far)
Groups 21-22 (Our first tie-break for 6th place)
Groups 23-24 (Nothing too shocking other than a surprising zero)
Groups 25-26 (Two tough groups with several notable casualties)
Groups 27-28 (Big gap between the top six and the rest in both groups)
Groups 29-30 (Lucifer Over Lancashire was the headline casualty)
Groups 31-32 (Chicago, Now! making it into second place, surprisingly)



Stage 2
Groups A-B (A tie-break in both rounds, and a couple of controversial exits)
Groups C-D (Amorator! tops its group; no big surprises otherwise)
Groups E-F (An early bath for Kicker Conspiracy!)
Groups G-H (Noel and Winter triumph; Guest Informant and Repetition don't)
Groups I-J (Hittite Man and Cyber Insekt are the surprise qualifiers)
Groups K-L (A big win for Dr Bucks' Letter)
Groups M-N (M was probably our most brutal group so far)
Groups O-P (Chicago, Now! is probably the most surprising last 64 qualifier)


Last 64
Ties 1-4 (Chicago, Now!, Living Too Late, Glam-Racket & Behind The Counter exit)
Ties 5-8 (Goodbye to Amorator!, Two Librans, New Face In Hell & Tempo House)
Ties 9-12 (End of the road for Joker Hysterical Face, Lay of the Land, Slates, Slags, Etc. and Free Range)
Ties 13-16 (Cyber Insekt, Chino, Hittite Man, Fit and Working Again go out; Winter is our first 5-0 winner)
Ties 17-20 (Impression of J. Temperance, Hexen Definitive/Strife Knot, Ladybird (Green Grass) & The Man Whose Head Expanded lose out)
Ties 21-24 (Alton Towers, Mister Rode, Middle Mass & Iceland bow out; Dr Bucks' Letter is our second 5-0 victor)
Ties 25-28 (A Past Gone Mad, Hurricane Edward, Paintwork & Paranoia Man reach the end of the road)
Ties 29-32 (Jerusalem, 4½ Inch, Hip Priest & Spectre vs. Rector go out)


Last 32


Last 16

Quarter Finals
1. New Puritan v Fiery Jack
2. Leave the Capitol v Winter
3. Mountain Energei v Dr Bucks' Letter
4. Last Commands Of Xyralothep Via M.E.S. v I Am Damo Suzuki

The Final

New Puritan
Winter
Dr Bucks' Letter
Last Commands Of Xyralothep Via M.E.S.










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