The Fall Cup: Last 16, Ties 3-4
Tie 3: Blindness v Leave The Capitol
Steve: It has been pointed out on the Fall Online Forum that LTC won a similar competition around 15 years ago, and, according to one member, 'has been widely regarded as the best Fall track ever.' Be that as it may, my personal view is that, despite its obvious strengths, Capitol is not even the best song on Slates (I'd certainly put 'Prole Art Threat' above it, and possibly 'Slates, Slags, Etc.' as well). I'm still going for Blindness, based on the Peel/Palais versions.
Eric: I've said it before, and I'll say it again: if asked to give a curious newbie just a single song to help them understand what the Fall were like, I'd pick "Leave The Capitol," as the perfectly emblematic and representational example of all the elements that make The Fall so weird and wonderful (and occasionally frightening), boiled down into one dense dose of greatness. "Blindness" is a spectacular, and towering, latter-day anomaly, not really sounding like anything else of its catalog era, rubbery enough to be adapted in various versions with various lyrical approaches, powerful enough to make one not only want to go "walk down the street," but to strut while doing it. If it goes, I'll be sorry to see it on its way, but it will have fallen to a truly worthy, truly epic, truly seminal artifact from the collection.
bzfgt: A good version of Blindness does more for me than LTC does. I can see the arguments either way here.
Richard: It is right and proper that the behemoth that is Blindness got this far, but it is also right and proper that it falls to Capitol, which contains pretty much every element that makes the early 80s my favourite Fall period.
Lewis: I'm probably going to appear like the biggest hypocrite. In most if not all rounds I have praised and backed Blindness, the one that bought me back to The Fall. And still I praise it, and despite a couple of iffy versions, I always will. Capitol I was quite harsh with on one or two occasions, but last round I was thrilled with the apparent laid back style, jauntily skipping along, but with a cleverly disguised viciousness and anger from MES. Blindness has less sublety than that, it hits like a sledgehammer to get it' message across and I do like Fall subleties. For this reason, it's got to be the Capitol over Prestwick (in Cumbria).
Result: Blindness 2 - Leave The Capitol 3
Tie 4: How I Wrote 'Elastic Man' v Winter
Steve: A last 16 finish for Elastic Man feels about right to me. The majestic minimalism of Winter clearly deserves its quarter-final place to these ears.
Eric: As with "New Puritan" in an earlier tie from this round, I'm not super keen on "Elastic Man," and have not contributed much to its advancement to this deep point in the Cup. I will note, though, that this review process has at least made me like it a bit more, moving it up into the lower/middle tier of Fall songs that don't actively annoy me, but also don't move me in any meaningful way. So "Winter" is a super-easy choice for me, as the sole survivor of the Spacious Epic idiom in the catalog. The best of those types of songs (and "Winter" is one) are among my favorite Fall fare ever. I'm honestly surprised by how few of them have made it to this point in the process.
bzfgt: Whatever I said about Winter last time is probably what needs to be said. Perhaps their greatest song. Incredible how much they do with such a dumb bass riff.
Richard: This is effectively a coin-toss, but, if The Fall's genius is that they feel like a code you can't crack, but which you feel you might next time, the mythomathematics at the back end of Winter give it an inscrutable victory.
Lewis: This is another one that's going to upset/please 51% of Fall fans. I'm really struggling, both are top notch (I guess 15 of the last 16 are too), it's going to be a tenuous excuse for a decision. And so, having joined Fall fandom proper in 1986, there was much backtracking to do. But I had heard earlier songs from the Peel show, occasional TV coverage, freebies with music mags, those sort of things. So it would appear that certain tracks were better known to me already through media such as that, and I suspect single releases would have got most airplay. So Kicker, Man Whose Head, Look Know, Rowche, Wired, along with Peel Session #3 where I never forgot NFIH or Puritan. How I Wrote Elastic Man was another one of those I remembered, Winter wasn't. Now of course I'm completely familiar with both, but that initial earworm plus the catchiness of the song has stuck and so Elastic Man gets the nod over the mad kid.
Result: How I Wrote 'Elastic Man' 1 - Winter 4
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