Album 1000
The Fall - Grotesque (After the Gramme)
Year: 1980
Some albums should be locked up in museums and studied as geniune social commentary, this is one of them. This album is a gateway to the disturbing genius that is Mark E. Smith. I've always found it hard to listen to the Fall very often, but when I can it's such an amazing experience. In this album Smith acts as the unheard spokesman of a generation under Th*tch*rit* Britain, sure she's only just been in power a year or so, but she's doing her bit to ruin blighty already. For one of the most accessible Fall albums it's not at all accessible, it's very uncomfortable, even on the tenth listen. Smiths' anger in songs like Pay Your Rates is so incredibly genuine that it sends chills down your spine. The instruments all sound so wrong, yet so right. This is the brilliance of the Fall, you'll never get what you came for, even if you've heard it all 100 times before. Don't just listen to this album once, try listening to it every day for a week, I
fucking dare you. I don't think I could do it, but I'm not a very stable person.
3 Choice Tracks: Pay Your Rates, New Face In Hell, In The Park