748. The Fall - The Infotainment Scan (1993)

Track Listing

1. Ladybird (Green Grass)
2. Lost In Music
3. Glam-Racket
4. I'm Going To Spain
5. It's A Curse
6. Paranoia Man In Cheap Sh*t Room
7. Service
8. The League Of Bald-Headed Men
9. A Past Gone Mad
10. Light/Fireworks
11. Why Are People Grudgeful?
12. League Moon Monkey Mix

Review

Gotta love The Fall, Mark E. Smith has a supremely distinctive singing (?) style, that little question mark is there because it is somewhere between singing and talking, but it is always Mark E. Smith, couldn't mistake it for anything else.

Unfortunately, I wouldn't really say that this album represents The Fall in their prime, that was during the Live At The Witch Trials phase, not here. Still, there are plenty of things to like or love here, the Lost in Music cover is just one of them, but only that is worth the whole album.

In fact the best tracks of the album are the covers, this means that the Fall have lost something, both lyrically and musically, although it is still a great album. Still, really listen to it for the covers and the rest might just grow on you.

Track Highlights

1. Lost In Music
2. Why are People Grudgeful?
3. I'm Going to Spain
4. Glam-Racket

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The album features covers of the Sister Sledge disco track "Lost in Music" and of Steve Bent's "I'm Going to Spain", an obscure song which Bent performed on the British talent show New Faces in 1974; the track was subsequently included on a compilation entitled The World's Worst Record (1978) put together by disc jockey Kenny Everett . The CD edition of The Infotainment Scan also includes "Why Are People Grudgeful?", the only track to be released as a single. It is based on two reggae songs: People Grudgeful by Joe Gibbs and People Funny Boy by Lee "Scratch" Perry.

Of the original compositions on The Infotainment Scan, "Glam-Racket" drew much attention for its alleged criticism of Britpop band Suede, with the lyric "you are entrenched in suede". At the time, Suede were regarded as a 'nouveau glam rock' band. "The League of Bald-Headed Men", meanwhile — identified variously as a "jokey conspiracy theory" and a "diatribe against gerontocracy" — appears to borrow its riff from Led Zeppelin's "Misty Mountain Hop", despite claims by Fall front man Mark E. Smith that he had never heard the band's music. A remix of "...Bald-Headed Men", retitled "League Moon Monkey Mix", is also included on the CD edition.

Lost In Music: