"That's Not The Fall" part 1

This rather random musical excursion was unwittingly inspired by my good friend 'Fulham Bob'. Like me, Bob has been a member of Scopitones, The Wedding Present fan forum, for many years. One little diversion a few of us occasionally partake in is a Spotify playlist exchange. We choose a theme around which we all compile a 12-song playlist, and then review each other's suggestions. All good, clean and harmless fun (except that I am regularly castigated for having the temerity to choose prog and psych tracks, but that's another story...)

Anyway, the most recent theme was 'family' and one of Bob's selections was 'Mothers' by The John-Paul Sartre Experience. JPSE were a New Zealand band active in the late 80s / early 90s on the Flying Nun label, on which In A Hole was first released. (They changed their name to 'JPS Experience' after a lawsuit by the estate of Jean-Paul Sartre.) 'Mothers' is a fine tune, one that Bob was likely exposed to - like me - via The Wedding Present's excellent 1991 cover of the song.

Being reminded of how good a track 'Mothers' is, I decided I should revisit JPSE's material to see if they'd produced anything else of that quality. And what should I find but a track called 'Crap Rap'.

It's a decent enough bit of twitchy post-punk-funk that bears no resemblance whatsoever to the Fall track of (nearly) the same name. But it got me thinking...

I'm sure you can where this is heading. Basically, I've been having a poke around Spotify looking for songs that share their title with a Fall track. Obviously, I'm unlikely to find another 'Hexen Definitive', 'Jawbone and the Air-Rifle' or 'Last Commands Of Xyralothep Via M.E.S.' However, some of the group's less Fall-like titles produced multiple, often interesting results.

Assume

I was quite surprised by just how many songs called 'Assume' there were on Spotify - there's dozens of the buggers. Several, oddly, were French-language hip-hop, the one by Sinik being the best example to these uneducated ears. (I should point out early on that my knowledge of the various rap/hip-hop sub-genres is distinctly limited, so apologies to anyone better informed for my inevitable faux pas and misunderstandings.) There's also Linkin Park-style nu-metal-rap crossover (Sylar), trip-hoppy coffee shop pop (Cailin Russo), wonky techno (Aurelia Router) and nicely woozy downbeat hip-hop (Kye Ventrice). 

My second favourite was this piece of dreamy shoegaze by Berlin's No Romance. Although it's not, in general, my kind of thing, I enjoyed this piece of sassy, soulful jazz from Flounder Warehouse the most:

Dice Man

A much less fruitful search, one that only yielded three results (and that was only if I allowed inclusion of the definite article). And when I looked more closely, one of these didn't even count, being a cover of the Fall track. Terry Edwards has recorded several jazz-ska Fall covers and, even though it doesn't fit the criteria, his take on 'Dice Man' is worth including here.

As for the other two, Manchester's Ivan Campo (named after the Spanish footballer) released their 'Dice Man' in 2011. It's inoffensive, but a little bland/earnest-indie for me. Far more exciting is this, from Yin vs Yang, an artist about whom I have not been able to discover anything. It's hard to pin down, but there are elements of hip-hop, big beat, jazz and dubstep in there. 

Frightened

This turned up much less than expected. New Model Army's 'Frightened' is rather dull and predictable, but it at least has a bit of energy, unlike Paul Weller's turgid slice of Beatles-homage Dad-rock. 

Iceland

Unsurprisingly, songs with this title tend towards the ethereal and floaty end of things; j. views and Fabrizio Paterlini being prime examples. There's also a hip-hop track (Chris Travis) and growly Nickelback-esque acoustic blues-rock (Deep Black Sea). Mary Chapin Carpenter's 'Iceland' is beautifully understated and delicate:

Daniel Lanois I know little about other than the fact he's produced albums for many multi-million selling artists that I don't in general much care for. That said, his 'Iceland' (despite the rather silly video) is intriguing and rather lovely.

Blindness

There are several of these, even one by Justin Timberlake. There's some 'chillout/lounge' (Niv Lonay), hip-hop (Bobby Blade) and sparse techno (Mitch de Klein). The pick of a rather uninspiring bunch is probably Angel Ruediger's fragile piece:

Last Orders

Very different flavour to the songs that this title turned up, many of them inevitably being folky/Irish/boozy  concoctions such as The Logues, The Rumjacks and Jack McNeill & Charlie Heys. There's also straightforward indie-rock (Silverbacks), generic angsty-rock (Nothing But Thieves), light jazz (The Nova Revolution), a gentle piano instrumental (Ben Adams) and pub-punk-rock (Cock Sparrer).

I don't know anything about Jon Allen, but his 'Last Orders' is a beauty:

Saint Etienne and Richard Hawley (neither of whom I've ever really seen the appeal of) have also recorded songs called 'Last Orders'. My favourite, however, is this piece of jazzy prog:

One Day

Perhaps unsurprisingly, a highly popular title, with a couple of well-known artists in there. The Verve are as ploddingly tedious as usual; Paolo Nutini (one of my wife's favourites, which tells you all you need to know about the slenderness of our musical Venn diagram intersection) is similarly dull. Most of the others are unremarkable hip hop (this is one of the better examples) or glossy teen angst ballads.

One stood out from the rest by some considerable distance. I was vaguely familiar with Sharon Van Etten's name, as some folk on the Fall Online Forum raved about her a couple of years ago. I was a bit dismissive at the time, but on the strength of this song I shall have to give her another go. Her 'One Day' is simplicity itself, but there's something really affecting about its heart-on-sleeve lack of pretension. The vocal performance - especially on the live in the studio version below - is a joy, somehow simultaneously sweet and raw.

Oxymoron

I expected to find only a handful of these, so I was a little startled by the sheer volume of Oxymorons. Quite a bit of variety too: Polish hip hop, Spanish jazz-rap, metalcore (I'm reliably informed) and the terribly-named Love Junkies with what sounds like a blend of My Chemical Romance and The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Even Chumba-bloody-wumba make an appearance with some typical anarcho-sixth-form-poetry ('Heads to crack, eyes to black / bureaucrats will cover your tracks / here's how your dictatorships begin / fools obey without thinking'). (Fun fact: putting one word inside another - as in 'Chumba-bloody-wumba' - is technically called tmesis.)

I am quite partial to a spot of drum & bass every now and again, so I rather enjoyed T>I's sparse 'Oxymoron':

I am even more partial, however, to a spot of Krautrock, so Guru Guru's expansive, jazzy cosmic jam was right up my street. The ten-minute album version is incredible, but this performance, recorded for German TV, is even better:

Pledge

There were a fair few Pledges too. There's more metalcore, this time from Watch Out Stampede - something I might well have enjoyed if I'd been 13 and pissed off at the world in general rather than a middle-aged man tapping away at a music blog. It certainly appeals more than Misty Edward's insipid Christian rock ballad. ASCA's frantic orchestral pop-rock version sounds like it would be at home at Eurovision, although she's actually Japanese. There's also sleazy grunge-metal from Irish band Kerbdog, Minutio's stuttery Euro-trance and an epic six minutes of overwrought string-laden rock stylings from Japanese visual kei outfit (no, me neither) the GazettE. 

I really enjoyed the subtle, understated oscillations of Lost Star's 'Pledge', but whoever they are they don't seem to have much of an online profile; all I can offer is the Spotify link.

Mannequin Pussy have an even worse name than The Love Junkies, but there's a lot to admire about their 80 seconds of aggressive scuzzy punk-thrash.

Smile

Like 'Last Orders' and 'One Day', it was inevitable that there'd be lots of these, so let's skip rapidly past Lily Allen's faux-urban nonsense and Katy Perry's vapid, shiny pop, doff our caps respectfully at the cozy warmth of Nat King Cole (my Gran's favourite) before getting on to the more obscure stuff. 

Actually, before we do that, I should also mention The Supernaturals, whose supremely irritating 'Smile' is the very epitome of landfill-indie-Britpop (the very fact that the video linked to is tagged '100 Greatest Motivation Songs' tells you everything you need to know). In addition, Avril Lavigne has also recorded a 'Smile'. Now, I get a lot of stick for this, but I rather like several of Avril's songs (I don't describe them as a 'guilty pleasure' - I don't believe in the concept). However, this is a bit generic and far from her finest work; it's certainly no 'Sk8er Boi' or 'Here's To Never Growing Up'. 

Winston Surfshirt's name is rather more interesting than their day-glo soul-funk hip hop; Emutiver provide a rather unedifying 94 seconds of bog-standard house-techno; Jungle aim for soulful and uplifting but it's just another one of those shiny disco-indie-funk workouts that put me off listening to daytime 6Music.

Although it's not especially inspiring or original, I probably enjoyed the lazy, fuzzy meandering of the Daniel Rhodes Trio the best:

As 'Smile' was a bit of a washout, it feels appropriate to finish with this:

YouTube Playlist

Spotify Playlist

More random rooting about in the depths of Spotify soon. Stay safe everyone.

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