The Fall In Fives

  A recent post I made about which Fall live LPs  were worth acquiring  generated quite a lot of interest, so I thought I'd do something similar for the bewildering array of compilation albums. I did do this in quite some detail in  You Must Get Them All  a while back, and you can find those posts here: Part 1: 1981-1998 Part 2: 1999-2004 Part 3: 2006-present These three posts are pretty detailed, however, and I realise that not everyone will have the time and/or inclination to wade through all of them.  This is an abridged guide, using the assessment system that I outlined in Part 1 above. A: Worthwhile purchase, even for those who just have a few Fall albums B: Contains enough interesting material to make it worth a few quid to the more than casual Fall fan; or serves as a useful introduction to the inexperienced C: A few aspects of interest, but only for the really committed who have all of the ‘proper’ stuff already D: Only of interest to the really hardcore completist E:

A question that pops up frequently on social media (especially the two main Facebook groups, The Mighty Fall and  It's Not Repetition, It's Discipline ) is 'I've seen a copy of The Fall Live At xxxx on sale for £x - is it worth getting?' Sometimes this is a very easy question to answer; on other occasions it's a bit tricky. This is because their quality - in terms of performance, sound quality and packaging - varies hugely. Another factor to consider is how you define 'worth getting'. John Peel was quite clear on the matter: Given John's 'Live in Nova Scotia' comment, you could argue that by the Peel Principle the answer is always 'yes'. However, whilst I am certainly an advocate of this approach when applied to the studio albums (I did, after call, my blog You Must Get Them All , which will also be the title of my forthcoming book) it's difficult to apply it to all of the 70+ Fall live albums. There are some, for example  Mark&

  W is for... Terry Waite As the Archbishop of Canterbury's special envoy, Waite negotiated the release of hostages in Iran, Libya and the Lebanon in the early 80s. In 1987 he was taken captive by the Islamic Jihad Organization and held as a hostage for four years. Brix saw The Fall track ' Terry Waite Sez ' - recorded four months before Waite' kidnapping  -  as an example of Smith’s ‘pre-cog’ abilities:  ‘We record the song. He ends up getting kidnapped. The song is released. Then his family call Beggars Banquet record company. They believe there might be clues in the lyrics as to where he’s being held.’  Smith claimed on more than one occasion that the song was simply about a bloke he met down the pub. Bec Walker A 17-year-old aspiring singer who was doing work experience at Gracieland Studios whilst the group were recording Fall Heads Roll , she wrote the lyrics for ‘ Breaking The Rules ’. Mark Aerial Waller British artist whose short film Glow Boys  featured MES pl