...in literature, and it means just analysing the words on the page. Applied musically, it would mean just the sounds on the record: everything else is peripheral. You don't need to have heard "Blood On The Tracks" to know how good "Love and Theft" is. You don't need to have heard "The Holy Bible" to know how shit the Manics' latter output is. You just need a pair of functioning ears.

Are you suggesting that records should only be reviewed by the artist's fans?

doesn't work for me either. I miss the range of stuff we used to get, (and the range of opinion from a greater number of writers).

I'm wondering how The Fall are culturally significant.

coming to terms with the fact that the length of the reviews is set before the reviewer even hears the album.

Not sure if I've heard anything by The Fall, but I think I trod in some once..

...is there anyone who buys every other Fall album on the strength of reviews?

My point being that fans get them all and there are plenty of people like me who have one or two Fall albums and didn't really get it.

I still love "Hit the North" though...

...I think you'd be forced to agree that in the course of their endless career the Fall have had no shortage of reviews written by people who love them. Every ten years or so they have one from somebody who thinks they're ear-ache. I think I wrote one myself back in the early 80s. They survived that. They'll survive this.

...but you can't actually listen to them.

Whilst I consider myself to be reasonably well rounded in terms of musical appreciation accross a wide variety of styles and genres. Every day, more and more, I realise that this only scratches the surface of what exists. That said, if someone stopped me in the street and aksed, i would not be able to name a single song or album by The Fall.

I certainly wouldn't consider them "culturally significant" but I'm very open to being proved wrong.

for the simple reason that for anyone other than the devoted they all sound the bloody same. I've got a few Fall albums and don't need any more. I could take a good guess as to what the new one sounds like without hearing it.

I don't think any artist in the history of music has dared to push the envelope as little as Mark E Smith.

Doesn't matter to me, but I would like the review section of the mag to make a bit more of an effort to actually review the record and spend a bit less time with what the reviewer feels about the band or a particular type of production (P.Gabriel).
I get the feeling that the mag is trying too hard to be different.

I read the review too, and thought what was the point in that.

And Simon Ford's comment "I don't think any artist in the history of music has dared to push the envelope as little as Mark E Smith." is pure comedy gold. Made me laugh out loud. Nice one.

but the day that The Word start reviewing albums on the basis that they are "deserved" will be the day I stop reading. And I for one wouldn't miss the reviews section if it were scrapped entirely.

"Fall" and "Word" for "Status Quo" and "Melody Maker", and immediately it's 1993 once more. Sort of.

...if anyone wants to write another review of the new Fall album they can do it here.

I also like Autechre, both got a right critical shoeing in the new edition of Word. Both bands have been around for a while, large global fanbase, Peel faves, generally critically acclaimed and recognised as hugely influential. Both have new records out which you'll love if you're a fan, but neither break any new ground and there is little to reccomend them to the uninitiated so I'm not surprised at the reviews. Its that 'best album since Scary Monsters' syndrome, when a band has been around 20yrs plus, unless they do something exceptionally good or bad, there isn't much for David Hepworth and co to write about.
But yes, send your reviews to 'My night....', I sent my Autechre review in and they printed it! Enormously exciting to occupy some column inches in The Word!

...but I thought the review was hilarious.

- again - but isn't The Fall's music, purely on its own terms, a bit Oh Dear? By this I mean do people ever hum their tunes at bus stops? Do certain songs of theirs have people digging their non-Fall-fan mates excitedly in the ribs, going "Wait till you hear this one"? Are certain riffs, melodic figures, rhythmic patterns or guitar tones often called "Fallesque" by reviewers, confident that their readers will know exactly what they mean? Thought not.

If you strip away their singer bellowing like a Stella-fuelled nutter on a night bus, try to disregard their 104 band members over the last 83 years (or whatever the current figure is), and forget for just one second their Ritual Canonisation by Pope John Peel I and All That That Obviously Implies, what then - in all honesty - are we left with?

Archie H. Puzzled.

I have no problem with the negative review, but the 'man shouting in the bus station' jibe is often trotted out by their detractors and is getting a bit tired.

Why we need a track on The Word CD, then we can make up our own minds. If that is not licencingly(!) possible then get the DJ to give it some welly on The Word Radio.

Wha? We don't have A Word Radio! Preposterous. I shall be speaking to my MP at once.

I have with these 2 pages of micro reviews is that looks like a sort of round "table review" between KM & DH with some sort of dialogue about the new releases between but really it's just short reviews by 2 people.

On the bright side it has generated more discussion, and presumably illuminated awareness, than a favourable review in the actual magazine would have done. I think he does it on purpose sometimes...

I've read the whole thread (thus far) and I think it's time you gave Mark E Smith his 10p back.

I'd much rather read a review by somebody impartial, or somebody who hates the band. The reviews I read by people who loved an album/band that I enjoyed tended to be of the Steven Wells variety, where he took - and demanded that you did too - a side and stuck to it.

That should have gone in the 'Most English Thing In The World' thread

I like bits of the Fall, lots of I've never heard and probably never will. Yet that review was pointless apart from a bit of smarmy humour. So, well done.

Weren't they on just before Fat Mattress at Bickershaw?

that was New Model Smarmy

...I love READING about people like The Fall in a magazine like Word. But - knowing what they sound like and will, frankly, always sound like - I have no interest whatsoever in hearing or buying any of their music. But I'm glad they're out there in the woprld, raising two fingers in perpetuity to Simon Cowell and the soulless soundtrack to the protracted death of the pop industry. Mark E might even outlive them all - I hope he does!

Am I right in believing most Word readers fall into this category? Happy and fascinated to periodically read about the maverick careers of The Fall et al, but not actually needing to spend our money or listening time in that direction? It's a bit like Anvil: we all LOVE their attitude, their staying power, their defiance of The Man but, bloody hell, who in their right mind would want to actually listen to their music? As people they have a lot to teach us; as writers of music, well...

And the Elephant In The Room here is Peel himself: we would all have fought for his right to airspace at the BBC and his broadcasting style was wonderful and unique but can I be alone in believing 90% of his shows were largely unlistenable piles of tosh? It's the IDEA of Peel we love - and the IDEA of the Fall... and the IDEA of Anvil...

Sade, on the other hand, is something I'd have no interest in reading about but I daresay if it was on in the background I wouldn't find it as annoying-ah as the Fall...

Having said all that, I do believe Heppo has come up with the single most defining line about MES as 'a man shouting at a bus station' (to paraphrase, without the new issue in front of me, whatever his more eloquently crafted actual line was).

if The Fall produced one album every 10 years and Sade made one every year the size of the reviews might have been slightly different.

but not in the Word, not anymore. It's become pointless, a waste of space and I suspect this is a deliberate attempt at sabotage prior to announcing that due to reader apathy they have decided to abolish the section altogether. As I said above, I'm not a Fall fan and that's irrelevant to this debate anyway, but the review of their album was beyond pointless - really David, don't you feel like you're wasting 3 minutes of your life tossing these things out? It's time to put the review section out to pasture, give the space over to something more interesting and worthwhile, something that you can actually be bothered to do properly.

...the CDs part of the review section. (But I might be wrong?)

I'd have to agree that, personally, the CD reviews are the last thing I look at, and usually just glance through. I always find the Books and DVD sections interesting, and I like the style of Jim Irvin's catch-all column on music DVDs.

That doesn't mean I advocate getting rid of CD reviews. It just adds my tuppence to the debate.

But, at the very least, I can understand that a magazine like Word HAS to have some kind of CD review capacity in order to tick a box with what remains of the record industry and what what remains of its advertising spend. For a few pages of the magazine which a number of the die-hards think less satisfying, for whatever reason (style, content, existence per se...), than the rest of the splendid and lovingly-crafted entity that the average Word is, I think we can all cope with it rumbling along... :-)

To any student of Mr Hepworth's opinions it is clear that most LPs produced since 1975, which are not the work of Lucinda Williams, are without merit. Enjoy the columns, articles and Podcast contributions, but Old Peculiar should be kept from reviewing any "new" music. And don't give it the old "M E Smith has churned out the same old, same old for the past 30 years". As we know, it's the same, but different.

His recent dismissive two-liner of the wonderful new Emma Pollock LP is further evidence for the prosecution.

Hats off to Mr Edward for kicking this debate off.

but apart from dancing to Mr Pharmacist as a student and seeing them once, in a fairly enjoyable experience, in the nineties I don't really care that much.
Smith's interviews were a must-read though back then and probably still now. When they have a new album out I'd like a little reminiscing about them and some humorous asides. I can guess - probably extremely accurately - what the album will sound like quite happily on my own.

NB Haven't read the new mag yet.

and enhance the CDs by briefly mentioning "other CDs are also available". Maybe, as suggested above, in the style of the DVD round-up.
Personally, I don't much like the current Divide & Rule section. The Fall review (who I'm not really bothered about) was neither one thing or the other. Too long to be a quick summary, to short to offer any opinions about the tracks, what it sounds like, the production etc

I'd rather a round-up of releases/re-issues followed by a quick statement of good/bad/indifferent.
The Books, DVD & Cinema sections do the job - would like a TV section though, but the Music section is (to this reader at least) falling short of it's potential

Similar threads have been here recently, often suggesting "if its reviews you want, other mags do'em as well".
But I only get The Word, and wish to be informed by my journal of choice

2p added

I genuinely don't think anyone but the most dedicated musicologist is likely ever to speak their name in a hundred years' time. That's not intended as a slight on their music, not at all: I'm not remotely clued-up enough about their music to opine with any authority. And that's kind of my point: almost no-one is. Their fanbase is vanishingly small, albeit vociferous, and they've had no impact at all on the culture at large.

He's a funny bloke though, M.E.S., at least in print. I imagine the schtick would wear pretty thin in, oh, eight seconds of meeting him in the flesh, mind.

...surely they'll be another one along in 6 months anyway.

You "made" me listen to the bloody Fall. Searched in vain for the new CD in question on Spotify but the latest is from 2008.

Y'know what, Wolf Kidult Man is just a synth short of Hawkwind. I shall explore further. I've heard worse. If the likes of Beefheart can be seen as a cult then MES & Co can equally be deemed a cult. I don't have to like them or listen to them but I can. I feel educated.

Sorry if something like this has already been said - I read through the thread but may have missed it.

I only consider the Massive to be one huge entity in the sense that I respect the opinion of everyone in it. God, we disagree on so much, we're bound to have different opinions of the mag and its review section.

But another thing that I think unites the Massive is a wide (and at times wallet-damaging) appreciation of a huge variety of music. I'm sure that a lot of the disposable income that goes on CDs is put towards music we would have bought anyway, or already have an opinion about. Reviews can help - they may lead me to someone new, or nudge me into a decision about an album I'm wavering over - but I don't use them as a foolproof guide to my purchases.

Put simply, I like the reviews in Word because I love the writing. Nearer the front of the mag, this writing is devoted to more overview-style articles; nearer the back, it's more tightly focused on individual items. But it's always worth reading. And I like Divide and Rule, because I like Kate and David's writing. That's what it comes down to. I will happily read what the two of them decide to write about anything, at whatever length.

A nice four star review in the new issue of Mojo for anyone interested...

I like The Fall and I enjoyed that review. But then I also think Hex Enduction Hour and This Nation's Saving Grace are two of the greatest rock albums ever made.

When I read DH's review of 'Our Future...' it just made me think I was subscribing to the wrong magazine.

OK, I'm a Fall fan. Not a blind one - few Fall fans love everything they've done. But with this being the first album of new material in 2 years and the band having - for once - a fairly stable line-up, I was looking forward to a reasonable review that gave me a clue as to whether it was worth listening to or buying. Clearly that doesn't fit your the new format as presumably Kate isn't that familiar with the oeuvre either. But it's an odd music-based magazine that treats the Buggles with more reverence than The Fall.

Sadly.

I think that if it's an album by an artist that has made dozens of them and is unlikely to attract any new fans, it is better to have review by a writer who likes the band. That way people who might consider actually buying the thing will get a pointer. Nobody else is interested. I like Todd. I'd like to know how Todd's new album fits into his oevre. It could be brilliant or a stinker. Nobody else cares so a review by a writer who can't stand Todd, pitched at the level of interest of people who couldn't give a toss isn't worth the column inches. Unless it's just to take the piss and I think that the Massive's love for music deserves better than that.

'Ted Roger's brains burn in hell'

'Room to live' - I do like that album. It's from 1982. Just been listening to tracks on youtube.

'There's a D.H.S.S. Volvo estate
Right outside my door
With a Moody Blues cassette on the dashboard'

'D. Bowie look-alikes permeate car parks'

Mark E Smith - a unique way with words. But the review amused me nevertheless. I can take an opposite view if well put. Not much new to be said about them is there? There was a proper MES feature not so long ago.

Reviews - enough I feel. I agree with the view - they are usually worth a read regardless of subject, this is my experience with The Word. They entertain. This is of more value to me than a dull, conventional assessment. I often find the in-depth ones as good as anything else in an issue - the standard is high.

A review-less selective list of new releases would be nice though - say 50?

Otherwise, happy.

Here is a track by track review of the new Fall LP from The Quietus.

http://thequietus.com/articles/03855-the-fall-your-future-our-clutter-track-by-track-album-review

Maybe the music should do the talking, so here is a little interlude from one of our greatest, most eccentric and idiosyncratic performers.
The Fall are not as one dimensional as some of you seem to think. The evidence:

Exhibit A. The Fall at their wonkiest:

Exhibit B: The Fall ballad-ah!

Exhibit C: And here they are in 'man shouting in the bus station' mode.

to criticise a review [ the nick cave remasters] I was essentially told to get on my bike and pedal towards uncut etc.

reviewers who don't like the style of music is just plain silly

having said that i think the review section has improved

This seems to be the central question that everyone is skirting around here. Is it to:
>Indicate albums worthy of our purchase?
>Entertain us?
>Let the reviewer show off the depth of their musical knowledge and taste?
>Infuriate/please people who already know and like the album?

I've read reviews that do all of these things, often at the same time. As far as I'm concerned, I couldn't care less whether I agree with the reviewer or not, as long as it's an entertaining read. I don't look to reviews to validate opinions about music I've already heard.

And just to keep the balloon aloft for a while longer, the bits of the Fall I've heard sound dreadful. Admittedly, this is only based on two songs, played to me at a party by a wide-eyed Fall fanatic who was desperate for my approval: one was something about Nazis and the other was a lame copy of Victoria, by the Kinks. On the plus side, the interviews I've read with MES were very entertaining, mainly because he seems so cartoonishly repulsive.

have fallen...

and miss all the fun.

I've nothing to add except I liked Joy Divison Oven Gloves.

For the sake of balance, I'll just add that the album reviews are the first thing I look at when a new issue arrives. I favour the longer ones, but in some cases a short one can tell me all I need. (I tend to look at the attached letter and best/worst next, before settling into some of the main features).

I'd like a few more album reviews each month of course, which is one of the main reasons that I also subscribe to another monthly music publication. (Note, I get more out of Word overall.)

and have converted a lot of people who thought they hated them with this patented playlist:
http://open.spotify.com/user/nndroid/playlist/51LvoSMLDxjFEitIX1blo3

Yes, it's heavy on the poppier end and it's not going to make purists happy. All I can say is, give it a go and if you don't like them after this, I can't help you.

I am now going off to fantasise about Trevor Horn producing The Fall in 14-minute disco mix form.

above. Some of the bollocks talked about The Fall by people who know nothing about them -- and seem weirdly proud of the fact -- is breathtaking.

And suddenly a measure of a band's worth is whether or not little girls make Youtube videos about them? I must have missed that memo.

I say they've got a bloody cheek

to my ears that is catchy, funny and poppy. Whats not to like?

My intro to the Fall was a mate giving me the '50,000 Fall Fans Can't be Wrong' comp. Maybe not what the hardcore Fall supporter would choose but it gave me a few signposts. Didn't like all of it but I didn't expect to like everything from a bands career. Have picked up the albums I like the sound of, can leave the rest.

If you were seeking an intro to the Fall you probably wouldn't choose their latest release but bringing it back to Mr H's review, what would the casual observer get from the write up apart from that the reviewer doesn't like em and a couple of recycled jokes? Nowt

People who choose to be in the public eye generally accept that commentators can define them in the eyes of the public with a single line of observation or joke (if it has a devastating kernal of truth).

Michael Howard will forever be associated as having 'something of the night' about him, after Ann Widdecombe's casual remark - a remark that suddenly struck everyone as expressing some kind of truth about the fellow, albeit in a sort of caricature way (no one ACTUALLY believes Michael Howard is Count Dracula, and yet there is SOMETHING about that remark that we all instinctively recognised as being penetrating).

Likewise, to my mind, there is something penetrating (in the form of a slight caricature) in Heppo's description of Mark E Smith as 'a man shouting in a bus station'. You'd have to be a blind devotee of the man not to recognise some kind of truth in there! And sometimes the world NEEDS people to shout at bus stations - metaphorically, that is (unless the bus service is really unbelievably appalling...) - so it's not an iron-clad put-down, as such.

Roy Harper - an individual often assumed to be an iconoclast hectoring from the sidelines - showed the way to embrace this kind of public perception when he called one of his albums 'Loony On The Bus', with a memorable photo of the man himself, causing a scene on a bus, on the front.

For all we know Mark E is already planning the filming of his next video at a bus station in Manchester...

or not (and it may well be!) that doesn't stop it being a tired old cliche. Then agsin there is nothing new under the sun etc

...on the kind of phrases that appear in fall reviews, Alb and Dog. Me, I hadn't come across the 'bus station' one before. I suppose if its been used a hundred times before then its a cliche. But either way, it's still, to my mind, an amusing and penetrating observation on its subject. we might have to just agree to disagree about that
:-)

..you should bring back star ratings. I love them.

... as many above me have. There's nothing wrong with getting a new, more dissenting perspective on a sacred cow every now and again.

Remember how much everyone at Word Towers (Cough! Harrison! Cough!) used to bang on about how much they love Doctor Who. And then, when it came to the time to review the fourth series, they got Lawrence Miles is to do an absolute hatchet job on the recent series. It was the right thing to do - another fawning review over the series would have been tedious in the extreme.

I see this as a paralell case. Good job Word.

...'How on earth do the Daleks escape from Mark E Smith should they ever make the mistake of trying to conquer the Bus Stations Of The Universe?'

Sorry - too easy.
Actually I rather like The Fall.

The impression this discussion gives is that either you are a Fall obsessive (in which case you believe that all 1250 albums they have released are the height of rock music, with not a single dud track between them) or you are a Fall hater (in which case you spend your life trying to find new ways to describe how awful MES's voice is and how musically untalented they are)

I clearly fall (pun intended) into a tiny minority of people, who think that on his day, MES is a witty and perceptive lyricist and they can come up with some great riffs, but when he's off his game they can be unlistenable and/or quite boringly repetitive.

Examples of the former imo: "Hey! Luciani", "How I wrote 'Elastic Man'" and the latter: "Eat Yourself Fitter" "Winter Pts 1&2"

So I read DH's review of the new album and thought "That seems like a reasonable review - the Fall produce so much that it has to be a real classic for me to want to investigate it"

I quite like the current reviews format in the mag, but I think it falls down on the choice of albums given the full review treatment. It's obvious that Word has retreated from providing a fully comprehensive review section (if indeed it ever aimed for one), so if you're not trying to be a journal of record why are you allocating the most review space to things I can easily read about elsewhere? I'd rather see it given over to new and unsung records. A page each on Spector and Stone reissues seems too much when interesting sounding things like John Grant and The Tallest Man On Earth are given a brief paragraph. Which are the ones we haven't heard about endlessly in the other monthlies? Choosing a full page on Anais Mitchell & Kevin Hewick this month is a great example of what I'm talking about - MGMT and Sade is not.

from an out of touch and clearly bored writer. This is why lots of magazines like Word will gradually go out of business as the web generation reject lazy and pointless page filling reviews like David Hepworth's.

He has a history of second-rate and safe projects and this review certainly gives the impression that he should retire with his pipe (pictured) and slippers to listen sedately to some Phil Collins era Genesis albums.

Looks like someone at the Grauniad reads Dave's reviews...

"Being in any way disparaging about Crotchety National Trasure Mark E Smith™ is sort of like the critical equivalent of laughing hysterically while you hurl a beaker full of urine into the face of a mafia don, but this sounds rather like a man with an over-indulgent, captive audience ready to hang on his every utterance. Thoroughly underwhelming, it sounds for all the world like a drunk man shouting abuse at pigeons over a workaday indie grind. "I'm from Bury/As in Bur-rie/I'm French", he says, helpfully."

two words on all this
JOHN PEEL, does anyone respect his opinion?
he spent 40 years Dj'ing across the world and worked with and promoted some of the greatest artists of our time.

John had a massive record collection but only had ONE artist in a separate section , THE FALL !

Either you get them or you dont !

They are the only band I have ever connected with 100%
Ask frank Skinner !
Ask Johnathan Demme
Ask the endless growing army of fans !

I rememeber that Hepworth, wasnt he the really boring one from old grey whistle test?#

keep reeling em in Mark !

no no no
The point i was making was to question John Peel
on WHY after tredging through a gazillion records and artists
he ended up at THE FALL
you would never decribe John Peel as a nutter!
his favourite singer was Roy Orbison!
So why the fall!?

Ive been searching for anything as good for 30+ years
been through as many as it is possible to ...
constantly searching out music , keep going back to The Fall matey!

It strikes me that getting Hepworth to review the Fall is like getting Ann Widdecombe to review "funhouse" by the stooges

she just wouldnt get it!

He is the same old same old that thinks that music begins and ends with the beatles/dylan

this is his list of gigs he remembers.....
Bruce Springsteen
Little feat
Earth wind and fire
Haircut 100
YES
Randy Newman
Paul Mcartney
Richard Thompson
Marillion
Jean Michel Jarre
Crowded house

Maybe he could lend a few CD's to Anne Widdecombe , she would probably approve.

The Fall haven't been any good since Ayn Rand left. Now she knew how to work a bus station audience.

a band you like will get this treatment from a reviewer ("I don't like the band, I can't be arsed to review the album properly, fuck you, reader") and maybe even in this magazine, and you'll feel like I did, which was to suddenly understand why print media was going down the toilet, because I thought, 'Why am I paying money to have the piss taken out of me?'

I say this, by the way, as someone who earns their living from print media, so I'm not being deliberately mischevious

... but for the life of me, I can't find it.

From twitter a few days ago.

"you know the sound a moped makes when a spotty pizza delivery boy is trying to impress girls? that's 'the fall', that is"

Of course I don't. I follow around 40 people, one of them re-tweeted it. Lighten up will you? You're acting like a bishop who's just seen the Life of Brian.

I was blind and now I can see.....

I didn't look at your history before engaging with you.

all the best.

Thanks for taking the time to check my 'history'

happy tweet-anec-hunting

I mean you've been here a day. But, I'm sure you'll prove your joining was agenda-free by contributing to some of the other threads soon.

I can categorically guarantee I don't hunt for tweets on any subject. Thats not how it works unless I'm missing something

That is all.

Have I missed anything?

I have never heard anything by The Fall but I am determined to give it a try now. In the meantime, why not try my handy review generator(tm)?

Simply choose one phrase from this selection

A drunk man
A pizza delivery boy
A tramp
A Stella-filled nutter
A genius
A chancer
A curmudgeonly national treasure
A nutter
Anne Widdecombe
A critic

One from this selection

Driving a moped
Bellowing like a nutter
Pissing in a bucket whilst humming
Shouting
Thoughtlessly giving an up arrow
Shouting abuse
Laughing hysterically whilst hurling a beaker of urine

and one from this selection

In Dave and Fraser’s bums
In a bus station
To impress girls
At a vending machine
On a night bus
At pigeons
Into the face of a mafia don

and hey presto! Your review is ready to use.

sounded good