The Fall - Middle Class Revolt

...aka The Vaporisation of Reality

My abiding memory of this record is "lacklustre". But that doesn't sum it up adequately. Much of it is very tedious (the title track and "Surmount All Obstacles" to name two). Some of it is insultingly bad (step forward the inept cover of the Groundhogs' "Junkman" and, worst of all, "Symbol Of Mordgan", which consists of someone - I read somewhere it was Craig Scanlon - talking to John Peel on the phone about Manchester City over the top of some half-hearted jamming).

But some of it is more interesting than I remembered - "15 Ways" is beautifully subtle, a skewed take on Paul Simon's "Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover" (evidently too skewed to bother the copyright lawyers). Originally I had "Hey Student" down as a pale retread of fierce 80s songs like "Lucifer Over Lancashire" and "Lay Of The Land", but I can see now it is pretty good in its own right. And "City Dweller" and "M5#1", which presumably are intended as a "town and country" pair. Though at the risk of being pedantic, I would point out that junction 1 on the M5 doesn't lead to anywhere "agrarian" - rather West Bromwich and Birmingham North-West.

The cover version of Henry Cow/Slapp Happy's "War" is OK-ish but it led me to check out the original on YouTube. Now that is fantastic.