Book: You Must Get Them All: The Fall On Record - Steve Pringle

I was playing Reformation Post TLC in the shop yesterday whilst tidying up the books and a punter (40-something man) turned to me and said "Which Fall album's this? Reformation, isn't it?" So we engaged in a Fall Conversation. He'd been a fan for years, saw them several times. I admitted being very late to 'the party'. Of course it was good to chat to someone else with smart ears. You can't spot a Fall fan, can you? Unlike ye olde times of the tribes, when you knew someone's taste by their clobber. Fall fans don't have a uniform, the only uniformity being an appreciation of Mark E. Smith.

You must get all books about The Fall? No, not really, but this is highly recommended. Published by Route, but unless you snapped up the special ed, signed and numbered, you'll have to wait until October. Steve Pringle discusses every track on every album, with final evaluations and info about reviews and reissues along with how many times each track was played 'live'. There's also a Who's Who of band members.

Paul Hanley's intro makes some good points, one being the online availability of The Fall's music. It's refreshing to read a non-puritanical opinion regarding vinyl collecting vs online listening. The 'new puritans' can, after all, be a little...trying? But hey, each to their own obsession. They don't heed Smith when he says, in New Puritan, 'I curse your preoccupation/With your record collection', obviously. Or perhaps he was echoing someone else's comments about him? As with so many of MES' lyrics, there's ambiguity and a double edge.

I may not be a vinyl collector of The Fall (a bunch of CDs is all), which is not to say I wouldn't like them on vinyl, but I am a 'printhead' and as Hanley says in relation to this book, 'everyone prefers to get love letters on paper rather than by text'. I'll push books all day long over Kindle or reading online. Much of this content stems from Pringle's online site, which did a similar thing. Naturally, that content has been removed and besides, You Must Get Them All greatly expands on what was on the site. It also acknowledges the online Fall fan sites, homes of total obsession over small details. 

You may not need to get every album by The Fall but when it comes to books about them, you could do a lot worse than buy this. It serves as a great primer and is guaranteed to have you either returning to, or discovering anew, albums by our longest-running, weird and wonderful band(s).