a seventh new reflection...'mark smith and the fall: undefined'

Inimitable, incomprehensible, inspirational, infuriating, irreverent, irascible – all words beginning simply with the letter ‘i’ that could be used to describe Mark E Smith, and the music of the most enduring and original band in British pop music of the last four decades –The Fall.

Or, you could start with the letter ‘a’ and list: angry, arch, amphetamine-fuelled, articulate … and so on. But the word that best sums up Smith and the Fall is attitude.  Smith personifies it, the Fall in all its various guises channels it into a musical canon that moves through everything from punk and post-punk, to garage rock, to country and western (Northern style), to 80s pop, to techno and dance.

The tag genius is too readily ascribed to rock and pop stars, and indeed Smith has been hailed as such by the NME – a ‘God like genius’ no less (Smith dedicated this 2005 award to anyone who could actually read the magazine cover to cover), and there are a host of celebrity fans who often enough line-up to proclaim him as such from the late John Peel, Marc Riley (an ex-band member), comedians Stuart Lee and Frank Skinner, artist Grayson Perry, etcetera … but then it is fair to suggest that Smith probably is a genius.

Mark Smith is perhaps the greatest vocalist, or at least non-singer of recent years. But it’s the way he uses language that is utterly unique in the field of pop, the words are simultaneously thought-provoking and seem to come at you from all directions, with syntax and phrasing you would never expect or anticipate, vocabulary that deals with beady-eyed social and political satire as well as vivid and startling poetic imagery (frequently in the same line, the same song). He’s a malevolent Alan Bennett fuelled on booze and cheap speed; he’s a conjurer – bringing the paintings of Wyndham Lewis to life; he can also sound like a drunk at a bus stop shouting about (seemingly) nothing and no one in particular.

Whatever, he deserves to be appreciated – the Hip Priest: exceptional in his intellect, creativity, associated with rare, irreplicable song-writing and art. And so do his band mates past and present for their interpretation of Smith’s wonderful and frightening world view – they number in the region of sixty; hired in pubs, fired in the middle of Swedish forests; those who lasted five minutes and the long-suffering; boys, boys made into men, and a succession of girlfriends, wives a la Henry VIII.

Smith and his band are of a kind, a never-ending source of intrigue and discovery.