K Records T-Shirt

“She say she love me whatever that is / Do me a favor save that shit.”  For many, that was one of their first introductions to Chief Keef, and summarized a part of his world view in a perfectly succinct manner.  Back in 2012, riding on the heels of his breakthrough mixtape Back from the Dead and its single “I Don’t Like”, a clear image of Keef, the emotionless gangster with no time for anything besides drugs, guns, and women (or, more specifically, the parts of women he can use), was defined.  So five years later, and long after he could be considered to be at the top of the cultural conversation, what is there still to learn about Keith Cozart?  Well, that he might have a heart after all. Thot Breaker , despite it’s ridiculous title, is almost single-mindedly dedicated to Keef’s new muse.  While he still falls back to pot, his favorite vice and perhaps the only thing he loves as much as this mystery woman, Keef is at least a partially changed man, and i...

Fall in a Hole is most likely the Fall's defining live record, both because it is the classic Hex Enduction Hour line-up that is performing, as well as its over two-hour running time (on the 2006 reissue at least). The song choice is fantastic, with the majority of tracks coming from the albums Hex Enduction Hour and Room to Live, their most recent album and the album they were about to record respectively (although Fall in a Hole was released after Room to Live, the show was recorded just over a month before Room to Live was released). One interesting fact about the album is that it was recorded and produced by renowned New Zealand singer-songwriter / stroke victim Chris Knox. Anyway, back to The Fall. The performances are ace, with the band playing at their best, sloppily brilliant on "The Man Whose Head Expanded" (when I tried to figure out what song this reminded me of, I realized it was in fact about half of Slanted and Enchanted ), like a tight cohesive unit on ...

Room to Live was released in September of 1982, only seven months after Hex Enduction Hour, and as such the band's sound (or lineup, a rare occurrence for the band) does not change much between the two albums. However, the songs on Room to Live are still up there with The Fall's best, and the line-up is still top notch, powering their way through each one of the seven tracks. "Joker Hysterical Face" opens the album in typical Fall fashion, a strong bass riff, a barely fitting together guitar line, Mark E. Smith's ramblings, and about a minute in an easy going drum beat to keep it all from falling apart. The album's title track sounds just as much like The Fall as anything else on the album, with Mark E. Smith's lyrics detailing what he wants in life, nothing more than a place to live his life, which explains a lot about how uncompromising he has been with his music the past thirty years in The Fall. The bonus tracks consist of live tracks from the time p...

Hex Enduction Hour is considered by some to be the definitive Fall album, the first album to contain the dual drummer set-up of Paul Hanley and Karl Burns that helped separate The Fall from any other band, and songs that are among the band's best and most distinctive. However, it also may be the worst album to use when introducing someone to the Fall, for many of the same reasons, as the band learned in 1984 when Motown Records, interested in signing the band, asked for an example of their back catalog and when given Hex stated "I see no commercial in this band whatsoever." The album open with a song filled with Fall trademarks, "The Classical", which explodes open with both drummers pounding a rhythm along with Steve Hanley's bass riff, and soon are joined by an abrasive, ugly guitar line. Finally are Mark E. Smith's not sung but yelled vocals, lacking not only any sense of melody but also rhythm, that would be enough to turn away almost any new list...

Slates is the first Fall album to contain the same line-up as the one before it, the "classic" band, and it shows. Building on the sound of Grotesque, the 24 minute album, consisting of only six songs (I'll get to the bonus tracks later) is obviously the work of a band who knows what they're doing, and obviously led by Mark E. Smith. Battering rhythms on songs like "Prole Art Threat" lay underneath some of Mark E. Smith's most incoherent vocals, more spoken or yelled than sung, and occasionally Marc Riley can be heard speaking different words, mixed at almost the same volume, underneath, something that is somewhat common in Fall songs from the era, and yet it all manages to come together in a way no other band could manage. "Middle Mass" finds the Fall rather relaxed, which is still pretty driving by most bands' standards, and "An Older Lover" is another song driven by Paul Hanley's toms working with his brother Steve's...

Now this is The Fall! Grotesque (After the Gramme) is the first album featuring the full Riley, Scanlon, Hanley, and Hanley line-up that would remain through Room to Live (and without Riley through The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall) and define the Fall's classic sound in the first half of the eighties. This album features many of the band's trademarks fully intact for the first time, such as Mark E. Smith's ironic, sometimes confusing but almost great lyrics, delivered rambling and barely on beat, the cheesy keyboard presets that sit on the line between sincerity and parody, and the tight rhythm section of riff-delivering bass and guitar and perfectly on beat drums that someone manage to hold the band together. On top of finally developing the sound of The Fall, Grotesque also features some of Mark E. Smith's best songs, such as "New Face in Hell", which I can only imagine Stephen Malkmus listened to a dozen times before writing "Conduit ...