Strictly for completists and not even particularly interesting for them,
The Rough Trade Singles Box
collects the four singles
the Fall
recorded for
Rough Trade Records
in the early '80s on five CDs. (The 1983
"Kicker Conspiracy"
single was a double 7", and its four songs are faithfully replicated on two CDs; unfaithfully, unfortunately, someone substituted the original studio versions of
"Container Driver"
and
"New Puritan"
for the scrappy
Peel Sessions
takes on the original single.) The songs are a solidly entertaining lot -- the football tirade
is possibly
's best-ever single, and
"How I Wrote Elastic Man"
is a classic
Mark E. Smith
rant -- but they've been reissued ad nauseum, and this overpriced collector's item is completely redundant. ~ Stewart Mason