The Greatest Music
This Nation's Saving Grace
by The Fall
The 389th greatest album of all time
This Nation's Saving Grace, released in 1985 by The Fall, captures the band's post-punk approach with terse, driving rhythms, jagged guitar work and Mark E. Smith's caustic spoken-sung vocals. The addition of guitarist Brix Smith brought sharper melodic hooks that sit alongside repetitive, angular basslines and propulsive drum patterns, producing a leaner, more direct sound than some of their earlier records. The album stands as a key statement in the band's mid 1980s output, balancing abrasive textures with tighter songcraft.
Appears On These Lists
NME’s The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
NME’s The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (2013) is a special issue compiled from ballots cast by...
Uncut’s 200 Greatest Albums of All Time
Uncut’s 200 Greatest Albums of All Time ran as the February 2016 cover story (issue “Take 225”), ...
1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (2005)
1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die is a long-running reference book series (first published...
Colin Larkin’s All Time Top 1000 Albums
A book series created by Encyclopedia of Popular Music editor Colin Larkin (1st ed. 1994; later p...
Pitchfork’s The 200 Best Albums of the 1980s
Pitchfork’s The 200 Best Albums of the 1980s (Sept. 10, 2018) is a staff-curated, ranked retrospe...
The 100 Best Albums of All Time
Sounds, the influential UK weekly music paper (1970–1991), published an All-Time Top 100 Albums c...
The 1000 Best Albums of All Time (Updated 2015)
This list is basically a personal canon of albums across the modern LP era (framed on-site as “si...