Fugazi - The Argument

Oh man, tough.

Didn't like this when it came out. It got a lot of acclaim at the time, and I remember.thinking that it was a case of them just being critical favorites or whatever. Who knows though!It's been 12 years or so. I'll give it another listen.

It was my gateway drug into Fugazi - http://sickmouthy.com/2013/01/25/fugazi-the-argument-2001/

In terms of songwriting: it's perfect.
In terms of
production: they did better imo

I voted for Oh

Used to like Cashout till I realized Ian's vocals remind me of
Anthony Kiedis in this song.

The end of Full Disclosure is like one of the most propulsive, explosive things ever.
The chorus of Epic Problem often gets stuck in my head for days.

picking up this and Merchandise single on the same monday - best day eveeeeer. this stuff was all better live too, obviously.

I'm voting for "Full Disclosure", but this is the Fugazi record I listen to most as a whole instead of specific tracks. It plays like a single piece of music in my head.

Voted Oh -- I always think it sounds like Guy giving it his last best shot.

Hate Cashout -- Anthony Kedis comparison otm, and it really feels like he tried to force a song about gentrification.

i should really listen to more red medicine -->

Great great great record!

The last time I saw them was on the tour prior to this album's release, and they played "Oh" and one other song from. Those songs sounded good live, but I could just never get into this record and I routinely ignore it when I go on Fugazi binges.

"strangelight," y'all

get your starved funk on

full disclosure

Hate Cashout -- Anthony Kedis comparison otm, and it really feels like he tried to force a song about gentrification.

This song is the only song in the Fugazi catalog that sounds like an Evens song, I think. Kiedis comparison could totally be a thing - there's a rich history of Chilis/D.C. cross-pollination!

The end of Full Disclosure is like one of the most propulsive, explosive things ever.
The chorus of Epic Problem often gets stuck in my head for days.

These are the two that really blew me away when I first got the album, two of their hardest-rocking and catchiest songs back-to-back. The other highlight for me is the title track, which was rightfully mentioned on this thread.

I'm voting for "Full Disclosure", but this is the Fugazi record I listen to most as a whole instead of specific tracks. It plays like a single piece of music in my head.

― EZ Snappin, Tuesday, March 26, 2013 1:34 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^^this

also, this is is one of my favorite albums of all time (and definitely the best Fugazi imho)

oh man, i love Cashout. such a nervy, tightly-wound song. you're just waiting for it to lash out; and when it does, it's pretty special.

I WANNOUT WANNOUT I WANNOUT I WANNOUT

"full disclosure" is a total beast

epic problem over strangelight by a hair

saw them back-to-back nights in boston after this came out (and a few months post 9/11) and it was unbelievably fucking intense - such a great memory

also according to wikipedia this album sold 170,000 copies its first week

this is a really good record. i love fugazi.

Full disclosure over Nightshop

also according to wikipedia this album sold 170,000 copies its first week

― scream blahula scream (govern yourself accordingly), Friday, March 29, 2013 12:32 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wow. maybe those reports that ian is worth $15 million are true

saw them back-to-back nights in boston after this came out (and a few months post 9/11)

both of these shows are available in full on youtube iirc

Voting "Epic Problem" as a sentimental favorite, I have very fond memories of that song blowing my mind when I first heard it at age 14. But "Full Disclosure", "Life and Limb", "Strangelight", and dark horse "Nightshop" are all strong contenders.

wow am I the only person who is gonna vote for "Argument"?

This is a bit overrated IMO

Fugazi doing stripped down or 'experimental' is not half as interesting as Fugazi doing full-throttle post-hardcore tunes.

Which is why Full Disclosure for example runs way with it for me. That, and Ex-Spectator.

ended up going with Life and Limb, for no other reason than that it's usually one of the first songs that pops into my head when i think of this album.

tbh, macKaye and Picciotto are no Ranaldo/Moore. Which is to say the latter 'meanders' more successfully than the former.

I know they never claimed to be, but that heavy rhythm style of IM + GP doing stuff over the top = that to me is Fugazi

Fugazi doing stripped down

this album is the opposite of "stripped down" fugazi

yeah, to me stripped down Fugazi is something like "waiting room". The Argument is more layered, complex and full of detours.

Perfect album. "Nightshop" just wraps up itself (and everything else) up so tightly. That might have to be my vote.

i'm listening to this for the first time. yeah, i kinda suck. i'm not a huge fugazi fan tbh, though i have their first few records. i really like "the kill" on this. it's not very fugazi-like, i guess, but it seems to point to a direction for them that might have developed further.

sonic youth imitators?

I raise eyebrows whenever I hear the comment that Fugazi are "experimental." They clearly evolved over time but there is nothing experimental about they do--it just has more depth and more color and is less shouty. And they're hardly Sonic Youth imitators. They've always had their own sound.

xpost
eh, i guess? not really. and even if that was true, if you're going to "imitate" a band, it's one thing if it's the ramones or something, and it's another if it's a band like sonic youth whose output is linked less by a signature sound and more by an overarching conceptual approach. there could be a 100 bands imitating sonic youth and they'd all sound different.

unless they all sang like kim gordon i guess

Life and Limb, y'all

ok, i'll be more specific:
imitate SY's Wahing Machine sound, or at least The Kill sounds like this.
xpost

it's not "experimental" as more calculated and "produced" than previous record i think.

and i agree they are better as "full-throttle post-hardcore tunes" band.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

man sonic youth invented skronk who knew

eppy prob

they didn't, but i guess they are the most popular skronk band ever..

xpost

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Feel sad for The Kill.

don't take it so hard

I'm OK.

i didn't vote because i wanted to relisten first but never got around to it but for the record "life and limb" should be way higher on the results

congratulations

stop

some interesting tweets recently from Chad Clark about this album

‏@beautypill 29 May
I proposed two album sequences to Fugazi for "The Argument." They didn't choose the one I loved most, but they did go for the second.

@beautypill 29 May
I still think that album should've begun with "Oh!" For a number of reasons. But it's their expression and they were... clearly geniuses.

@beautypill 29 May
.@zktdesign All Fugazi albums open with a portentous overture of some sort. I thought it'd be cool to not do that for once.

@beautypill 29 May
.@zktdesign Also there was a pattern that was super-cool to me: One album opens with a Guy-sung song and closes with an Ian-sung song.

@beautypill 29 May
.@zktdesign The next album opens with an Ian-sung song and closes with a Guy-sung song. They'd been doing this pattern for years.

@beautypill 29 May
.@zktdesign "Oh!" seemed both a refreshing opener --- it just fucking KICKS THE DOOR DOWN --- and it also would have met the pattern.

@beautypill 29 May
.@zktdesign As a fan, I'd presumed the singing pattern was deliberate design. I learned that it was desultory... or at least subconscious.

@beautypill 29 May
.@zktdesign They were like "Really?" and then they studied their own discography for what seemed [to me] almost like the first time.

@beautypill 29 May
.@zktdesign I felt like I was WAY more conscious of the specific contours of the extant discography than the band, but...

@beautypill 29 May
.@zktdesign ...that didn't make my judgement superior. In fact, it was probably the opposite. They were fucking Fugazi after all.

I just learned/noticed/was taught to notice that the first five Go-Betweens albums all feature a word with two letter Ls next to each other - Lullaby, Hollywood, Belle, etc. - and the last of the first incarnation sort of does (16 Lovers Lane). More bands should have patterns.

The only Fugazi pattern I noticed was that every album was awesome.

i heard "Steady Diet of Awesome" is the title of the best-of they're putting out this Christmas

lol

Wait, End Hits begins with Break -- I wouldn't really call that a "portentous overture," it goes in pretty hard right off the bat

yeah...you could make an argument that the lengthy instrumental section that opens that song counts though

sd did u grow up in bmore?

not really, just visited my dad in baltimore on the weekends as a kid

been on a big fugazi kick lately and listening to "the argument" now i realize it's maybe my next favorite fugazi album after the "in on the kill-taker"/"red medicine" peak. it's so poppy!

Argument slays so hard - I miss Fugazi every day. In On The Killtaker tour stops are burned on my brain, as is seein' 'em with Shellac/Ex.

v solid record, they quit while they were ahead

in my memory i loved "end hits" too but when i went back and listened to it i couldn't find that love again. it's not a bad album but doesn't really have any stand-out tracks

Break!

five corporations! closed captioned! caustic acrostic!

srsly

ok geez

"closed captioned" is probably my fave on there

but this is the thread for "The Argument"

cashout is one of my favorite fugazi songs ever, so that one

forced removal of the people on the corner

never let my vision get in the way of me

Everyone should read the Killtaker book. One of the more interesting revelations is how the band writes its songs sort of piecemeal, patiently, and that for lots of reasons songs just kind of stick around unused for a while. "Epic Problem" from this one, for example, had apparently been hanging around in some form for years before it found a place to fit in.

Man, this band

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iqHIQeVvg8

the only Fugazi album I truly love

Everyone should read the Killtaker book. One of the more interesting revelations is how the band writes its songs sort of piecemeal, patiently, and that for lots of reasons songs just kind of stick around unused for a while. "Epic Problem" from this one, for example, had apparently been hanging around in some form for years before it found a place to fit in.

I loved the part where Ian walks Gross through the various permutations of the riff for "Great Cop" going all the way back to Skewbald

very surprised about the winner in this poll. i am not a fugazi fan at all and that song won't persuade me. i seriously don't like ian mackaye's shouting voice. he must have been a dog in his former life. cashout is great though.

guy picciotto sings “full disclosure”

Full Disclosure rules, especially the falsetto backup vocal in the chorus, which...might actually be Ian?

Also it simultaneously manages to be one of their poppiest and rawest tracks--a neat trick!

might actually be Ian?

― icy bike chain rain (zchyrs), Saturday, October 5, 2019 1:14 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

it is imo

I made my older daughter listen in to a bit of Sound Opinions on the way to the eye doctor last week. They were interviewing Ian and talking about the band's anti-capitalist, anti-consumerist, antimaterialist stance. The second we got into the parking lot my daughter started talking to me excitedly about this new iPhone promotion she saw. I was bummed.

capitalism is unstoppable. which isn't so bad in the end as the competitors communism and fascism are definitely worse.

jesus christ

capitalism is unstoppable.

*climate change turns around and grins*

capitalism is unstoppable. which isn't so bad in the end as the competitors communism and fascism are definitely worse.

― je est un autre, l'enfer c'est les autres (alex in mainhattan), Saturday, October 5, 2019 4:33 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Huh

Think the backup vocals are Kathi Wilcox..?

i stand corrected

this is their best album.

Probably. Possibly. The band is so good, though, that it's really a matter of what album you'd rank last. And even that album is pretty great.

think i'm in the vast minority in that i'd rank their albums from best to least best in exact reverse chronological order.

The only one of their records that still leaves me cold is Steady Diet Of Nothing, but the show I saw on that tour was insane.

(shrug) i think it's really good. it has a reputation for being their most harsh recording, but i think that goes to in on the killtaker.

it might be the time in my life when i heard them or the amount if time i spent w them but i kind of love those two.

Steady Diet sounded to me at the time almost like rejects from Repeater. But Kill Taker felt like a huge turning point that they subsequently never stopped trying to expand on and develop further.

Steady Diet is pretty awesome. It seems like it took them a while to figure out how to record themselves, from the clean studio sound of the EPs to the super raw sound of Repeater to the clean-ish sound of Steady Diet to the raw power of Kill Taker and beyond. Even if I hadn't heard the sessions I could see why Albini would be a poor match, but I can also see why going too far the other direction didn't always do them justice (I say that while still sticking to my opinion that they were never less than great). Given how well he handled Sonic Youth on "Dirty" (coincidentally Ian MacKaye's sole major label credit), I bet Butch Vig would have made them sound pretty good (presupposing they needed the help, which of course they didn't).

i've never been sure what mackaye does on youth against fascism

looks like guitar

Noisy guitar!

Ian has a newish project with Joe Lally and Amy Farina from The Evens called Coricky. Going to try to see them this weekend.

rad.

the evens: you wanna talk about an underrated band. hoo boy. amy's such a rad drummer.

I always felt like the Evens lacked something, and maybe it was Joe.

FWIW, my ranking:

Red Medicine > Steady Diet > Repeater > Killtaker > 13 Songs > End Hits > Argument

but they're all really good so it feels wrong to rank any last

Super super great album. Can't believe I missed seeing them on this tour.

I rank Steady Diet pretty high but probably because it was the first time I heard anything by them - it was the most recent release and I mailed a check for $9 to Dischord to get the CD. I got it back with a note that it was only $8 and I still had a dollar in credit that I never cashed in.

Repeater is probably my favorite - I remember listening to it while really high in college and thinking how much I loved the production then I felt really guilty for loving Fugazi while super baked.

yeah ranking them is tough. I’d probably say Killtaker just ever so slightly over the first three (incl 13 Songs), which would ever so slightly edge out the last three. again, it could be a time/ place thing for me

Killtaker
Red Medicine
Repeater
13 Songs
Steady Diet
End Hits
Argument

They’re all awesome, Fugazu forever classic

end hits and argument are the best ones!!!

I like End Hits but truthfully I didn’t get into it at the time. I didn’t give it an honest chance until maybe 8 years ago. And so I can hear it’s greatness but it’s the only Fugazi album that has zero nostalgia factor for me. All the others hit me when I was in high school and college.

Sorry - Argument is the one I didn’t get into at the time. Not End Hits.

This album would have been incredible if had been recorded properly.

the argument is one of the albums that evokes the most nostalgia for me bc it was so huge for my friendship group growing up. I've never been to a gig w/ so many ppl as when we went to the last fugazi tour, it was so fun to me to go to a gig w/ my die-hard hardcore zealot friend, it felt like a real gathering of the tribes

Killtaker
13 Songs
Repeater
Steady Diet
Red Medicine
End Hits
Argument

This is mainly because I don't really know the last three that well. Which gives me something to do this afternoon.

Killtaker for me, the ideal bridge of the earlier anthemic material with the relative experimentation and use of space that would come later

Red Medicine is really good and is my personal favorite even though it's probably not their best

Also, on the subject of Fugazi members' other groups, y'all should definitely check out the Messthetics (Brendan, Joe, & Anthony Pirog)

I saw them play a gig last year, I think, and I iirc thought Pirog was the weak link, tbh. It sounded like Fugazi's rhythm section backing a shredder, which ... it kind of was? I would have watched just Brendan and Joe!

After going to a Messthetics gig I expunged them from my mind

for me it's probably

Red Medicine/13 Songs
Repeater
Argument/End Hits
Killtaker
Steady Diet

three of the greatest shows I ever saw

Aye, definitely in my top 5 live bands.

xxp Pirog is definitely the weak link, but I thought they were a pretty enjoyable band!

bear in mind that I never got the chance to see Fugazi, so getting to at least see their rhythm section do their thing live was a big treat for me.

yeah it might have been a bum show and ofc I am ~15 years more curmudgeonly

Of my top five shows ever, two of them are Fugazi.

woke up this morning with guy shouting 'FULL DESCLOSUAH' in my head

Could be worse!

"furniture" is maybe my favorite thing they ever did? and how does that work? is it an argument era track because that's when they finally released a studio recording of it? seems like an intentional thing to release something that old as the a-side to your last ever release.

non-sequitir: gawd fugazi fucken ROOLZ... sheesh, it's almost annoying.