I'm not big on Argument either, but Repeater is my least favorite. Sometimes I'm purposely a contrarian, but in this case it's actually true.
― Johnny Fever, Monday, 16 July 2012 18:44 (eleven years ago) link
Red Medicine > Steady Diet > Killtaker > End Hits > 13 Songs > Repeater > Argument
is pretty much how they rank for me now, so I hear you. I actually always disliked something about the production on Repeater even though the songs are good. I like it when they play stuff from Repeater live.
― Will Chave (Hurting 2), Monday, 16 July 2012 18:46 (eleven years ago) link
I love Fugazi, but I think I find Red Medicine lovers even more baffling than people who are defensively dismissive of the band. I need to relisten to that album but it's always felt like a relative slog compared to everything else.
― da croupier, Monday, 16 July 2012 18:53 (eleven years ago) link
Argument > Repeater > Instrument > 13 Songs > Steady Diet > Killtaker > End Hits > Red Medicine
― EZ Snappin, Monday, 16 July 2012 18:54 (eleven years ago) link
shoo instrument away entirely and that's relatively where i'm at
― da croupier, Monday, 16 July 2012 18:56 (eleven years ago) link
I love Instrument, but I know most consider it a weird throwaway.
― EZ Snappin, Monday, 16 July 2012 18:59 (eleven years ago) link
ez snappin have you heard the albini version of killtaker that out there in the ether?
― wack nerd zinging in the dead of night (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 16 July 2012 18:59 (eleven years ago) link
Yeah. It's an interesting curio. I'd rate it below the released version of Killtaker.
― EZ Snappin, Monday, 16 July 2012 19:16 (eleven years ago) link
Instrument is ok. It has "I'm So Tired" and the better imo version of Guilford Fall
― Will Chave (Hurting 2), Monday, 16 July 2012 19:18 (eleven years ago) link
13 Songs: ATTENTION! this is Fugazi! DEAL!Repeater: Attention! Fugazi now includes a second guitar! DEAAALLL!Steady Diet of Nothing: ATTENTION! this remains Fugazi! Continue to deal!In On The Kill Taker: ATTENTION! This remains Fugazi......hurm....Red Medicine: ATTENTION!............this remains Fugazi.......*blurt of clarinet*....WE MEANT TO DO THAT!End Hits: Hey, this is Fugazi! GROOVE!Argument: ATTENTION! THIS IS THE FUGAZI UNLIMITED ORCHESTRA! *GONG*
― da croupier, Monday, 16 July 2012 19:28 (eleven years ago) link
i dunno if steady diet was just business as usual
― wack nerd zinging in the dead of night (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 16 July 2012 19:30 (eleven years ago) link
I think they were at their best around Kill Taker, it just has the greatest amount of good material basically. Their best 'guitar' album, Sweet and Low their best album instrumental. Red Medicine, I dunno, sounds great but there's some throwaway stuff on there no doubt - more so the second side. Comes out of the blocks really well though.
Repeater, nails their band dynamics - especially now Guy's on 2nd guitar - but I find the material as it's produced doesn't have space to breathe and a lot sounds rushed - the example for me is the Instrument live version of 'Shut The Door' compared to the album version. Steady Diet suffers a little less from this but on the other hand sounds really flat production-wise.
End Hits, I dunno, I think that run of songs in the middle is among their weakest material. Fair play to them for using what they had and fucking around a bit but I don't that side of them was as interesting as it could have been. Again, good start to the album. I think, with Lally and Canty, there was something there with 'Sweet and Low', melodically, that wasn't developed or tapped into as well after IOTKT. The Argument I like more than EH and a worthy send off but I still think the likes of 'Full Disclosure', 'Ex Spectator', 'Epic Problem' etc are the best songs.
― Master of Treacle, Monday, 16 July 2012 21:36 (eleven years ago) link
end hits is my favorite record of theirs b/c it's the grooviest, croupier otm
"run of songs in the middle" includes "closed captioned" which is totally gorgeous yo
― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Monday, 16 July 2012 21:41 (eleven years ago) link
I think they were at their best around Kill Taker, it just has the greatest amount of good material basically.
^ da troof!
― Johnny Fever, Monday, 16 July 2012 21:45 (eleven years ago) link
nah. Might have been their best live period though - they were tight as hell and one of the best dance bands around.
― EZ Snappin, Monday, 16 July 2012 21:59 (eleven years ago) link
I like all Fugazi styles and albums to some degree, so I can appreciate how everyone has their own favorite period...but In on the Kill Taker so clearly seems like their finest work that idgi when people shrug it off.
― Johnny Fever, Monday, 16 July 2012 22:05 (eleven years ago) link
I think it's definitely their loudest and most confrontational, that's for sure. I like to play the first couple tracks for people and ask them to identify a single word.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 16 July 2012 22:43 (eleven years ago) link
I mean, like, YAAAARGH!!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoEkMD-1dCk
Yeah that song. I always hear it in my head as something like "Banned and blubber and definition, everybody wins and always plays, danny bones in another position" and then I can't even make up lyrics for the next line
― Will Chave (Hurting 2), Monday, 16 July 2012 22:47 (eleven years ago) link
Of course it has the great line "Irony is the refuge of the educated, always complaining and they never quit", which I would never have understood if I hadn't read it somewhere
― Will Chave (Hurting 2), Monday, 16 July 2012 22:48 (eleven years ago) link
This is my last picture!
― broom air, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 01:46 (eleven years ago) link
― da croupier, Monday, July 16, 2012 2:53 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark
it's their pop album! i really think you're overstating how much the clarinet and whatnot interfere with the songs
― some dude, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 01:51 (eleven years ago) link
it's a pretty grimy, spiny, unfriendly album in a way. like "combination lock" would have been a lot more...supple a couple years earlier or later. it's also my favorite album of theirs, but then i don't get tetchy when former hardcore dudes make grimy, spiny, unfriendly albums.
― big-mammed punisher (strongo hulkington's ghost dad), Tuesday, 17 July 2012 03:50 (eleven years ago) link
it's their pop album!
you're on crack
― da croupier, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 03:51 (eleven years ago) link
lol i like that you bused your insult in special from 1995
― some dude, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 03:53 (eleven years ago) link
you still haven't explained your glitch
― da croupier, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 03:55 (eleven years ago) link
they were tight as hell and one of the best dance bands around.
― EZ Snappin, Monday, July 16, 2012 5:59 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
many many people are on crack in this thread
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 03:56 (eleven years ago) link
but none so much as the h8rs! talk to the hand h8rs!
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 03:57 (eleven years ago) link
Fugazi were totally a dance band! Live they swung like motherfuckers.
― EZ Snappin, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 03:58 (eleven years ago) link
totally i recall doing all the dances, the twist, the cabbage patch, wild punching
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 04:00 (eleven years ago) link
do you mean dance as in what people do at dance clubs or dance as in what people do at phish concerts
― da croupier, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 04:01 (eleven years ago) link
i am a patient boy i frug i frug i frug i frug
― da croupier, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 04:02 (eleven years ago) link
i dunno it's obviously a facetious statement but if not RM what is their pop album? i guess maybe Repeater, not really familiar with 13 Songs. but when i think of Red Medicine i think of catchy stuff like "Target" and "Do You Like Me" and think of "By You" as their epic power ballad.
― some dude, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 04:02 (eleven years ago) link
hardcore kids talk about "dancing" even more than hippies (and mean it even more loosely)
i dunno it's obviously a facetious statement but if not RM what is their pop album?
would argue that 13 songs, repeater, kill taker and argument are all consistently more anthemic/catchy than medicine
― da croupier, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 04:05 (eleven years ago) link
fugazi were funky as hell. i mean they weren't *always* funky as hell because they were a rock band. but still.
13 songs and repeater are definitely the "pop" albums. argument simmers too long in the middle.
― big-mammed punisher (strongo hulkington's ghost dad), Tuesday, 17 July 2012 04:06 (eleven years ago) link
kill taker is probably the most pop in the sense that what they were doing was making mint for majors at the same time, argument the most lush production-wise, and yeah 13/repeater are non-stop anthems.
― da croupier, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 04:08 (eleven years ago) link
could see a couple of those. the noodly atmospheric stuff breaks The Argument's momentum way more than RM's for me (but in End Hits it feels all deliberately threaded into the songs in a satisfying way). maybe i'm just imagining it but i feel like RM has less of Ian's drill sergeant voice than a lot of the other records, a little less brute force in the riffs?
― some dude, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 04:08 (eleven years ago) link
a lack of strong riffs doesn't make it their "pop album" by any stretch
― da croupier, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 04:12 (eleven years ago) link
end hits and steady diet are the outliers for me. hardly ever listen to them. high highs, but a lot of filler. (i probably saw this band like 900 times and i cant remember them ever playing a song from steady diet.) (ian also should have left the "singing" to guy.)
― big-mammed punisher (strongo hulkington's ghost dad), Tuesday, 17 July 2012 04:14 (eleven years ago) link
you didn't hear reclamation 500 times? it was a live staple for a good while
― am0n, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 14:34 (eleven years ago) link
I've definitely heard Long Division live
― Will Chave (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 17 July 2012 14:49 (eleven years ago) link
actually I think I've heard a bunch of songs from that record live: Nice New Outfit, Stacks, Latin Roots, Runaway Return
― Will Chave (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 17 July 2012 14:51 (eleven years ago) link
xp yeah, I saw them maybe 5 times and heard "Long Division" at least twice.
― Chuck? Chuck? It's me, your cousin, Marvin D (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Tuesday, 17 July 2012 14:53 (eleven years ago) link
Reclamation was a highlight when I saw them in like 98? 99?
― Trip Maker, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 15:03 (eleven years ago) link
Think I saw them do KYEO, too. Steady Diet and Killtaker are the only Fugazi records I listen to with any regularity.
― Trip Maker, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 15:22 (eleven years ago) link
The book Dance of Days has a lengthy bit about the centrality of Reclamation to their live shows for a while.
Interesting to see the Steady Diet love.
― broom air, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 15:46 (eleven years ago) link
the only time i saw Fugazi live they played Reclamation first and held those first guitar notes for what felt like 5 minutes before the bass & drums came in. People were going nuts.
― zappi, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 15:49 (eleven years ago) link
randomly, steady diet ended up being my first fugazi record, cuz i was just buying one at random and i liked the title or something...sort of a weird intro to the band
― wack nerd zinging in the dead of night (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 17 July 2012 15:54 (eleven years ago) link
yeah that was kind of a fun thing of the pre-internet era, having these random and sometimes "wrong" entry points based on what was in the store or what had a cool cover/title
― some dude, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 15:59 (eleven years ago) link