The Fall made bass the lead instrument and inverted white-rock values

Evidence

Steve Hanley’s bass rumbles and thumps like some implacable earth-moving machine invented by a deranged underground race, not so much rising from subterranea as dragging the sound down into a troglodytic goblin kingdom in which ordinary sonic values are inverted. From now on, and for all the records that really matter, Hanley’s bass will be the lead instrument, the monstrous foundations on which the Fall’s upside-down sound will be built. Like Joy Division, fellow modernists from Manchester, the Fall scramble the grammar of white rock by privileging rhythm over melody. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1107

Categorization

• SHARE: For a music-head friend into post-punk bassists — Hanley as monstrous foundations inverting white rock grammar.
• XREF: connects to: The Fall’s album cover art staged a deliberate aesthetic war with prog rock — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1129; The Fall’s aggression was formal disassembly of rock, not mere force — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1161

Broader Connections

• The Fall’s aggression was formal disassembly of rock, not mere force #expands (0.85) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1161
• The Fall’s album cover art staged a deliberate aesthetic war with prog rock #expands (0.75) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1129