The death of Mark E. Smith is unlikely to have come as a major surprise for fans of the band. I doubted at one point he would make fifty let alone sixty but it is still inevitably sad when someone blessed with his talent and originality finally passes away.

In the last five years or so, Mark had finally succumbed to something of a creative slump. Their final album, New Facts Emerge, proved to be a definite disappointment and I only listened to it three or four times. Since then I’ve had to come round to the conclusion that The Fall would never again scale the artistic heights of yesteryear such as Hex Enduction Hour and This Nation’s Saving Grace.

Even when nowhere near their best, though, The Fall continued to be a more interesting prospect than just about any band that has emerged in the last decade or so.

And as I wrote last March in a post celebrating Smith’s sixtieth birthday: ‘Length-wise, The Fall did enjoy a just about unparalleled spell of longevity as one of Britain’s most exciting and innovative bands.’

Staying relevant and artistically potent for over three decades with a massive discography of marvelously off-kilter, inventive, unpredictable and sometimes genuinely surreal music – that is an utterly remarkable achievement. And Mark is one of the few artists of any kind that I would ever describe as a genius.

He is appreciated and so he should be.

This is Mark guesting with Gorillaz at the main stage at Glastonbury in 2010 with the glam stomping Glitter Freeze:

 
Mark Edward Smith
5 March 1957 – 24 January 2018