| If I Should Fall from Grace with God | ||||
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| Studio album by The Pogues | ||||
| Released | January 1988 | |||
| Genre | Celtic punk, folk punk | |||
| Length | 51:43 | |||
| Label | Island | |||
| Producer | Steve Lillywhite | |||
| The Pogues chronology | ||||
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| Alternative Cover | ||||
If I Should Fall from Grace with God is a 1988 album by The Pogues. It reached number 3 in the UK album charts.
Contents |
The album was a departure from previous Pogues albums, which had focused on an Irish folk/punk hybrid, combining musical radicalism with strong commercial appeal. On If I Should Fall From Grace with God several more genres were added to this mixture, including Jazz, Spanish folk and Middle Eastern folk. The adding of Spanish and Middle Eastern sounds was a sign of things to come; on later albums such as 1990's Hell's Ditch these would become the defining sound. On this album, however, it was very much Irish folk to the fore, especially on songs such as the title track, "Bottle of Smoke", "Lullaby of London", "Sit Down By The Fire", and the rendition of the traditional jig "The Lark in the Morning" as the coda to "Turkish Song Of The Damned". These songs were more typical of the earlier Pogues albums, mostly fast and heavily textured. The album was also the first by the band to utilize a complete drum kit.
Also prominent on the album were the ballads "Thousands Are Sailing", "The Broad Majestic Shannon" and especially the Christmas hit, a duet with Kirsty MacColl, "Fairytale of New York". "Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six" showed a passionate and angry political side to their music, the first part being about the sorrow a person feels about the streets of Northern Ireland, and the second half about the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four, two groups of people wrongly imprisoned for terrorism offences and held in jail. The song also makes a passing reference to the Loughgall Martyrs with the line "while over in Ireland eight more men lay dead, kicked down and shot in the back of the head".
If I Should Fall from Grace with God marked the most substantial line-up change to date for The Pogues, as it was the first full-length album on which multi-instrumentalist Terry Woods and bassist Darryl Hunt appear. It also marked the first departure of one of the original members, former bassist Cait O'Riordan.
The alternative album cover is a collage of faked photos of the group's members, in which their faces have been superimposed onto a shot of Irish author James Joyce. The version with Joyce himself appears fourth from the left.
Due to time restriction of a vinyl LP the two tracks "South Australia" and "The Battle March Medley" have been omitted and can be found only on the CD release.
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | [1] |
| Robert Christgau | (B+)[2] |
If I Should Fall from Grace with God was well-received by critics. Mark Deming of Allmusic awarded the album four and a half out of five stars, calling it "the best album the Pogues would ever make."[1] Robert Christgau gave the album a B+ and said that "neither pop nor rock nor disco crossover stays these groghounds from the swift accomplishment of their appointed rounds."[2]
In 2006, Q magazine placed the album at #37 in its list of "40 Best Albums of the '80s".[3]
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