Middle Class Revolt

The album included two songs previously released as singles, "Behind the Counter" (December 1993 – UK no. 75) and "15 Ways" (April 1994 – UK no. 65), although different versions of both were included on the album. A further five tracks from the album featured as B-sides across the formats of these singles, and, although most were different versions, this meant that the album only contained seven songs that were new to fans upon its release, three of which were cover versions. In addition, "Hey! Student" is a reworked version of "Hey! Fascist", which The Fall used to play live in their early days (as shown by its inclusion on Live 1977). The album's cover versions were less mainstream than some of their other recent choices: "War", originally by Henry Cow and Slapp Happy, "Shut Up!", originally by The Monks (whom The Fall had already covered twice on 1990's Extricate) and a bizarre version of "Junk Man", originally by The Groundhogs. According to Daryl Easlea's sleeve notes for the 2006 reissue, Mark E. Smith prevailed upon the group to deliver the song from memory and, as a result, was backed by minimal drums, bass, kazoo and some tuneless hollering from Burns. "Symbol of Mordgan" is based upon a recording of Scanlon discussing a football match by telephone on John Peel's Saturday afternoon programme. Middle Class Revolt is, as Easlea notes, not a uniformly popular album amongst the group's fans. Nevertheless, it houses some popular tracks. Indeed, "Hey! Student" attained the number 2 position in John Peel's 1994 Festive Fifty, beaten to the top only by Inspiral Carpets' "I Want You", which featured Smith as guest vocalist. ==Reception==

}} The album received a rating of 3.5 stars out of 5 from AllMusic, with Ted Mills describing it as "a mixture of lackluster performances and songs filled with vigor and fury". ==Track listing==

The album was controversial for its writing credits, in which all Fall originals were credited to Mark E. Smith, Craig Scanlon and Steve Hanley, despite some of the tracks having already been credited differently on the preceding single releases. According to drummer Simon Wolstencroft (who claimed to have co-written "Middle Class Revolt" and "City Dweller"), there was "a misprint on the credits due to a cock-up at the record label". • Some CD editions erroneously list "War" as track 13, although the actual running order on CD is correct. • There are also CD editions where "War" is in fact track 13, as listed on the CD. 2006 edition The album was remastered and reissued by Castle Music as an expanded two-disc set in 2006. The second disc included the group's 17th session for John Peel, alternate mixes of several album tracks previously issued on singles and a clutch of rare or previously unheard remixes. Disc one • As per original release Disc two ==Personnel==

;The Fall • Mark E. Smith – vocals, tapes • Craig Scanlon – guitar, voice on "Symbol of Mordgan" • Steve Hanley – bass guitar, backing vocals • Simon Wolstencroft – drums, programming • Karl Burns – drums, percussion, guitar, vocals, motorcycle on "You're Not Up to Much", kazoo on "Junk Man" • Dave Bush – keyboards, programming, whistle, backing vocals ;Additional personnel • John Peel – voice on "Symbol of Mordgan" ;Technical • Rex Sargeant – production, engineering • Alex Lee – assistant engineer • Richard Wheelan – assistant engineer • Pascal Le Gras – cover art • Ian Baldwin – layout ==References==