The Fall

A crucial inspiration to several generations of bands, the Fall virtually defined the late-1970s UK post-punk sound. Fall vocalist Mark E. Smith's sung/spoken rants may owe more to beat poetry than rock & roll, but his sociopolitical iconoclasm and the band's angular, cutting riffs and rhythms placed them squarely at the forefront of Britain's first major post-Pistols musical movement. In the '80s, their rough, guitar-based sounded expanded with the introduction of keyboards and more sophisticated production (largely due to the arrival of Smith's wife Brix as a band member), and personnel came and went, but Smith kept his ragtag rock army soldiering on all the way into the 21st century.

• rock