Mark E. Smith

Mark E. Smith was the lead vocalist, songwriter, bandleader, and general mastermind of the Fall, the longest-lived and most prolific band of the British post-punk movement. Smith's uncompromisingly abrasive music and bitterly cranky persona made him a cult icon in underground rock circles, and even if the Fall's appeal was far from universal, their harsh experimentalism left a huge imprint on '90s indie rock. Notoriously confrontational and difficult to work with, Smith had a penchant for firing bandmembers on whims, yet the Fall's sound remained essentially the same: jagged, ...