Mark E. Smith, acerbic leader of The Fall, dies at 60

Mark E. Smith, founder and frontman of the UK band The Fall, has died at the age of 60. The band’s manager, Pam Vander, said in a written statement, “He passed this morning (24th January) at home. A more detailed statement will follow in the next few days.”

The Fall is known as one of the defining post-punk bands of the mid-1980s, mixing punk’s acerbic attitude with various elements of krautrock, garage rock and art rock. At the center was Smith, speak-shouting his way through class-politics diatribes and stories of scummy people.

Smith was born in 1957 north of Manchester, England, to a working-class family. He formed The Fall in the late ’70s, and in a four-decade career the band put out 32 albums along with a number of EPs, live records and guest appearances with other bands. Smith was famously difficult: He’s the only constant in The Fall’s long string of lineups, and he was arrested in 1998 for assaulting his then-girlfriend, keyboard player Julie Nagle.

In 2017 Smith was hospitalized and had to cancel tour dates, returning to the stage in a wheelchair later in the year. His influence can be heard throughout punk and other styles today; as the news spread today, artists such as Billy Bragg and Liz Phair tweeted their remembrances.

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