“Athlete Cured” by The Fall

"Athlete Cured" comes off The Frenz Experiment, the Fall's tenth studio album, which Beggars Banquet put out on 29 February 1988 (Mark E. Smith had first wanted to call it Gene Crime Experience, until he clocked the initials). Smith sings lead and takes the composer credit, with Steve Hanley on bass, Simon Wolstencroft on drums, Craig Scanlon and Brix Smith on guitars and Marcia Schofield on keyboards and synthesizer.

Anyone who hears Spinal Tap's "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight" in it isn't imagining things. Hanley admitted in his autobiography, The Big Midweek, that the band had been thrashing through the Tap tune at soundchecks and Smith decided to keep what came out, without even the usual disguise of a new tempo or key. Producer Simon Rogers, who also played saxophone, acoustic guitar and synthesizer on it, was irked enough by the borrowing that he nearly walked off the job.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.