Seminal Live

Seminal Live
Studio album / Live album by
Released26 June 1989
Recorded1988 in Vienna and Manchester, 1989 in Rochdale and Edinburgh
GenrePost-punk
Length
  • 41:13 (vinyl)
  • 59:59 (CD/cassette)
LabelBeggars Banquet
Producer
The Fall chronology
I Am Kurious Oranj
(1988)
Seminal Live
(1989)
Extricate
(1990)

Seminal Live is a 1989 album by English rock band The Fall, recorded partly in the studio and partly at live performances in 1988. The album was the last to be released by the group through Beggars Banquet Records, and as such is often seen as a "contractual obligation" album. It was also the last Fall album to feature Brix Smith, former wife of the lead singer Mark E. Smith, until her return for 1995's Cerebral Caustic.

The studio recordings on Seminal Live were all new songs and make up the first five tracks of the album—side one on the original vinyl release. The live recordings on side two, meanwhile, are all versions of previously-released tracks.

In a 2006 interview with The Pseud Mag fanzine, keyboardist Marcia Schofield called Seminal Live "the worst piece of shit I have ever worked on [...] Talk about exhausted and out of ideas. It was one of those-we've just come off tour and have to make a record so what shit covers can we bung on it?-album".[1]