Customer Reviews

Cut the Crap

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

"Cut the Crap" is by far the worst Clash album ever recorded, to the extent that it's not even considered a real Clash album by most people. This is in part due to singer/song-writer Joe Strummer completely denouncing the album, which in essence made it alright for everyone else to as well. Yet how many people have really even listened to it? Most reviews simply say this album is terrible and leave it at that, but as the Clash's swan song it at least deserves a review.

Aside from the lack of Mick Jones, there are a few key differences between this album and other Clash albums. Joe Strummers songs are mediocre; not terrible, while the production is awful. The songs often sound overly synthed, like the worst of all 80's music, and provide a strong contrast to the intended grittiness of the album. The grittiness, for that mattter, doesn't particularly work either. Strummer's otherwise alright songs are ruined by three punk kids snarling and shouting the choruses as if they've been drinking in a pub. It certianly adds an element of intensity missing from Combat Rock, yet even at it's best it's merely distracting. After three excellent diverse rock albums, returning to stripped down punk just seems a little bit regressive.

And on the plus side? Strummer's voice sounds pretty good, not great, but it's still Strummer wailing away. A few of the songs make this new sound work as well, "Dictator," is great and raw, while the slow "This Is England" is surprisingly haunting and atmospheric, with a chorus ("This is England/This is hell...") that's probably the most memorable thing on the album.

I still can't recommend this album to anyone, even the biggest Clash fans, but I just wanted to point out that it's not completely without merit: some advocates of raw 80s punk might actually enjoy this. Fans of the Clash's early material and of later punk movements occasionally do embrace this album as underrated, but fans of the band's best, most experimental work such as Sandinsta, no matter how open minded, will likely be unable to listen to this all the way through. Every other Clash album, even b-side collections and live albums, have almost unlimited replay value, but this Cd gathers dust in just about every collection. If you've already collected all of the other material by the Clash, allow me to suggest trying Joe Strummer's latest two solo CDs, Rock Art and X-Ray style and Global A-Go-Go. They're fantastic, mature and sincere, and like the Clash's best work, draw from a variety of influences. They're everything this album isn't.

You wouldn't get into many fights going around saying Cut The Crap wasn't the best Clash album. Released in their final year of trading (1985), imagine a Beatles album recorded in 1971 without Paul or Ringo. The mighty Topper Headon had left under a drugs cloud in '82, and co-songwriter Mick Jones was thrown out in '83, but Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon (casting themselves as the "wise men") soldiered on with three "street kids" (according to the sleeve), and recorded this 40-minute suicide note, under whose wonky beatbox, Pistols riffs and terrace anthems Strummer's unique personality is buried. It contains a song called "We Are The Clash", but they weren't - The Clash were the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world.

...and this is The Clash's. Had it been released as a Joe Strummer solo record, it might not have inspired the vitriol that it did on original release. But that Strummer and manager Bernie Rhoades had the nads to include "We Are The Clash" as a song pretty much guaranteed that "Cut The Crap" was soon going to be known as "Pull The Plug." There was exactly one great song here in "This Is England." I have since dropped "Cut The Crap" from my library since that song's appearance on "The Essential Clash."

Other than that, if you must have all that The Clash and their spin-offs have recorded, "Dictator" and "Movers and Shakers" have some appeal. Tis a skippable CD, afterwards.

Cut the Crap (1985) was the results of some vocal tracks Joe Strummer laid down and Bernie Rhodes and a group of Session musicians and a drum machine. Paul Simonon
plays on two tracks whilst Nick Sheppard adds vocals on
North and South. These are the only contributions from the band. Instead of working on the new material the band was rehersing on the road (Ammunition, Glue Zombie, Pouring Rain). Bernie Rhodes used only some of the new songs and made the album into a synth-pop one instead of a punk
rock disc. After releasing the single This Is England (a great song live or studio) this synth-pop disc hit the stores but it wasn't a fiancial or crtitcal sucess.

The lyrics are great and have heavy political and social meanings but they're buried under the over produced music.
Tracks like Cool Under Heat, Movers and Shakers, This is England and Three Card Trick are great but the rest of the songs are just badly produced. Rhodes should have given the band some studio time to record this album instead of taking it out of their hands. People, you must realize the band had little or no input on this album. Rhodes even credited himself as co-writer of all the songs on this disc.
Please keep this in mind next time you want to say The Clash sucked without Mick Jones. IF you've heard them live you'd say different.

Recommended for Joe Strummer fans.

Cut the Crap was a progressive CD in a line of thought-provoking releases by The Clash. Embracing new technology and a modified line up, the band began to write a new chapter in that timeless classic known as The Clash. It did not do so by using the existing sound formulated by the previous line-up, rather it did so with a strong guitar sound and sampling technology. However, the same socio-political lyrical undercurrent can still be heard, especially in songs such as "Dictator" and "This is England". This CD took the Clash into a new sound and, in my opinion, did not get the recognition it deserved.

Usually when bands implode it is done through the dreaded phone call to a band member(s) who is getting sacked from the former friends & business agent, the musician showing up to a "scheduled" recording session and nobody is around or the final mix for a CD somehow dropping the (now former) band member.

For The Clash, though, it was taken to a new level with - for a time - two bands with the name and this final studio release for the group - session musicians and a drum machine - being fronted by Joe Strummer, with songwriting and production "assistance" from manager Bernie Rhodes.

It is a mess, as the songs - besides This Is England - would not have made the final cut in previous albums and the instruments buried in a muddy mix. Arguably the best musician throughout is the drum machine, but rumors remain that it even wanted to flee the studio.

The rift between Strummer and Mick Jones had been growing for years and this final product was the acrimony still being played out after Jones was sacked. In its glory years, the band wrote songs that oftentimes took aim at the bloated greed of the music industry. But in the end, the band could not survive the gluttonous egos that seemed more fitting for any number of generic stadium-rock ensembles.

Of course this doesn't compare to the best of The Clash, and Joe Strummer's subsequent solo work has also been much stronger, but this isn't bad. Songs like Dictator, This is England and Fingerpoppin', are really catchy, well written, rockin' tunes. What's totally missing on this album is any taste or subtlety in the production. Techno drums and samples that sound cheesy instead of cool, dumb choruses that sound like they're shouted by about 25 people, and over-distorted guitars that sound like they're trying just a little too hard to be tough. If you could take these same songs and just produce them differently, this would be a pretty strong album.

While I will readily admit that this version of the Clash isnothing compared to the classic lineup, I will not say that this albumis horrible. What were you all listening to in 1985? Boy George and Culture Club? This album still retains some of the fury of earlier Clash recordings, but it still falls well short of classics like "White Man in Hammersmith Palais," "Safe European Home," and "Spanish Bombs." There is an abundance of melody throughout "Cut the Crap," as indicated by brilliant tracks like "Dirty Punk," "This is England," and "North and South." There is a quite a bit of the old anger and pissed-off attitude missing in Joe Strummer's vocals and lyrics, but was anyone really expecting this revamped lineup to sound anything like the one that produced that musical milestone known as "London Calling?" In the end, this band only faintly resembles the one that had blistered its way through that masterpiece six years prior. There is a lot of electronic sampling and synth keyboards throughout "Cut the Crap," which is more comparable to the work that Mick Jones would do in Big Audio Dynamite than to anything the classic lineup of Strummer, Jones, Simonon, and Headon ever produced. Yes, Strummer co-wrote all of the songs with the band's manager, Bernard Rhodes, and yes, Rhodes may have gotten carried away with the production of this album. But let's be honest. While Mick Jones was an essential element in the workings of the Clash, serving to write some of the most catchy guitar hooks in recent memory, he wasn't the only member of the band. Bassist Paul Simonon is on board for "Cut the Crap," as is the band's drummer from "Combat Rock."Do yourself a favor and BUY THIS ALBUM. Just don't expect it to sound much like "London Calling" or "Give 'Em Enough Rope," or any of the band's classic albums for that matter. First listen to some of the band's electronically enhanced dub experiments on "Sandinista!," add a helluvalot of melody, some rogue punk gang vocals, and you'll have some type of an idea of what awaits you on "Cut the Crap."

I don't know why this album now sounds better to me than it did when I bought it in '85 or '86, but it does. As every other reviewer has stated, it's not really the Clash, but it's a pretty good collection of Joe Strummer songs. "This is England" is a wonderful song, and there are several other reasonably good songs. It would sound much better if it weren't so poorly produced (slick'n'stupid), but the songs themselves are solid. I hadn't listened to it in probably ten years, but got it out the other night and had to listen to it a couple of times in a row. If nothing else, it will make you wish the Clash had stayed together, and continued making brilliant records.

Reaching into my record bin, and dusting off the Clash's final album "Cut the Crap" (what an awful title), I gave it another listen this morning. This album had found a rather indifferent audience in me when I had bought it originally. I could hardly remember any of the album's music. But I was pretty much taken by surprise with how much I now liked this album, especially side 2, which is where I started. (Since it begins with "This Is England", one song I do remember liking about the album). .
Elements of reggae, rock, rap, pop, dance and punk all share the space here. My first reaction was that this is not a punk rock record, but (at the risk of sounding ridiculous) world music. Every song on side two is a winner, with the anthem "This Is England" and the pop sounding "North and South" being the standouts. Although not as strong as side two, side one has great material in "Are You Red..y", "Cool Under Heat", and the standout of side one "Movers and Shakers".
Some problems I had with this record were simple ones. The title "Cut the Crap" is awful. Joe should have done better than that. And the album's order is flipped. "This Is England", which starts side two, should have started the album off. Matter of fact I think the sides should have been flipped. Side one should have been side two and vice versa. Regarding how the album starts out, the first three songs cling too much to the bands past (summed up in the album's low point song, "We are the Clash"). Joe should have let it go, and taken the new direction he obviously wanted to take.
In summary, I had this album wrong. I bought this album when I was 24. Now I'm 40. Maybe it was my youth, maybe I didn't want some of the beats Joe was pumping out at that time. But In hindsight, I think this album has aged extremely well and I rank it up some of Joe's best work. It is nothing he should have been ashamed of. And I wish I could have appreciated it when it was released.