Cut [Extra tracks]

Slits | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 25, 2005)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Extra tracks
• Label: Koch Records
• ASIN: B0006UEVEU
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #108,679 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Sprung from the same UK punk scene as the Clash, the Slits are more often lumped in with all-female groups like Switzerland’s Liliput. It's a logical impulse, but the truth--as ever--is more complicated. For one thing, they weren't all female after Palmolive left to join the Raincoats and Budgie (Siouxsie and the Banshees) stepped in as drummer. Then there's the unclassifiable musical concoction reggae producer Dennis Bovell helped them create. It's punk, it's no wave, it's dub--and ultimately has more in common with the post-punk of PiL or the Pop Group. Met with critical accolades, Cut failed to ignite the charts and was their only recording for Island (they broke up two years later). This welcome reissue features revealing liner notes--in both senses of the word--and two bonus tracks, an off-kilter "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and an extended version of "Love Und Romance." --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Product Description

Originally released in 1979, this is the debut from British all-girl post-punk band The Slits. The Slits mixed a punk attitude and D.I.Y style with reggae rhythms and dub recording techniques. 180 gram vinyl. --This text refers to the Vinyl edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Far out, February 25, 2005

By 

alexander laurence (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cut (Audio CD)

I was definitely into the first wave of English Punk as it happened. I was into The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Buzzcocks, Siouxsie, and The Damned. But the time I heard about the Slits, I had already moved on to the post-punk music of bands like Gang of Four and Magazine. The local LA hardcore scene was going on too. I was this close (hand gesture) to buying this album in 1979. Later I would see Ari Up play at a CMJ festival in 2001 or so. Now I hear this record, I feel that I might have missed out on something. Like a lot of kids at the time, I was into reggae and ska music. The Slits took that background and turned it into something really original. This record is like the missing link between Siouxsie and Metal Box. As you see, many of the records of the time were trying to do something new and push the form forward. Punk rock was the smallest box imaginable to peep out from. At the time we thought that it was a good thing that the Sex Pistols broke up. It was good that The Clash and PIL did a bunch of albums that sounded differently. We did not think that bands like The Ramones and The Damned would be doing the same thing for twenty years. So this is a brilliant record. The record company did get them to do "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" as a commercial ploy. They released "Typical Girls" instead. The album "Cut" did make it into the UK Top 40. That was all the success they had. Their second album bombed and they broke up a few years later.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars True "punk" music of its time, April 24, 2003

By 

Carlos Santos "cmsanto" (Trenton, nj United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cut (Audio CD)

Oh, in the day, so to speak, either you knew this band or you didn't. If you didn't you weren't a "punk". Back in '78-'79, the music scene was ever evolving. A Punk band meant anybody who could pick up a musical instrument and create something wonderful with that instrument. The Slits were and are a prime example. The music is very sparse, the vocals raw, and sound as influenced by reggae as the punk sounds of the time. The music was anti-consumerism, anti-conformism, anti-suburbia. As in the best punk bands of the time they were more against the perceived middle class social values of the time (values that both Europe and the U.S. had embraced) and not really for anything. They were a perfect example of the rebellion of the time.

I remember seeing this band in a small club in Massachusetts. The audience was a combination of punk rockers, curiosity seekers, and a small group of bikers who were obviously very much excited at seeing a band advertised on local posters with the naked women on the Cut album cover. Right into the first song these very tough and drunk guys started to shove people aside so that they could stand in front of the stage and taunt the band with sexist remarks. Well Avi wasn't going to have anything like this at her show and quickly showed the goons who was in charge. She took her microphone, swung it out and proceeded to hit the idiots on the head with the swinging mic. Well after they left in pain (don't remember if they were led out or left voluntarily) the band proceeded to give us all a rousing good show. Typical girls indeed. They were one of many great bands from a time when the best music and the best bands were to be found outside of the charts.

Does it sound as good today as then? No, not really, the sound is somewhat dated, but there's still a lot there if one gives it a chance. And for anyone remoted interested in the music from the great end of the decade that 1977-1979 was, Cut is certainly a must buy. It is not the punk rock that you would expect from the descendents of the Ramones, The Sex Pistols, and the Clash.
It is the punk rock that those who knew punk rock then understood and loved.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't sleep on this one - one of the most underrated, ignored albums ever!, December 31, 2005

By 

G. Mitchell "greggmitch" (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cut (Audio CD)

I bought this on LP when it came out on import LP in 1979 and have waited for a CD reissue ever since - thanks KOCH for putting out a nice package, with personal, insightful liner notes and amazing bonus tracks, including the infamous reggae-dub cover of "I HEAR IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE" that Island chief Chris Blackwell allegedly tried to get the girls to release to radio in place of the far-more-hard-sell "TYPICAL GIRLS" -and maybe things would have been different for The Slits? No matter, CUT is one of the best post-punk/dub/reggae/no-wave/whatever you want to call it albums ever - criminally ignored, often overlooked, but still highly influencial - one listen and you'll know why - with their riddum-dub basslines and infectious chattering call-&-response vocals, The Slits (not trained musicians) managed to concoct a ground-breaking, if off-kilter krew. Pals of THE CLASH and DON LETTS, The Slits were at least two decades ahead of their time. Maybe that's why they weren't a big success the first time out? No one knew quite to make of 'em, much less girls. But along with other circa 1979 LPs like THE CLASH'S LONDON CALLING, PUBLIC IMAGE's PUBLIC IMAGE, BOOMTOWN RATS's THE FINE ART OF SURFACING, THE B-52S and PRETENDERS self-titled debuts and many others, you realize what an amazing year 1979 was for music, smashing rules and finding a bright new path ahead. That was then, this is now...