Customer Reviews

Cut

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4 star:		(7)
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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.

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.

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...

Even now, 25 years after first hearing this album, I feel The Slits are an acquired taste. I bought this album as a 15 year-old who'd just gotten into punk, expecting another exhilarating blast of British punk along the lines of The Damned or The Adverts. What I heard was so alien to me that I put the album away for ten years. It wasn't until I was in my 20s that I gave Cut another spin and finally understood what I was hearing: three girls (and drummer Budgie, later of Siouxsie and the Banshees fame) exploring their musical passions with no restrictions, crafting something that was impossible to categorize or pigeon hole. It was, I realized, exhilarating in its own special way. How much more punk can you get than a band you can't easily explain to your friends?

The Slits began life as the classic DIY punk band - they literally could not play, and made a bunch of loud, primitive, and wonderful noise. Watch them in Don Letts' The Punk Rock Movie with original drummer Palmolive; four girls who can't play and don't give a damn, doing their thing on tour with The Clash. Then something incredible happened: instead of plateauing as a three-chord punk band (Anti-Pasti, The Exploited, et al), cranking out a new album every 10 months, the girls discovered dub and reggae, and kept playing and playing, getting better and better, re-configuring their songs and their sound, and finally released their debut, Cut, a couple of years after they formed.

If you're open-minded and are willing to wade into some new sounds (or at least some sounds you don't expect), I can't recommend Cut more highly. Instead of a bunch of technically-accomplished snobs like The Police, you have three uninhibited young women writing and recording whatever they were feeling, without worrying about conforming to anyone else's standards or ideas of what a punk or reggae band should look or sound like. It's a refreshing blast of positive female energy, and 30 years later, it still sounds new.

This 2-disc Deluxe Edition contains what every Slits fan needs - the original album, the John Peel sessions (which captured the band early on, when they were still more punk than reggae), two versions of their outstanding cover of "I Heard it Through the Grapevine," four 8-track demos, and the entire album all over again, in its original rough mix. Lest you think all the extras here are extraneous repetition, listen to the original album version of "Typical Girls" on disc one, then listen to the rough mix on disc two. I've been listening to the album version of this song for years, and I'm telling you, the rough mix is a revelation. For the first time, Viv Albertine's guitar is way louder than the piano during the chorus, imbuing the song with a far earthier and organic sound, and the Slits-esque harmonies are stripped from the chorus, leaving just singer Ari Up singing the simple, yet incredibly catchy melody. Her voice is strong and solid, just what was needed on this song. It's so much cooler than the version that wound up on the album, you wonder whose decision it was go with the much busier version.

Just one of many surprises on this long overdue Deluxe Edition of one of the great overlooked post-punk classics.

And, again, the beauty of CD's adding extra trax. Who can beat that. 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine' was always one of their special songs that's a delight to find here.

What's with the SLITS? Nobody like them before or since. Really feels like their own musical journey they took experimenting and, in the main, successfully, in a direction few have ever gone again that I'm aware of.

They melded that reggae feel into several of their songs that a number of early punk bands were happy to also do on occasional song. These gals though wove it more intricatly into the songs DNA so to speak.

Plus a number of their other songs feel like they deconstructed the classic pop song in the name of punk and feminism and reconstructed them as they wished to create something that often hit the mark, occasionally feeling like indulgence. In a real sense they are part of the roots of Riot grrl along with the RAINCOATS, KLEENEX, BUSH TETRAS, X-RAY SPEX and I'm sure someone else.

Ok, it's a nice album cover. What? None of my other favorite bands took their shirts off and covered themselves in mud. I'm confident they did this cover in the name of freedom of self rather than of exploitation.

There's not a lot out there that the SLITS did. This is their main release. With the addition of the two extra trax yer gettin' a lot of what they did. That's why I'd highly recommend the Peel sessions CD as well which is quite worth hearing and not simply a recreation of this album. chrisbct@hotmail.com

I hear friends (others) complain about the supposed "slickness" of this lp. But consider it was recorded by dub producer denis bovell-with the backing of Island-and if one is only vaguely familiar with dub production-even the rarest dub singles (i own 100 +) are if nothing else, instrumentally "clean" (as with rare/underground disco-funk of late 70's early 80's) the result then, comes as no surprise. But its this very dub slickness that lends the otherwise messy/noisy (but enjoyable) slits a rather strange (enigmatic) niceness-much less obvious than current punk's sequined(or otherwise) desire to "sound" raw/angry.

One of the first female punk bands of the late seventies was the Slits. Never heard of them? You should. They toured with better known acts such as the Clash and White Riot, but did not gain the long-term fame and attention of their tour mates. Koch Records has recently reissued their 1979 recording Cut on CD with two bonus tracks, "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and "Liebe and Romanze."

When the band formed in 1976, none of the members could play instruments very well, but thanks to the punk movement of the time, that was no impediment to their musical creation. Cut has minimal instrumentation, with heavy emphasis on vocals and percussion, but it works. The producer, Dennis Bovell, came from a reggae background, and this is evident in the recording. The combination of reggae and punk stylings with a feminist approach to rock music gives the recording its unique sound.

It is obvious that the Slits influenced many of the all-girl bands of the 80s like the Go-Go's and others. The retro music revolution that is sweeping through modern indie bands should pause and take a page from the Slits, as well. Their use of repetitive musical and non-musical sounds, call-and-response, and emphasis on lyrical song crafting are techniques well worth paying attention to.

Don't expect to find this band on your top 40 radio station or MTV (do they even show videos anymore?), but if the music directors at the college stations are paying attention, this reissue will be heating up the CMJ charts, if it isn't already.

This album was so huge to me during high school. Crazy and quite "far out", this is music not many folks ever heard. It will put you in a trance if you are in the right mood. Plus, even if the music sucked (which it didn't), the album cover is still one of the best ever!

You could look high and low, and you'll never find another record like this. Most, if not all of the songs on this album are re-structured punk songs, in a laid-back, reggae influenced mood. It works perfectly. You've got some really inspired women, making a sound that has never quite been duplicated.

The production on this record is almost as beautiful as the cover photo. Vocal harmonies, acoustic guitar, drum rolls, and sound effects pop in and out of the mix throughout the disc, making this a very special listen.

If you enjoy this, I also recommend the Raincoats first record and the first two New Age Steppers CD's (both of which have several songs with the Slits singer on vocals)

Oh, a little trivia. The song "So Tough" is about Sid Vicious, who went out with one of the band members for awhile.

this is one of my favorite albums. the music is quirky, hooky, and very fun to listen to!! its the only album i own by The Slits and i'd like to get more but i'm kind of strapped for cash right now... my favorite songs include "Ping Pong Affair", "Typical Girls", "So Tough" and "Newtown" but everything on this album rocks. i'm suprised more people haven't heard their cover "Heard it Through the Grapevine", its great!!...