Cut (The Slits album)

Cut is the debut studio album by English punk band the Slits, released on 7 September 1979. It was recorded at Ridge Farm Studios in Rusper and produced by Dennis Bovell. The album was praised by later acts such as Kurt Cobain and Massive Attack.

Cut
Studio album by
the Slits
Released7 September 1979
Recorded1979
StudioRidge Farm Studio, Rusper, England
Genre
Length31:52
LabelIsland
ProducerDennis Bovell
The Slits chronology
Cut
(1979)		 Bootleg Retrospective
(1980)

Composition

Musically, Cut works in an "innovative" fusion of punk and reggae.[1] It also incorporates "restless [and] offbeat" art pop.[2]

Release and reception
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[3]
Blender[4]
Christgau's Record GuideB+[5]
Pitchfork9.3/10[6]
Record Collector[7]
Rolling Stone[1]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[8]
Smash Hits9/10[9]
Sounds[10]
Spin Alternative Record Guide10/10[11]

The album was originally released on 7 September 1979 on the Island Records label in the UK and on Antilles in the US. It reached number 30 on the UK album charts at the time.[12] In 2004, it was voted 58th in The Observer's 100 Greatest British Albums list.[13] The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[14] In 2020, Rolling Stone ranked the album at number 260 in its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.[15]

Andy Kellman for AllMusic called it "entirely fun and catchy" despite its "less-than-polished nature and street-tough ruggedness".[3] Robert Christgau applauded it, writing that "for once" there was "a white reggae style that rival[ed] its models for weirdness and formal imagination."[5]

Cut's mark has been noted on several musical movements. "A post-punk masterpiece", it paved the genre's direction alongside fellow 1979 releases the Pop Group's Y and PiL's Metal Box.[16] The Guardian's Lindesay Irvine saw the album explore "adventurous" sonics while maintaining a "defiant" attitude. This included a full embrace of Jamaican music influences, with which he credited the Slits as one of the first bands to do so.[17] Indeed, PopMatters felt that Cut spoke to post-punk's appropriation of dub and reggae clearer than any other of the genre's records.[18] Irvine argued that it inspired later post-punk acts like Culture Club to "[get] their nerve up".[17] PopMatters said that Cut's most influential aspect was singer Ari Up's "wailing vibrato and gnashing power" that would be revamped during the movement.[18]

Cut is credited with shaping the 1990s musical movement riot grrrl.[1][19] Rolling Stone wrote that the scene's bands Bikini Kill and Sleater-Kinney came to be because of it.[1]

Bands to whom Cut has been appreciated by and/or influential to include Sleater-Kinney and trip hop group Massive Attack.[20] In his posthumously released journals, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain listed Cut (as "Typical Girls") as one of his 50 favorite records of all time.[21]

Accolades
Publication Country List Year Rank Ref.
Fact UK The 100 Best Albums of the 1970s
-
42
[22]
NME The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time 2013
278
[23]
Paste US The 50 Best Post-Punk Albums 2016
11
[19]
PopMatters The Best Post-Punk Albums Ever 2020
4
[18]
Rolling Stone The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time 2020
260
[24]
Treble The Top 100 Post-Punk Albums 2018
24
[25]
The Top 150 Albums of the '70s 2019
132
[26]

Reissues

Cut was re-released on CD in Europe in 1990 and in 2000 within the Island Master series (IMCD 90 and IMCD 275). In 2004, Koch Records licensed the master to Cut from Island Def Jam (who still held the rights to the album) and reissued the album on CD for the first time ever in the United States; previously, the album had been only available to Stateside fans on CD as an English import, since the album's original American release (on the Island subsidiary Antilles, during Island's association with Warner Bros. Records) had long since gone out of print.

In 2009, Island Records released a two-disc 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition consisting of the remastered original album plus bonus tracks and selections from the band's appearances on BBC's John Peel Sessions on the first disc and a second disc entitled "unCut" with demos and alternate mixes.

Track listing

All tracks written by Viv Albertine, Tessa Pollitt, Ariane Forster (aka Ari Up) and Paloma Romero (aka Palmolive).

Side one
  1. "Instant Hit" – 2:43
  2. "So Tough" – 2:41
  3. "Spend, Spend, Spend" – 3:18
  4. "Shoplifting" – 1:39
  5. "FM" – 3:35

Side two
  1. "Newtown" – 3:48
  2. "Ping Pong Affair" (stylized as "ƃuoԀ ƃuᴉԀ Affair" on the record sleeve) – 4:16
  3. "Love und Romance" – 2:27
  4. "Typical Girls" – 3:57
  5. "Adventures Close to Home" – 3:28

Bonus tracks

  1. "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" (Barrett Strong, Norman Whitfield) – 3:59
  2. "Liebe and Romanze" (Slow Version) – 4:45

2009 deluxe edition

Disc 1

  1. "Instant Hit"
  2. "So Tough"
  3. "Spend, Spend, Spend"
  4. "Shoplifting"
  5. "FM"
  6. "Newtown"
  7. "Ping Pong Affair"
  8. "Love und Romance"
  9. "Typical Girls"
  10. "Adventures Close to Home"
  11. "I Heard It Through the Grapevine"
  12. "Liebe and Romanze" (Slow Version)
  13. "Typical Girls" (Brink Style Dub)
  14. "Love and Romance" (John Peel Session 19/09/1977)
  15. "Vindictive" (John Peel Session 19/09/1977)
  16. "Newtown" (John Peel Session 19/09/1977)
  17. "Shoplifting" (John Peel Session 19/09/1977)
  18. "So Tough" (John Peel Session 17/04/1978)
  19. "Instant Hit" (John Peel Session 17/04/1978)
  20. "FM" (John Peel Session 17/04/1978)

Disc 2

  1. "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" (Demo)
  2. "Instant Hit" (8-Track Demo)
  3. "Spend, Spend, Spend" (8-Track Demo)
  4. "Newtown" (8-Track Demo)
  5. "Adventures Close to Home" (8-Track Demo)
  6. "Instant Hit" (Rough Mix)
  7. "So Tough" (Rough Mix)
  8. "Spend, Spend, Spend" (Toast Version)
  9. "Shoplifting" (Rough Mix)
  10. "FM" (Rough Mix)
  11. "Newtown" (Rough Mix)
  12. "Ping Pong Affair" (Rough Mix)
  13. "Love und Romance" (Rough Mix)
  14. "Typical Girls" (Rough Mix)
  15. "Adventures Close to Home" (Rough Mix)
  16. "So Tough" (Outtake)
  17. "Instant Hit" (Instrumental Outtake)
  18. "Typical Girls" (Instrumental Outtake)
  19. "Spend, Spend, Spend" (Dub Version)
  20. "In the Beginning, There Was Rhythm" (Early Version)

Personnel
The Slits

with:

  • Budgie – drums
  • Bruce Smith – uncredited voice on "Love und Romance"
  • Dennis Bovell – sound effects
  • Max "Maxi" Edwards – drums on "I Heard It Through the Grapevine"
  • Neneh Cherry – uncredited backing vocals
Technical
  • Mike Dunne – engineer
  • Pennie Smith – photography
  • Brian Gaylor, Viv Albertine – inner sleeve cartoons
  • Rema, Stuart Henderson, the Slits – production on "I Heard It Through the Grapevine"

References
  1. Mar, Alex (10 February 2005). "The Slits: Cut". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 6 June 2008. Retrieved 7 January 2017.
  2. Chick, Stevie (13 June 2011). "The Slits show the way after punk". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 May 2022.
  3. Dougan, John. "Cut – The Slits". AllMusic. Retrieved 5 October 2011.
  4. Wolk, Douglas. "The Slits: Cut". Blender. Archived from the original on 3 April 2005. Retrieved 7 January 2017.
  5. Christgau, Robert (1981). "The Slits: Cut". Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies. Ticknor and Fields. ISBN 0-89919-026-X. Retrieved 5 October 2011.
  6. Raposa, David (23 February 2005). "The Slits: Cut". Pitchfork. Retrieved 31 October 2020.
  7. Rigby, Paul (August 2008). "The Slits – Cut". Record Collector. No. 352. Retrieved 7 January 2017.
  8. Wolk, Douglas (2004). "The Slits". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. pp. 745–46. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
  9. Starr, Red (20 September – 3 October 1979). "Albums". Smash Hits. Vol. 1, no. 21. p. 25.
  10. Dadomo, Giovanni (1 September 1979). "One Day, All Girls Will Be Made This Way". Sounds. Retrieved 31 October 2020 – via Rock's Backpages.
  11. Press, Joy (1995). "Slits". In Weisbard, Eric; Marks, Craig (eds.). Spin Alternative Record Guide. Vintage Books. pp. 359–60. ISBN 0-679-75574-8.
  12. Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19th ed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p. 508. ISBN 1-904994-10-5.
  13. "Observer Music Monthly's top 100 British albums". The Observer. London. 20 June 2004. ISSN 0029-7712. Retrieved 31 October 2020.
  14. Dimery, Robert, ed. (2006). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (revised and updated ed.). Universe Publishing. ISBN 0-7893-1371-5.
  15. "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Rolling Stone. 22 September 2020. Retrieved 31 October 2020.
  16. Spice, Anton (31 May 2016). "Post-punk provocateurs The Slits to reissue debut LP Cut on vinyl". The Vinyl Factory. Retrieved 22 May 2022.
  17. Irvine, Lindesay (13 June 2016). "Mud, music and mayhem: why the Slits' Cut is still up for a fight". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 May 2022.
  18. Fitzgerald, Colin (10 April 2020). "The 50 Best Post-Punk Albums Ever: Part 5, Joy Division to Gang of Four". PopMatters. Retrieved 20 May 2022.
  19. Jackson, Josh (13 July 2016). "The 50 Best Post-Punk Albums". Paste. Retrieved 20 May 2022.
  20. Peacock, Tim (7 September 2021). "'Cut': Why The Slits' Debut Album Was A Snip Above The Rest". uDiscoverMusic. Retrieved 22 May 2022.
  21. Alexander, Phil (1 April 2020). "Kurt Cobain's 50 favourite albums". Kerrang!. Retrieved 23 May 2022.
  22. "The 100 Best Albums Of The 1970s". Fact. 14 July 2014. Retrieved 20 May 2022.
  23. Barker, Emily (24 October 2013). "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: 300-201". NME. Retrieved 20 May 2022.
  24. "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Rolling Stone. 22 September 2020. Retrieved 20 May 2022.
  25. Treble Staff (22 October 2018). "The 100 Best Post-Punk Albums". Treble. Retrieved 20 May 2022.
  26. Treble Staff (12 August 2019). "The 150 Best Albums of the '70s". Treble. Retrieved 20 May 2022.

Further reading
  • Weisbard, Eric; Craig Marks (1995). Spin Alternative Record Guide. Vintage Books. ISBN 0-679-75574-8.
  • Howe, Zoë (2009) Typical Girls? The Story Of The Slits. Omnibus Press. ISBN 0857120158
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