What About "CUT THE CRAP" ? 1985--The Clash--POLL:

I remember this album upon its release. One day in December 1985 I mentioned Cut The Crap to a friend of mine. His response was "it's crap and not worthy of the Clash."

Over the last two years I've given this album a few spins and ever so slightly Cut The Crap has grown on me. Besides the two singles the rest of the album isn't bad at all. IMHO Wish the original band could of stayed together to record this album 1985.

The Clash

The Clash in concert, 21 May 1980. From left to right: Joe Strummer (rhythm guitar), Mick Jones (lead guitar), Paul Simonon (bass guitar). Not pictured: Topper Headon (drums)

The above photo shows the classic Clash line-up. A powerful band in 1980, not the same band for the Cut The Crap album 1985.
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Original members Topper Headon and Mick Jones were abruptly fired as Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon were the only original Clash members on the album. I still feel Strummer, Simonon gave a decent effort for this album. Replacement musicians Nick Sheppard, Peter Howard and Vince White offered what they could for what started as a failing effort when original Clash members Headon and Jones were fired. At least Strummer pieced together one more Clash album. Warts and all Cut The Crap is not and never will be in the Clash higher echelon of albums but it's still fascinating to look back at this last Clash effort 1985.

Joe Strummer



I look at it this way Cut The Crap was the weakest Clash effort. As I listen tonight to this album, ripped as it has been from all the critics and fans alike in the over 31 years since its release I don't mind listening to the whole album straight through. 1980's over production and all at least Strummer got one last Clash effort albeit not the finished album the fans and critics would of liked 1985.


Memorial to Strummer on 7th Street at Avenue A, New York City

Wikipedia:

Studio album by The Clash
Released 4 November 1985
Recorded January–March 1985, Weryton Studios, Unterföhring
Genre Punk rock
Length 38:21
Label Epic
Producer Bernie Rhodes (credited as "Jose Unidos")


Singles from Cut the Crap

1. "This is England"
   Released: September 1985
2. "Are You Red..y"
   Released: 1985

Cut the Crap is the sixth and final studio album by the English punk rock band the Clash, released in November 1985 on Epic Records. It was recorded after members Topper Headon (drums) and guitarist Mick Jones had been fired from the band, and their manager Bernie Rhodes took over studio production. The album is considered their weakest, and was ridiculed on release by the UK weekly music press.

Rhodes recruited the then unknown musicians Nick Sheppard, Pete Howard and Vince White to replace Jones and Headon. The Clash split up soon after. Clash vocalist Joe Strummer has said that "Cut the Crap" contains one of the band's strongest singles, "This Is England". Critics generally praise "This Is England" as well as the album track "We Are the Clash", but tend to view the album as inconsistent and incohesive.

Personnel:

The following people contributed to Cut the Crap (Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon were the only original Clash members to appear on the album)

• Joe Strummer – lead vocals
• Paul Simonon – bass
• Nick Sheppard – guitar, lead vocals on "North and South"
• Vince White – additional guitar on "Do It Now"
• Pete Howard – drums

Additional musicians

• Hermann Weindorf – keyboards, synthesizers
• Norman Watt-Roy – bass
• Michael Fayne – drum machines, vocals on "Play to Win"
• Bernie Rhodes – drum machine programming

Production

• Bernie Rhodes - producer (credited as "Jose Unidos")

Cut the Crap - Wikipedia


Joe Strummer - Wikipedia


Cut The Crap


The Clash - Cut the Crap: The Clash - Cut the Crap - YouTube

 

"This Is England" is a magnificent song and record, as good as anything any iteration of the band ever cut. The rest of the album never did much of anything for me.

 

The albums sucks ****ing ass, but This Is England is ok

 

Although I passed on the tour for this album, if memory serves me right the stage production featured random stacks of tvs onstage that looked very much like what U2 later did for the indoor leg of the ZooTV tour in '92.

 

It's a cost ineffective EP for the good song This is England, surrounded by a bunch of unworthy b-sides.

 

No. Such a wanking and embarrassing last whimper for a formerly great band. Best edited out of the official history and any fan's fond memories. Combat Rock was the last hurrah.

The silver lining is that both Strummer and Jones recovered from this fiasco to make some great post-Clash music.

 

If you literally cut the crap you'd be left with silence on the album.

 

It's a passable song, IMO, but not a very good one. Put it on "London Calling" and it'd be the album's worst song by a mile!

 

I really like "This is England" and "Movers & Shakers." They should've replaced one of the crappier songs with the B side "Sex Mad Roar."

 

This is England never did much for me, but North and South is a lost classic.

 

I've always really wanted to like it, but it did nothing for me way back when and I still try to give it a shot every few years without success. But I still keep it around just because.

 

"This is England" and I dunno ... maybe "We Are The Clash" (probably because I remember hearing a much better version and liked it when I saw this lineup live before this came out.)

 

This Is England's the only song I remember from it.
I even remember when in 1992 Springsteen's pre-show tape featured it.
Nah I just can't get myself to buy this album ever again. And I have all the rest...

 

I would like to share the "Out of Control" demos so that some of you might be so bold as to compare with what was eventually released. I've always wondered what would have transpired had Bernard Rhodes' dominance and Joe's passive/aggressive approach to this recording had not gone down the way it did. Strummer, unfortunately, allowed Bernie to "ballhog" the construction and arranging of this album and it's one of the saddest swan song's of a once important and legendary band. While I do like "This is England" as the best number on the official album, "Are You Red...Y", "North and South" and "Three Card Trick" aren't too bad, either. I have live boots of this lineup from '84 and '85 and the live renditions of some of these songs are far better than the studio versions.

 

Not a good album
Not the Clash
Even after all this years I find it unlistenable proto-punk containing nothing of the mystery and magic I so much love in the original band.

 

It's anthemic, empathetic, captures its zeitgeist in both story and sonic landscape. Like I said, as good a song and record as the band ever made. When I think of the best of The Clash I think of the likes of "White Man in Hammersmith Palais" and "Safe European Home" and "London Calling" and "This Is England."

 

Even in my more completist days I couldn't justify adding Cut to Crap in my collection, so I just keep pretending it doesn't exist.

 

If this album has anything redeeming thing to it,
it's that it makes "The Is Big Audio Dynamite" sound even BETTER!

 

Never cared for this album. I seem to remember feeling Three card Trick sounded like the 4 member Clash but I don't remember it at all. The doc The Rise & Fall of The Clash focuses on this period and is really interesting. The newer members all have the same feeling fans do about that period.

ShoutFactoryTV : Watch The Rise and Fall of the Clash

 

It is telling that they felt the need to record a song called We Are The Clash when they so patently weren't. I think This Is Big Audio Dynamite came out arounnd the same time (though I may be misremembering). I bought both albums on release. The latter was magnificent. The former was an embarrassment. From that point on BAD were my Clash.

This Is England is a good song though and, happily, Strummer went on to do further good work with The Mescaleros without Mick.

 

Best Clash album since Rope, IMO. At least there's no Mick Jones vocals.

 

Thanks for the link.

 

The Clash without Mick Jones doesn't add up for me, as much as I like Joe Strummer. Pretty horrible album although always liked This is England.

 

I think Dirty Punk is a good tune. IMHO

 

There were two superfluous words in the album title. The final one would have sufficed.