| Cut | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 7 September 1979 | |||
| Recorded | 1979 | |||
| Studio | Ridge Farm Studio, Rusper, England | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 31:52 | |||
| Label | Island | |||
| Producer | Dennis Bovell | |||
| The Slits chronology | ||||
| ||||
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.
Musically, Cut works in an "innovative" fusion of punk and reggae. [1] It also incorporates "restless [and] offbeat" art pop. [2]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [3] |
| Blender | [4] |
| Christgau's Record Guide | B+ [5] |
| Pitchfork | 9.3/10 [6] |
| Record Collector | [7] |
| Rolling Stone |  [1] |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [8] |
| Smash Hits | 9/10 [9] |
| Sounds | [10] |
| Spin Alternative Record Guide | 10/10 [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, and it ranked the track "Typical Girls" 381 in the same year. [15] [16]
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 . [17] 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. [18] Indeed, PopMatters felt that Cut spoke to post-punk's appropriation of dub and reggae clearer than any other of the genre's records. [19] Irvine argued that it inspired later post-punk acts like Culture Club to "[get] their nerve up". [18] 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. [19]
Cut is credited with shaping the 1990s musical movement riot grrrl. [1] [20] 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. [21] In his posthumously released journals, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain listed Cut (as "Typical Girls") as one of his 50 favorite records of all time. [22]
| Publication | Country | List | Year | Rank | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fact | UK | The 100 Best Albums of the 1970s | - | 42 | |
| NME | The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time | 2013 | 278 | ||
| Paste | US | The 50 Best Post-Punk Albums | 2016 | 11 | |
| PopMatters | The Best Post-Punk Albums Ever | 2020 | 4 | ||
| Rolling Stone | The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time | 2020 | 260 | ||
| Treble | The Top 100 Post-Punk Albums | 2018 | 24 | ||
| The Top 150 Albums of the '70s | 2019 | 132 |
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.
All tracks written by Viv Albertine, Tessa Pollitt, Ariane Forster (aka Ari Up) and Paloma Romero (aka Palmolive).
Bonus tracks
Disc 1
Disc 2
with:
The Slits were a punk and post-punk band based in London, formed there in 1976 by members of the groups the Flowers of Romance and the Castrators. The group's early line-up consisted of Ari Up and Palmolive, with Viv Albertine and Tessa Pollitt replacing founding members Kate Korus and Suzy Gutsy. Their 1979 debut album, Cut, has been called one of the defining releases of the post-punk era.
My Generation is the debut studio album by English rock band the Who, released on 3 December 1965 by Brunswick Records in the United Kingdom, and Festival Records in Australia. In the United States, it was released on 25 April 1966 by Decca Records as The Who Sings My Generation, with a different cover and a slightly altered track listing. Besides the members of the Who, being Roger Daltrey (vocals), Pete Townshend (guitar), John Entwistle (bass) and Keith Moon (drums), the album features contributions by session musician Nicky Hopkins (piano).
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"I Heard It Through the Grapevine" is a song written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong for Motown Records in 1966. The first recording of the song to be released was produced by Whitfield for Gladys Knight & the Pips and released as a single in September 1967. It went to number one on the Billboard R&B Singles chart and number two on the Billboard Pop Singles chart and shortly became the biggest selling Motown single up to that time.
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Bad Girls is the seventh studio album by American singer-songwriter Donna Summer. It was released on April 25, 1979, by Casablanca Records. Originally issued as a double album, Bad Girls became the best-selling and most critically acclaimed album of Summer's career. It was also her final studio album for Casablanca Records. In 2003, Universal Music re-issued Bad Girls as a digitally remastered and expanded deluxe edition.
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Skinned Teen was a riot grrrl band from London, England, active in the early 1990s. They have been cited as an inspiration by Beth Ditto, Kathleen Hanna, Gina Birch and Josephine Olausson of Love Is All.
