THE SLITS – CUT (ISLAND RECORDS)
I found this CD at a place called Clacton Common inside a budget/discount music and video store that dealt in nothing but the most rejected of titles. In a way that is perhaps the most true way to discover this band as the case it came in was smashed to shit and held together with cellotape. Alas that shop no longer exists and Clacton is a poorer place without it.
The Slits are one of those bands that I have never really understood. You can also add The Raincoats to this category as to me it is generally the sound of a pretty lightweight band using certain elements of their cannon to paper up the cracks of other areas of their delivery. Does this make sense? In a short/brief sentence, the people behind this record may be angry but they aren’t shaking it up to compliment their energy, intellect and desire. Please in all sincerity change the rules but don’t do it in/with a murmur.
In many ways the record never surpasses its cover. I love how in a family friendly record store you are still able to buy an album with artwork featuring bare breasted women covered in mud. These days they get away with this for being old (for being lauded history) but at their height this would have been a most major statement. Too much try hard.
There is no doubting or questioning what the band did at the time was of great importance and significance as an industry happily shepherded its audience to anything harmless and family friendly (nothing’s changed there then) but the sad truth of the matter is just that time has not been kind to this music.
The trance like qualities of the mantra and silly singing voices are not enough in a modern age to compel a person to move on with their lives to better things. You can tell that bands such as Huggy Bear will have listened to these songs with relish in the past but their resembling output constitutes the poorer moments/fodder in their cannons.
At times this album sounds like a Bjork/Sugacubes offering (but not a very good one). The vocals make me physically sick at times, they’re too animated and overblown, unbelievable and fake in the worst possible way not really matching the wayward fun and experimentation that might be taken from the actual playing otherwise. Am I right in possessing such disdain? Am I missing out on something?
Thesaurus moment: labour.
The Slits
Island Records
I found this CD at a place called Clacton Common inside a budget/discount music and video store that dealt in nothing but the most rejected of titles. In a way that is perhaps the most true way to discover this band as the case it came in was smashed to shit and held together with cellotape. Alas that shop no longer exists and Clacton is a poorer place without it.
The Slits are one of those bands that I have never really understood. You can also add The Raincoats to this category as to me it is generally the sound of a pretty lightweight band using certain elements of their cannon to paper up the cracks of other areas of their delivery. Does this make sense? In a short/brief sentence, the people behind this record may be angry but they aren’t shaking it up to compliment their energy, intellect and desire. Please in all sincerity change the rules but don’t do it in/with a murmur.
In many ways the record never surpasses its cover. I love how in a family friendly record store you are still able to buy an album with artwork featuring bare breasted women covered in mud. These days they get away with this for being old (for being lauded history) but at their height this would have been a most major statement. Too much try hard.
There is no doubting or questioning what the band did at the time was of great importance and significance as an industry happily shepherded its audience to anything harmless and family friendly (nothing’s changed there then) but the sad truth of the matter is just that time has not been kind to this music.
The trance like qualities of the mantra and silly singing voices are not enough in a modern age to compel a person to move on with their lives to better things. You can tell that bands such as Huggy Bear will have listened to these songs with relish in the past but their resembling output constitutes the poorer moments/fodder in their cannons.
At times this album sounds like a Bjork/Sugacubes offering (but not a very good one). The vocals make me physically sick at times, they’re too animated and overblown, unbelievable and fake in the worst possible way not really matching the wayward fun and experimentation that might be taken from the actual playing otherwise. Am I right in possessing such disdain? Am I missing out on something?
Thesaurus moment: labour.
The Slits
Island Records
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