442. The Slits - Cut (1979)
















Track Listing

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

Review

This is a great album. Actually I think there has not been a female lead punk album that I didn't love, from Siouxsie to X-Ray Spex and now The Slits. And yes it it a good thing to mention them in the same breath as the X-Ray Spex, if you liked that this is the natural progression, it is just as good.

You can tell these girls aren't the most proficient people with instruments, but they more than make up for it with inventiveness, be it compositional, lyrical or in terms of arrangements. This makes it really worth listening to. Also the lyrics are pretty funny, and although you can tell it has a teenage girl writing them, they are really smart.

This is an album which as the exciting quality of punk which was absent from the last few offerings we got here, it uses the same Reggae influences as The Clash but makes something new with them, and truly interesting and it has the same catchiness of the Undertones but is not easy listening. Highly Recommended.

Track Highlights

1. Shoplifting
2. Instant Hit
3. FM
4. Newtown

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

It was originally released in September 1979 on the Island Records label (ILPS 9573) in the UK and on Antilles (AN 7077) in the U.S. Although it only made a brief impact on the UK top 30 at the time, in 2004 it was voted at no 58 in the Observer's list, The 100 Greatest British Albums

Some guy dances to Shoplifting: