Cut (1979)

Cut is the debut studio album by English band the Slits, released on 7 September 1979. It was recorded at Ridge Farm Studios in Rusper, England, and produced by Dennis Bovell.

Composition

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

Release and reception

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. In 2004, it was voted 58th in The Observer's 100 Greatest British Albums list. The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. In 2020, Rolling Stone ranked the album at number 260 in its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, and the track "Typical Girls" at number 381 in its list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.

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

Cut's mark has been noted on several musical movements. 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. Indeed, PopMatters felt that Cut spoke to post-punk's appropriation of dub and reggae clearer than any other of the genre's records. Irvine argued that it inspired later post-punk acts like Culture Club to "[get] their nerve up". 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.

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

Cut has been appreciated by Kurt Cobain. In his posthumously released journals, Nirvana frontman listed

Cut (as "Typical Girls") as one of his 50 favorite records of all time.

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.

Personnel

• The Slits
• Ari Up – vocals
• Viv Albertine – guitar
• Tessa Pollitt – bass guitar

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"