i kno there r some punk / new wave fans on here so, i'd like 2 kno wot u think o the following...

when joe strummer sacked mick jones from the clash (he admitted later this was a big mistake)he tried 2 continue with new members nick shepherd,pete howard and vince white i was a fan at the time and actually remember this happening !.they released 1 album "cut the crap" they also toured i caught them at the legendary glasgow barrowlands the gig was great !!! but its the album i'd like 2 discuss.

at the time i thought the album was funnily enuf CRAP ! ,but...i pulled this album out recently and its not as bad as i thought it was ... or is it ? thats the question. strummer jones were a great songwriting duo , and i was really dissapointed they split, strummer wrote the material after the split with bernie rhodes.i didnt like the album at all, compared 2 the strummer/jones clash albums there was just no comparision at all !!!

as i said i been listening 2 this album lately ..almost 20 years have passed since the album came out in 1985 and i quite like it now !

some of the best tracks r...dictator,movers and shakers,this is england,fingerpoppin, north and south and the fantastic "we r the clash" which was a dig at mick jones !!! mick was my fave member !!!.

mayb i didnt like it 1st time around simply cos i wanted a strummer/jones clash album , who kno's !!!

so finally what do other clash fans think of the clash II album "cut the crap" ??? i repeat when i was there at the time i thought it was CRAP !, now almost 20 years later i am gettin really in2 it !lol ha ha

It's the best album Billy Idol never produced. The Clash are in my top 3 favorites of all time, but this album just proved that The Clash needed to call it quits. I will admit that as a hardcore fan there are some decent songs on there. But it's hard to appreciate them with such a lame, half-assed, oversaturated with studio technology production. Bernie Rhodes should be ashamed of himself. I mean the songs are nice, but the drum machine and synth overdubs just get in the way too much. Plus my boys, Mick Jones and Topper Headon were gone, so the soul of the music wasn't all there. It should've been like Joe Strummer's solo album faeturing his old mate, Paul and some other guys aboard. It's hard not to just cringe when you listen to "Life is Wild" or "Dictator". My favorite track would probaby "Fingerpoppin'" though. But still this sort of sound was not The Clash at all. This is more like Billy Idol on speed.

It's ironic this album was called what it was called. I guess they wanted to stop being musically adventurous and get back to basics. Well you won't find the basics here, that's for damn sure.

danielboon said:

I saw Clash 2 when they toured the US in 1984. Having seen the band with Mick Jones the previous year, I clearly remember thinking how terrible it all was - especially the new guy singing Jones's lines in "Should I Stay". I hated the new songs they played, except for one called "In The Pouring Rain". Great ballad. Never released - except on bootleg, which I have.

Face it, "Cut the Crap" was a disaster. it was an album of Strummer demos souped up with a drum machine and a bunch of German session musos Bernie the Toad hired in Munich. "Dictator" was ok and "This is England" is the last great song Joe ever wrote, but the rest is just abysmal. What about all those soccer stadium chants running through it?

The album COULD have been better. Clash Mark 2 did improve a little on stage, and they had a few quite good new songs they never recorded. The fact that "In The Pouring Rain" will probably never officially see the light of day is tragic.
[This message was edited Sun Jan 18 0:07:58 PST 2004 by JohnnyTheFox]
[This message was edited Sun Jan 18 0:08:53 PST 2004 by JohnnyTheFox]

i agree with both u guy's !, compared 2 everything b4... "cut the crap" was not nearly good enuf and admittedely killed off the clash II ,(WHICH WASNT A BAD THING) ur replies wer wot i woz xpecting thanx. but strangely its easier 2 listen 2 that album now !!!
[This message was edited Sun Jan 18 11:47:07 PST 2004 by danielboon]