A Year of Blind Spots: Cut

Joe is working through a list of albums that he considers "blind spots," i.e. albums that he's never heard but feels like he should.

Cut

The Slits

1979

Sometimes I feel like I'm moving in circles on this thing. We've talked about so much of this before. We've definitely talked about Cobain in this column before, no? How so many of these '70s/'80s punk bands have notes on Wikipedia about how Kurt Cobain loved their music. Sometimes I get a weird feeling that all those journals that he kept before he died were just filled with exclamatory remarks about his favorite bands. Wait, I remember, I think I wrote about this phenomenon for the Raincoats, right? Probably—I wrote that blog post almost five years ago, and have a tough time going back and rereading at this point. Let's assume I did. I mean, it makes sense, since the drummer for the Slits left and joined the Raincoats right before both bands released their respective seminal albums. We're moving in circles. (Oh shit, this column literally covered Nirvana the week before the Raincoats... I've been doing this shit too long.)

Let's talk about that drumming switch. Why not? It's Saturday morning, I'm typing about some dub-post-punk album from back in the day for free while my house crumbles around me (talk about frequent mutilation). Here's why it's interesting—the switch from the departing Palmolive to the joining Budgie (yes, both drummers had mononymous names), and a switch of their respective drumming styles, apparently pushed the Slits from a more polished (relative, I assume) post-punk sound to the ramshackle dub- and reggae-inspired post-punk that we get on Cut. The dub styles makes the band more interesting, though perhaps less listenable, if that makes sense. I feel the same removed affection for this album as I do for the music of Bad Brains. Ha, yes, how many former Blind Spots can we name in this blog post? Um, did you know that Neneh Cherry did backing vocals on Cut? It's true! How about Budgie soon after joining Siouxsie and the Banshees? Absolutely!

That Bad Brains mention is an interesting one, though. Mainly because, after rereading that blog post (published only three months ago, so it's safe), it's worth pointing out that the overall feeling on that one is positive, and I seem to be moving in a more pessimistic direction for this blog post, despite the fact that both albums are dragged down a little bit by the dub sounds. What's the deal with that? Am I being sexist by preferring Bad Brains' take on it? Am I being racist by reacting suspiciously when white women attempt the sound? Did dub music do damage on my brain when we covered the extremely lo-fi U-Roy in Record Club? Possibly all of the above.

I'd like to think that I'm just tired. I'm tired of life's anxieties that are pressing down upon me as I type this blog post, making me question how I could spend so much of my life doing some bullshit for no compensation beyond the increasingly shrinking joy of discovering new music. I'm tired of running around in circles as I dive deeper into the classics. I'm tired of pretending that just because something is important means it's also fully enjoyable to listen to. Like, fuck, man, is Cut a good album? Yeah, but it's not great. But it's important. It fits snuggly in the rock 'n' roll canon. I'm gonna be reaching for it about as often as I have for that Raincoats album in the past five years, so... not often.

But this is a cool band, right? I am drawn to them but in a different way than Cobain was, I think. Not so much musically, but more aesthetically. Badass, take-no-shit women artists are the coolest, in my eyes. Look at that cover! Shirtless women looking so fucking cool! I want this album to sound better than it does. I want these chicks to fucking rip! But it never quite gets there. The dub beats slow 'em down too much. Ah.

Sorry, you're catching me at a bad time. You'll probably like the album. Listen below.