TRAINWRECKORDS: "Cut the Crap" by The Clash
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
- Here's a tip, if you're going to make one of the worst-sounding albums of all time, don't make it easy for the critics by putting the word "Crap" in the title, like The Clash did with their career-ending final album. (Support Todd on Patreon! / toddintheshadows )
I lived in a South American dictatorship in the early 80s. Our rock albums sounded better produced than this.
Which one?
This is a god tier read.
@@cfredrics more than likely argentina 🇦🇷. We had a nasty dictatorship at the turn of the 70s
@@Tahngarth I know for a fact that during the time when "Cut the Crap" was recorded, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and Brazil were all under US backed military dictatorships.
@@Tahngarth I know that Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and Chile were all under US backed military dictatorships at the time. I think Paraguay was as well but I will admit that I don't know much about that country's history.
I guess the real clash was the friends we made along the way
I was going to make that exact same joke, but that's literally what the album is about.
Munjee Syed I said this on Twitter that this episode instead of Rock the Casbah, it’ll be more like Rocked the Clash.
Oh, yeah, yeah! Like, maybe the Clash is the place inside each
of us, created by our goodwill and teamwork.
...Nah, they said there'd be sandwiches.
Dammit, I was gonna say that and got beat to the punch.
This is literally the Hold Steady song Constructive Summer - ‘raise a toast to Saint Joe Strummer, I swear he was our only decent teacher’
This sounds like the kind of "tubular, hard rock" some 12 years old in a talent contest band would make in a Disney show.
I think it sounds more like when that band gets signed by the evil record label that tries to make their music too “commercial”, but the band’s original vision was already precision-engineered for Radio Disney bc it’s the one the audience has to be rooting for so the “sellout” version has a bunch of deliberately unpalatable synths and effects randomly applied to it.
(Actually a good example of this appears in a later Trainwreckord w/ John Stamos’ heavily-flanged Full House rap version of the Beach Boys’ “Forever”.)
@@Champiness Is it sad that I think I know exactly what you're referencing there?
@christopherwall2121 they repeated that plot for the series finale movie of Drake and Josh: Really Big Shrimp
It literally sounds like Zack and Cody’s song from that one episode
Will the smash cut to “Wake me up before you go-go” be the 80’s equivalent of nirvana ruined my career?
Good idea! Let's call it "Video killed my career"
@@freakfoxvevo7915 Video killed the 70's star, perhaps?
It definitely sounds like another potential series. Exploring the 80’s era careers of rock artists who were popular in the 60s and 70s. Just as the 80s is fertile ground for one hit wonders, it also seems fertile for turning points in rock star careers.
@@katethegreat91 Oof Deep Purple Knocking on Your Backdoor was bad
I wanna call it a Wham! Moment but Video Killed the 70's Star is a much better title.
I went and listened to “Dictator” and HOW IN HELL DO YOU LISTEN TO THAT AND GO “yeah that’s not only ready for the album it’ll be the opener” HOW?!?!
Right?! I would have opened with We Are The Clash. It's a terrible song, but it would make sense to place it at the start as if they were introducing themselves to the listener.
Dictator is one of the worst songs I've ever heard. Top five, definitely.
The sad part about Dictator is the live versions from 1984 are actually not that bad (this goes for pretty much any CTC song they performed before the album came out, but this was the most surprising). The bizarrely terrible production completely fucked it over, even more so than the rest of the album
I think the actual song behind Dictator is amazing; it's just that you have to ignore all the layers of dissonant synths & random noise bullshit to be able to even hear it.
I'd kill to have some kind of rerecording or remaster of this album. There was so much potential in these songs but it was all ruined by all the shitty production choices. It's actually kind of infuriating.
It's never a good sign when the worst song on an album is the opening track.😞
The Clash rehiring Bernie Rhodes is like if Mike Love had rehired Murry Wilson as The Beach Boys' manager and producer after Brian Wilson's mental breakdown.
Or itd be like if after Phil Spector produced the Ramones 'End of the Century' they decided: "We should let this guy make all of our decisions!"
Mike Love…history’s greatest monster.
@@rse1113 "I don't like Mike Love, _at all"_
@@OfficialROZWBRAZEL Brian Wilson is a genius for that statement alone.
christ, that's bleak. i've never done a deep dive into the clash's history, and it took this comment to make me realize just how horrible the situation was.
Talking about the cultural important of punk rock and then cutting immediately to "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go" is one of the best things I've ever seen
On that note, Sam Smith came out as nonbinary, so George and Aretha still have the last duet by a Gay White Dude and a Straight Black Woman to hit the Top 10.
Also, I Knew You Were Waiting For Me is awesome, and I will hear no words to the contrary.
As a huge George Michael fan, people need to be reminded that Wham! supported the miner's strikes during the 80s, playing at benefit concerts:
www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2016/dec/26/george-michael-wham-most-misunderstood-group-1980s-thatcherism
@@TheBoringAddress They also supported the jitterbug
wham is the most punk bank that I can think of
Curious fact, George Michael actually LIKED Joy Division.
My god I can't get over how bad these songs sound, it's almost unbelievable
I've heard 80's production kill potentially good songs before on David Bowie's 1987 album Never Let Me Down. It was probably the only album that ever made me *genuinely angry* because of how badly it wasted stellar songwriting, and the de-80's-ed 2018 remix was a godsend by comparison. This album, meanwhile, leaves me bewildered; while NLMD at least knew what it wanted to do with its awful 80's production, Cut the Crap feels like the equivalent of spewing out an on-the-fly first draft of a college essay without any idea of what you're doing.
It was all Bernie Rhodes fault.
Half of these songs sound like a bad high school garage band, the other half sound like Weezer badly parodying punk rock. It's shockingly awful.
@@markwoollon There's bad production (ameteurish, lo fidelity, cheap). And then there's BAD production (ill conceived, trying too hard, more expensive than it was worth).
Those early Misfits or Dead Kennedys albums sound like crap in just about the best way possible, as far as I'm concerned. Is Jello Biafra overloading the mic every few lines? Yup, but that's part of the charm.
@@markwoollon then you never actually liked it. The stranglers are not punk
"This is England" sounds like it was made to be the theme song for some lowkey annual charity event.
aderek79 this is England is a good song
And that's why I say, This is England's the is the British Born in the USA. They're both sound like patriotic songs, but their lyrics aren't, but good luck finding that out at first with the singer's accent.
This is England is a decent flick in the vein of Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels
@@RatelHBadger what? No it's literally nothing like Guy Ritchie films. The whole This is England series of movies/TV shows is incredibly real and depressing, about racism and abuse and drugs and trauma and loss, while Guy Ritchie films are over the top and stylish and a bit comedic, but nobody really talks like that here in the UK. You couldn't have possibly chosen a more different type of English film to compare it to. They're absolutely nothing alike, apart from both being set in England. It's like saying Django Unchained is the same type of movie as 12 Years A Slave, except it's even _more_ different than those two films are from each other since at least those both have slavery as a common element in them
@@duffman18 I didn't mean in the stylistic sense. I meant in the fact that it depicts the underbelly of Britain. Rather than the upper crust BBC image that Britain projected to the world.
As someone who loves The Clash, this is all spot on. Cut The Crap is almost uniformly awful.
I remember finding everything I could in the 90s before my family had internet on The Clash, and attempted to convince myself that Cut the Crap was at least somewhat listenable and that I just 'wasn't getting the vision.'
Nice to know I'm not the only person who thought it was total trash. xD
Fingerpoppin is sweet, but to each their own
Not going to lie, I kind of like Movers And Shakers and Three Card Trick. That's it, though.
I might be out of line, but I would put Sandinista up for a Train wrecord episode as well. Three records priced as a single that put them massively in debt, horrible critical reception, terrible sales, and frankly a LOT of subpar material, especially coming after London Calling, one of the greatest albums ever made.
@@fathergetdown nah Sandinista is one of the best things they ever did. It just takes a LONG time to get in to. That said if you don't like dub, rockabilly , reggae & jazz it's going to be a hard listen...
"Dictator" sounds like you are trying not to get demonetized by getting this copyright claimed so you just played something else simultaneously to fool the bots
Then again, would anyone even care to even copyright claim this awful song?
It should be lost in the sands of time.
Lmao this needs more likes
There's some sort of beauty in mistakenly uploading the outtakes and needing to reupload the video, honestly.
Asriel Dreemunov did I miss something in this review
@@Dill_Pickle1997 He accidentally uploaded a take of him practicing his lines and playing the intro instead of the finished video. It's been replaced with this but I think you can find the clip somewhere else on RUclips. It's kind of cool to get to watch what his line reading style is like.
Oh hey, I know you from Discord.
Mick Jones showed his musical versatility and foresight when he went on to form Big Audio Dynamite. One of the first bands to incorporate sampling as a major component of their songs.
"Fucking *Asia* would tell you to dial it back with all this shit" is an underrated line.
I guess Dave Lee Roth had a point when he said "The only people who put iced tea in Jack Daniels bottles is The Clash, baby!" on stage at the Us Festival. Their whole schtick had become a parody of itself by that point.
Most the British "punk" groups seem like a bunch of pretentious asshats, anyway.
I remember an interview with David Lee Roth in CREEM magazine in 1981 where he said "I'm glad to see that The Clash have gone disco. It's about time they made some money."
You know you fucked up as a more respected musician when Hair Metal bands are talking shit about you
that first song sounds like one of those unlistenable songs someone on a pretentious music forum or /mu/ would keep trying to say is an artistic masterpiece no one else gets.
Like "Hurricane Fighter Plane" by The Red Krayola (Which I actually kinda like tbh)
Agreed.
Hyperpop of the 80’s
Wow you really nailed that.
Like Captain Beefheart
This series has given us so many wonderfully inexplicable bad lyrics, and this one was no exception: how hilarious was it to hear [unintelligible shouting chorus], or [unintelligible shouting chorus with tuneless background noise]
"Talk about over produced. Fucking ASIA would tell you to dial it back with that shit."
Best line.❤
Bowie's "Never Let Me Down" would be a good trainwreckords to take on next to delve deeper into "80s pop killed the 70s star"
@@nah....6151 I think Tonight is definitely a bad record, but Never Let Me Down takes the cake for finishing off Bowie as a mainstream hit maker and touring superstar.
John McMillin I just wish Mick and Paul would stop ignoring the potentially great material CTC had and re-record the album from scratch using only Joe’s vocals and guitars and restore the songs to their demo/early live incarnations as a final hurrah for the band.
Never Let Me Down didn't kill Bowie's career, terrible as its original release was, it just briefly impeded it. Bowie very much got back on his feet from a critical standpoint during the 90's and was still a commercial success up until his death from what I recall; hell, Heathen was his best-selling album in America since Tonight. He even toured with Nine Inch Nails in the mid-90's and remained influential up until his 2004 heart attack forced him out of public presence for a while. Among other things, Tin Machine is considered in hindsight to have been quite influential towards and predictive of the early 90's grunge boom.
Yes, he definitely ended his period as an MTV superstar with Never Let Me Down, but that was because he made the conscious choice to dial things back after becoming dissatisfied with his music and Phil Collins audience. He even left EMI in 1990 when they kept pressuring him to do another banal pop record; he gave them Tin Machine 1 instead.
@@nah....6151 I am aware of that, I just question whether or not an album would be eligible if the artist's subsequent reduction in presence was a deliberate choice made by them for artistic purposes and if their later career didn't exactly fall short of their earlier career in terms of fame, artistry, success, and public presence.
From what I can tell, Bowie's international success in the 80's was a huge outlier; his 90's and 2000's eras could in fact be directly compared to the state of his career between 1975 and 1982: popular, influential, successful, and well-regarded, but not an omnipresent hitmaker. If anything, the 90's were a return to form for Bowie, rather than a period of running on fumes like most of Madonna's post-American Life career. He wasn't persisting off of the momentum of his past successes, rather seeking to focus entirely on the future (his 1990 Sound+Vision tour was in fact an attempt to give his older material a "last hurrah," and all later tours were biased sharply in favor of post-1993 songs), and he kept his head well above water as a result.
The songs from that album come across much better in a live setting, just take a listen too the live album the put out from that tour that was recorded in montreal.
Having peter frampton and carlos avalar really helps too.
Yeesh, that puff daddy comment aged like milk.
That opening track sounded like it was produced by The Shaggs.
For real
shaggs are considerably better
"We Are The Clash" sounds like a British soccer record from the 80s, like it could have been the theme song for England's 1986 World Cup campaign #handofgod
So the British Born in the USA?
That's something that New Order did back in 1990!
Jack Zimmerman I know, World In Motion
@@TimmyTickle That's a wierd blip in their career.
19:05 - so is Joe saying that... the real Clash are the friends we made along the way?
Weird Al's "Young, Dumb, and Ugly" is more punk than this album.
Thats a great song
"Forced" is a good way to describe the whole Joe Strummer persona. He was a cosily middle-class private school boy with a commercially oriented light-pub-entertainment rock band, then he saw the attention punk bands were getting, and thought "I'll have some of that". Lovely chap, by all accounts, but The Clash were the least punk punk rock act until Billy Idol went solo.
Yet some of their early tracks- think "complete control", "im so bored with the usa" - are Classics of the genre.
That first track is quite possibly the worst song I've ever heard. It's...I have no words.
I heard about this album before, but I never actually listened to the tracks... Holy shit!
"Bernie Rhodes knows don't argue" - The Specials, Gangsters
Something worth noting was that after this album, Joe and Mick not only made up but wrote new songs that wound up being on the second Big Audio Dynamite record, "No 10, Upping Street," a year after "Cut the Crap"
I cannot tell you how tempted I was to turn my band into a classic punk band and change the name to The Piss Hydrants after this video
Great thing you managed to finally do this album, because of how it did for The Clash what Kilroy Was Here and Mardi Gras did for Styx and Creedence Clearwater Revival respectively. And speaking of how people didn't even want to acknowledge the existence of this album, even the movie Bring It On didn't want to acknowledge this album's existence because Jesse Bradford's character Cliff Pantone wears a shirt of the band's and Torrance Shipman (Kirsten Dunst) notices it and asks Cliff if it was his band and he said: "No, uh-it's a British punk band, circa 1977 to 1983-ish. Original lineup, anyway."
This record sounds like a child's idea of what a Clash album sounds like. And not in a charming or cute way. It sounds like a 9 year old was asked to write and produce the record. It's in every element of the album: not just the painfully amateurish production and playing, but also in the song's titles and lyrics. Go listen to "Dirty Punk" and "We Are The Clash" and tell me it doesn't sound like a child wrote those. It doesn't just sound childish, it sounds child-like.
As someone who is a MAJOR Clash fan, I have been waiting on this video forever, and I'm so glad you got to it. Such a sad end for a band that had one of the greatest songwriting partnerships of all time, determination, a social awareness, and a great sense of humor. You're also very correct when you say, pretty much no fan wants to ever speak of this record. As far as most of us are concerned, the real last album was Combat Rock.
The titles of the songs don't sound like Clash songs, they sound like rejected Foreigner songs
Maybe Joe Strummer should have replaced Mick Jones with Mick Jones.
Who else here saw the original and got super confused as to what Todd was doing?
i almost thought it was a halloween joke like he was doing a bit about losing his mind
Quinn Cunningham yes very confusing
What happened?
Jayden White uploaded the wrong video watched the entire thing he will never live it down
At least now we know that sheet ain't for the music :)
Hearing Todd talk about my favourite band of all time, and my musical heroes, with such reverence and respect in the intro is great. This whole saga is both fascinating and tragic - just a horrible way for such an all-time legendary band to end. Not with a bang, but with a whimper and a tinny drum machine.
The great irony is, the Clash fired Mick partially because of his obsession with new electronic music influences, and yet the first Big Audio Dynamite album - even with lots of sampling, rapping, drum machines, synths and everything else - still sounds way more organic and real and 'rock' than the Clash's stripped down back-to-basics 'punk AF' album. Somewhere in an alternate timeline, Joe isn't talked into firing Mick after all - and they probably sack off Bernie instead - and CTC manages to blend the best of Mick and Joe's songs together, with FAR better production across the board. The guitars would probably crunch a little more on Mick's songs, and even if Joe's songs still had drum machines and stuff on them, they'd be produced and arranged a MILLION times better than this.
What might have been. Sigh. And I feel sorry for the 'Mark 2' guys - imagine getting the chance to join the greatest punk band in the world, only for the band to be in complete turmoil when you arrive, to not even get to play on the record, and to end up watching it all fall apart so badly that your era with the band isn't even mentioned in the official documentaries? It's like they never existed to begin with. No wonder Vince White chokes up at 17:21 - he knows how much potential was left on the table, and how different his entire life could've been if things went differently.
At least Strummer got to put together his Mescaleros solo project in the late 1990s, and ended up writing some of the best music of his entire career on those three albums - and briefly reunite with Jones onstage - before his passing. And interestingly, there's an interview he gave at a Swedish festival in 1999 where he says 'Definitely don't wanna stay in the past. Gotta get out of the past! It's a quagmire of treacle.' Guess he learned his lesson from CTC after all.
I love The Clash but this album is an abortion
A failed one, at that.
@@marlonmontelhiggins8570 Why do musicians think releasing crap is better than not releasing at all? It's kind of like people who shouldn't have kids (for the kids' sake) having kids because they think they have to for some reason that I never get. Why make someone you know you might make suffer when you could not? Why release Cut the Crap when you could have set it on fire?
@@xSwordLilyx - I could ask the same questions, mate. I don't get it, either.
@@xSwordLilyx supposedly the clash owed their company money. as socialistic as they were, the company was losing money and needed to earn back their loses and i think when the conflicts of the band occurred it became the straw that broke the camels back... ever noticed how it was later on the clash ended up taking big payments for festival concerts and people thought they sold out... also consider the fact that bernie (their manager) ended up taking complete control of the albums production while he had no experience and was also delusional and jealous of the clash for a very long time, Joe couldnt fight back, his hands were tied and he let it happen.
listen to the song 'where is england' by joe, it was the original version of 'this is england' that was scrapped for bernies rendition.. *he didnt lose his touch,* he was arm twisted to make this album.
@@marlonmontelhiggins8570 i wrote a response but i didnt know how to tag more then 1 person.
The start of Dictator sounds like when you're trying to edit a video to sync to a song but right as you drag it into the timeline before you actually do the editing to make it sync
I still rock Rock the Casbah.
Shareef don't like it.
Different album yo, from the real clash
@@kevincarvalho4018 Don't care
@@grapeshot Kinda missing the point, aren't you? Everyone still rocks that song because it is good and from a completely different album, also good. You're not doing anything unique.
@@tyf.5111 I never said I was doing anything unique. So what the fuck are you talking about
"Dictator" sounds like a song I would make on Mario Paint when I would just throw random shit together to make a cacophonous wall of noise.
All these songs remind me of this song in a Chunky Chips Ahoy! commercial called “Punky Chips Ahoy!” It literally just goes “punky chip ahoy/oi oi oi oi!”
10:18 you can see just how tired Paul looks, while Joe is trying to still seem like he is pissed
Cut the Crap really shows how vital Mick Jones and Topper Headon were to the band. I might argue that the Clash at their peak were not only the best punk band, but one of the best bands period. A huge part of their sound was how musically tight they were, and a lot of that came from Topper (or Terry Chimes, on the debut album), both of whom tore up the drum kit with power that matched the raw energy of the rest of the band. As for Mick Jones, he was an absolutely huge part of the band's sound as well. A lot of great Clash tracks were built with a huge emphasis on Mick; Train in Vain, Should I Stay or Should I Go, Police on My Back, Spanish Bombs, Stay Free, I'm Not Down, and Complete Control just to name a few. As talented as Paul Simonon and Joe Strummer were, they needed the skill and sound of Topper and Mick to bring the band to its best.
From a British person who also doesn't get why This is England was well liked at least from a musical standpoint, i do fully understand why it resounded with people during the 80s when the UK was kind of a mess of poverty, neoliberalism, riots, strikes and protest, and Thatcherism. Which tbf does make you think it would be a perfect environment for The Clash to succeed and that the song ought to be more lively but this was kind of the tail end of all that and everyone was pretty worn dorn after years of this i guess.
Also it doesn't help it doesn't really sound all that special, it sounds a something from a John Hughes movie that is suppose to play during the emotion scene
There's definitely a theme here, with MC Hammer, Beach Boys and The Clash - if you start referencing "the good old days" of your career in your new stuff, it's definitely over.
You can add Run DMC to that group now
I've always loved the clash. I had never heard this before. Thanks for sticking an ice pick in my ear.
Imagine LOVING the Clash and being excited they had a new album and being thrilled to buy it and excitedly bringing it home and putting it on your turntable and hearing that.
The greatest punk band title goes to the og era dead Kennedys. No sell outs, no bad albums, awesome lyrics that somehow remained relevant all these years, and riffs for days. The clash did some great stuff, but I was never very comfortable with giving them the same amount of praise as the rest of the world.
"No sell outs" probably depends on how much you believe Jellos account of why they broke up.
I think you mean Crass
It turns out the real Clash were the fans they made along the way lol
Fun Fact: The Clash's on again off again drummer Terry Chimes would go on to become a touring musician in Black Sabbath when he took over for ELO's Bev Bevan after he was sacked two shows into their 1987 Eternal Idol Tour.
LOL, that first track is making me think that this album will be praised as the next Trout Mask Replica.
If that was the case, it would have happened by now. I think it's safe to say that at this stage, Cut The Crap is not going to be the next Trout Mask Replica.
Grace Carpinter it was a joke, but yeah, you’re right lol.
TMR sounds like ass anyway
@@sunnysurfer101MA Trout Mask Replica is the most overrated record ever. "It's sounds awful...on purpose! Genius!" Yeah, right.
Captain Beefheart would have many more fans if people would talk about how great "Safe As Milk" or "Clear Spot" are instead of "Trout Mask Replica".
@@BiggieTrismegistus Doc at the Radar Station is also up there.
5:46 That's fucking hilarious he would make accusations like that. I know a few people here in Toronto that lived in the UK in the late 70's and were pretty balls deep in the punk scene there that say Joe was the most insufferable cocky piece of shit imaginable, even before the "combat rock" era of the band. :D
6:29 Shit, the look on buddy's face sitting next to him kinda says the same thing hahahahaha
That synth sound in 'Dictator' is legitimately the scariest thing I've ever heard
Raise a toast to Saint Joe Strummer, I swear he was our only decent teacher.
Christian Brimo *think he might’ve been
10:29
"We are the clash"
*no*
I feel like Mick Jones was set up to be the fall guy for all of the band's problems. Anything he did that wasn't awesome was another strike against him, all while surely the other guys were being just as obnoxious at times. I think manager Bernie Rhodes really was the person shaping this narrative so he could get rid of the guy standing in his way of taking complete creative control over the band. He destroyed any potential this album possibly had.
It's more than ironic that part of the issues they had with Mick was him being more into synthesizers, etc., when Joe wanted to get "back to basics"...apparently so badly that they made an album dominated by synthesizers used in the *worst* possible way. It's like torture to listen to. I suppose it was karma for treating valuable band members like they were disposable.
On that first song it sounded like the instruments were fighting each other.
The first song sounded like an experimental track than “Revolution 9” by the Beatles from the “White Album” and “They’re Through” by the cast of “Rock and Other Four Letter Words”.
Would you say that the instruments were clashing?
@@Karmy. Yeah, I would. 😂
That is the kind of description that would make me want to listen to it! I think it actually sounds like the instruments are drunkenly trying to have sex with each other and failing miserably
@@TheIkaraCult 🤣
"We're gonna bring punk back to its roots"
*hears a gated snare from a drum machine, synths, and sampled brass*
The roots of punk? Phil Collins.
Surprised nobody's done a punk version of Land of Confusion. At least we have the Disturbed version.
I’m gonna be honest I don’t see sex pistols as a punk band they were manufactured
@@camwad1238 They're questionable. The bands that inspired McLaren to put them together (The Stooges, The Ramones, Television, Patti Smith) had more Punk bonafides, but the Pistols had a huge influence on "Punk Rock" as an idea even if they didn't really practice what they preached (or seemed to preach).
@@camwad1238 The Damned debut is way better than the Sex Pistols debut album.
I don't wana make light of torture but gated snares are fucking torture.
Making the most anti punk album then dissolve is paradoxically the most punk rock thing they could ever do
>Arrive
>Release _Cut the Crap_
>Refuse to elaborate
>Leave
Which once again proves my theory: punk rock was always full of shit.
True they purposefully made a bad album to piss off their fans and said it was gonna be return to form thats pretty punk
It’s like how dada is anti-dada. Anything that is the complete antithesis to punk culture is also extremely punk culture.
@@quetzal7432 Contrarianism and deconstruction are a waste of time.
"We are the Clash" sounds like a drunk soccer anthem sung at midnight at the pub.
That they had the balls to put it on an album after the lineup change really is the definition of "writing checks you can't cash"
Very descriptive and very accurate 😂😂😂
In that way it's kinda awesome. Imagine it over a bar fight. "WE ARE THE CLAAAASHH!!" *someone gets clocked with a chair*
Since we are all the clash can we trademark it and share royalties?
If we are all The Clash, does that mean their songs and iconography are in the public domain?
The Dictator sounds like my panic attacks feel.
*hugs*
Yeah, I hate to use the term “triggering”, since it’s so misused, but in this case.......yeesh.
Oof
I legit thought he meant "Dick Taters" at first.
The song sounds like anxiety.
Went to listen to the full version of "Dictator" out of morbid curiosity and it's actually even more baffling than you described it. It's like there's a kinda decent punk song in there somewhere being droned out by a mix of white noise, synthesizers, and a mexican talk radio station.
Paul S the live version is a lot better
It's also a great example of a band attempting and failing to create a punk equivalent of the kind of thing that a good art-rock band could do infinitely better. Listen to it again and then listen to "The Bob (Medley)" by Roxy Music and you'll probably see what I mean....
Zoran Taylor I mean, listen to PiL or this heat, this is still something that can sit pretty comfortably within the vague confines of “punk”, it just seems as if everything was thrown at the track here without intention.
Must be Wall Of Voodoo and their darn Mexican Radio creeping in again.
@@RobiticDuck lol
You know it's bad when MTV considers an entire album era as "living out as a logo for a while"
Mtv is currently living as a logo!
@@exquisitecorpse__well who would better know
Did a google search. Disappointed to learn that Piss Hydrants aren't a real band.
THEY ARE NOW
Brie Russell but there Is the meatmen
What about The New Monkees? For the love of god, I hope that wasn't an actual band either.
@@mabusestestament Oh, I'm not gonna lie to you. ... :walks away quickly:
(Gets guitar, bangs out three chords, yells instructions on back of hair spray bottle, adds drum beat and bass line, records it, calls band The Piss Hydrants, rushes over out of breath)
...you were saying?
"We are the clash" sounds like your drunk uncle trying to sing "anarchy in the UK", but he can't remember the words.
Another potential 'Trainwreckords' is, obviously, 'Chinese Democracy' by Axl Rose and 183 guest musicians.
I don't think Chinese democracy is that bad I personally think it's guns n roses best album
I don't but then I'm not a big G 'n R guy. It's a miracle it finally got made, to be honest.
Todd can't say anything about the album that wasn't already said in Rocked's Regretting The Past on it
@@TimmyTickle I guess there's only so many ways you can say 'self-indulgent'.
Ironically perhaps Democracy is the most cohesive "ALBUM" Guns put together. Appetite sounds like a typical first album, a few hits with some live favourites. Lies was a typical follow-up ep released midtour. Illusion just sounds like a bunch of work in progress, a few B-sides a few hits, like someone said "let's release everything we got & see what sticks".
Democracy, despite it taking so long, seems like it had some thought put into it... maybe 25 years of thought.
Strummer talking about "drugs are over" sounds like an addict trying to convince his family he's not using anymore, when he knows he is.
The thing about that is that despite what you’d think, him being the lead singer of a 70s punk band, Strummer didn’t really do drugs. There are even a few lines about how drugs are a detriment in London Calling
the song Hateful from that album is a prime example I think, all about Strummers experiences with people around him doing drugs. its really good
Strummer liked his weed, but yes, otherwise he was staunchly anti-drug.
Drugs became unpopular in the 80's because of the smelly hippie burnouts of the 60's and the coke head yuppies of the 80's (who were hated by working class people and non-coke users). When lots of people do something, it's not going to be as cool anymore.
@@ryanjacobson2508 No, not even close to correct. In the '80's coke became cheap enough for even blue collar workers to buy. It was everywhere. Drugs in general were so popular it was hard to find anyone who didn't use something. I don't know where you got the idea that they became unpopular. Maybe the people you personally knew didn't use, or maybe just didn't admit to using around you, but believe me, I was there in my twenties, and drugs were more popular than ever.
I can't believe the clash invented hyperpop
I feel like this is an insult to hyperpop.
hyperpunk
This ain’t hyperpop it’s hypershit
I feel like this is an insult to Hyperpunk.
HyperCRAP
The loss of Topper was crucial, too. The one trained musician in the band without whom the classic quartet would not have realized Mick's musical ideas so effectively on record.
Amen. Strummer always insisted that any band are only as good as their drummer, and always gave Topper huge credit for his technical ability and raw power. Seen more than one interview from Strummer and others saying that the best thing to do in hindsight around 1981-82 would've been to take a hiatus, for the good of the whole band who were desperately burned out by then, but especially so Topper could go to rehab and get himself cleaned up.
The Travis Barker of the 70s
It was, at least Terry was back in the band for a bit, but without Topper or Terry the band was fucked.
Joe Strummer actually tried to get Jones to rejoin the band but he refused
@@afterdinnercreations936IMO Barker = better chops, Headon = better drummer
Dictator sounds like something Captain Beefheart would create if he wanted to create a stadium anthem with the drum machine that his momma gave him for Christmas.
Give a listen to the Captains, "Bluejeans and Moonbeams". An atypical attempt at commercial success
@@johnm3152 Or better yet, don't listen to Bluejeans and Moonbeams. Or Unconditionally Guaranteed. Both of those albums are much better forgotten.
If you want "commercial" Beefheart that has some soul to it, Clear Spot is a great listen.
@@mikesimpson3207 "safe as milk" 🥛 - point taken. FZ really hated "Blue Jeans..." Do believe Don was attempting (on advice of his newly acquired, bouffant managerial poodle 🐩 types) full "Commercial Potential" - arf ! Zappa's a basket case ! Arf
@@mikesimpson3207 "Shiny beast (Bat chain puller)"?
On the mid 70's Beefheart albums he often sounds like Cat Stevens to me, on a few tracks I think it actually works but most of the time it doesn't. Even when it does it's not what I look for in Beefheart music.
Clash "superfan" here, and other than your downplaying of Topper's role in the band (they credit getting Topper with being the final piece of their puzzle that made them into a great band, and he was actually fairly involved in quite a bit of songwriting, he reinforced the Rock n Roll swing that Mick had against Joe and Paul's harsher musical tendencies), you presented a very good overview of what this album is.
Agreed with the Topper part. Topper's versatility is half of why The Clash became who they are, especially on London Calling
Topper's story is heartbreaking. Not only a fantastic drummer, but a great all-around musician. He wrote the music for Rock The Casbah, including that great piano part.
The clash are shit lol
Yes Topper was definitely instrumental to the success of the band.
He recognized that his addiction had started the breaking up of The Clash and contributed to its ending. If Joe hadn’t died I think they would have had one of the best and most well received reunion tours in history.
I would have loved to hear Joe sing about the turmoil the world endured in the early 2000s, I think he would have been an amazing voice at the time.
Fucking seriously, even as a casual music listener and a casual fan of The Clash, I could tell that Topper's drumming really added so much to the songs. Todd tends to have some studio exec/high school band leader tendencies when analyzing music.
We are the Clash is hilarious. Just the idea of arguably the greatest punk band in history doing a cheesy disaster like that is so sadly pathetic.
How could punk be so un punk
According to Mick Jones, when they were making the "London Calling" album, he wrote 80% of the music and Joe Strummer wrote 80% of the lyrics. That explains everything.
7:10 Well, if by "going back to punk roots" they meant "sounding like your 16 year old neighbor in the garage with his first sound machine," they nailed it 👍
For a lot of people, that's pretty much what punk rock is.
It's funny how so many bands (and fans) seem to think that 'going back to the band's roots' means production that sounds like a hand grenade going off in a lead-lined shed.
Quiet down, you noisy punk!!!
"Punk is kids banging in their garage"- Todd, in the Cyberpunk Trainwreckord
Joe Strummer said that the cracks started to show once they sacked Topper. It was only ever meant to be temporary, anyway! Topper Headon was a really technically accomplished drummer whose background in jazz and soul music were essential for creating the new sound of the Clash from London Calling onwards. He even wrote Rock the Casbah, the Clash's breakthrough American hit!
todd notoriously disregards drummers lol
@@ffff-qw7sp everyone disregards drummers it's their curse
@@arianrhodhyde7482 I thought everyone disregarded bassists.
@@BrendanJSmith the only creature on god's green earth that is more wretched and lowly than a bassist is a drummer.
@@arianrhodhyde7482 everyone remembers Alex Van Halen but no one remembers Michael Anthony.
35 years later, and Green Day pulled the same shit with their album "Father of All...". They marketed the album as a return to pure rock and roll, and released a studio monstrosity that barely qualifies as an album, let alone rock.
psycho_dog33 maybe it’s true what they say when they say “ you can’t never when home .. “ or is it “ you can’t swim in the same river twice “ or something like that.. you know what I mean..
@@bacht4799 What.
@@bacht4799 no i don't. ❤️
Lunar Dogs sorry.. what I meant was that was that trying to become back what you one was isn’t possible.. you maybe have a style or sound when you was started but you change your style or something like that and when you try to come back to what you was you having changed or the world has changed or not the same person with those things which made you at that time.. or something like that.. sorry English is not my first language and I not so good with writing ..
@@bacht4799 oh thats ok! sorry if i came of rude youre doing really well with english, i think i understand you now
Fun Fact:
Iron Maiden was offered a recording contract in 1977 on the condition they completely changed their genre and style from what they were doing and became punk rockers.
Band leader steve harris told the label to get fucked and they waited until 1979 to sign with a label that respected what they were doing and let them be themselves.
Punk tried to kill the metal...
@@Kochiha
Rob Halford called that period of british music "one of the worst eras of british culture, after punk hit it big it didn't matter if you had talent, it didn't matter if you were technically skilled or if you could even write songs because all you had to do was shove a safety pin through your nose and say you were in a punk band and you could get away with anything"
Interesting factoied
I quote that line all the time. "You didn't even have to play a note, just hammer three chords and shove a safety pin through your nostril." My comment was a Tenacious D reference.
Well, Iron Maiden "first" vocalist (third in fact) Paul Di'Anno had a punk style.
I notice that bands in trainwreckords has some sort of trouble with their leader. Van Halen with Eddie Van Halen, creedence with John fogerty, and now this.
Liam v Noel Gallagher, too.
People like to trash label executives, but usually the creative individuals need some level of reining in. Without it, egos run wild and no one can tell them to stop.
As people say: fish starts to rot from it's head.
Styx with their lead, Oasis with pretty much everyone.
thats why its so hard to be appart of a band/group. to mauch clashing of heads. unless you settle down and make hard rules that everybody has to follow for there to be some form of peace, people are going to bicker.
like one rule should be 'the majority vote matters more'. If everybody says 'yes this song should be worked on and released' and another says 'i'm not feeling it' then tough the majority thinks it works. no hard feelings.
but when one person tries to take controll of everything, it makes more people pissy in the end (think how tome Cruze ruined his mummy film because he re wrote the script, took directors rolls and even told camera men to make him look better. and look how that film turned out)
honestly i feel like Dirty Punk is just a shot at Mick Jones.
Oh wow, that oddly makes a whole lotta sense.
according to the album credits Bernie was a co-writer, so that theory holds water
Oh yeah probably
I can't believe that this is the same band that made London Calling, a album that is so exquisitely produced.
But minus topper- and especially mick - was it really the same band?
@@wylier good point.
That's the thing though, it WASNT the same band. This is why almost all of the clash fans disown Cut The Crap and pretend that it never existed and rightly so.
@@itstyypical3908 The thing I don't understand is how it's this bad. Like, obviously it isn't gonna sound exactly the same as their previous album, they have new members; But it's the same producer who's produced quality works before, how the hell is it this... I don't even wanna say amateur, because I think amateurs know to sync a fucking dum track to the rest of the song.
@@plantain.1739 The Clash had different producers on their earlier albums. Sandy Pearlman produced Give 'em Enough Rope, and the clash hated his producing style. London Calling was produced by legendary manager/ producer Guy Stevens, who the clash really got along with, and the end product shows. Cut the Crap was all Bernie Rhodes' fault. Strummer is at fault for believing him.
The song "Dictator" sounds like anxiety. Maybe this represents what living in a dictatorship is like. Or maybe it's just incompetently produced.
Someone else made the same comment lol.
Todd: "Sounds like Phil Collins"
Also Todd: sings Chris De Burgh
I was just going to say that.
T h e r e s n o b o d y h e r e
Maybe that's why the video was re-uploaded, to avoid a copyright strike. The audio for that snippet sounds different from the rest of the video, and it's well established Todd knows his music, regardless of how he might poke fun at artists for sounding similar.
Christ! De Berg!
I don't have a shadow of a doubt that Todd knows who sang Lady in Red
This album is so bad that its not even in their Spotify catalog lmao
Thats kinda sad......i wanted to hear how much of a trainwreck it is but that could be a good thing
@@AliceFlynn still....i can't play it in the backround
@@fizzpeak123 just use pirate bay and download a lossless version of it. That's still a far better way to listen to music , even if this album isn't worth having particularly, because spotify's file quality is so poor
It’s still on spotify for me?
@@pphaguss im from the uk and it isn't on there
"Drugs are over from this moment now!" he says while holding a lit cigarette.
Cigarettes in the 80s were still part of a well-balanced diet
To be fair isn't punk supposed to be counterculture? And in the 80s drugs were huge, so in a way being straight edge was counterculture
Techno union representative All about that Punk Rock Detox man, just get it down to coffee and cigarettes.
@@technounionrepresentative4274 Straight Edge anarchism and its constituents are a thing yeah, but they also reject shit like cigarettes to my knowledge
The difference is that cigarettes are legal (for some reason...)
There's something darkly ironic about the album that killed a band's career being called "Cut the Crap"
@@kenterminateddq5311 "I get crapped on, but I get up again"
what chubawanba album isnt obscure
KenTerminatedbyGoogle Well, Mardi Gras is a big thing in Louisiana, and CCR did have an affinity for that state (Born on the Bayou, anyone?)
@@kenterminateddq5311 Given you didn't name it, i guess it actually is obscure.
@@mariokarter13 Don't forget Yes Please! by the Happy Mondays. One review of the album was literally just the words "no thanks."
The song playing at 7:17 sounds the way that anxiety feels
It sounds like Death Grips going pop and failing spectacularly
Morley It sounds like what an attempt to cram for a final exam would sound like.
Ew, that was too apt and now I feel uncomfortable.
That’s too accurate. When I was 16 I was constantly thinking about a ton on shit while songs were stuck in my head. It sounded exactly like this.
That would be a compliment if this was Daughters or Xiu Xiu.
“They were selling out arenas...”
Well.. kinda. They were opening for The Who in large arenas.
You caught that too ... I'm glad someone else did because the Clash in reality was barely capable of selling out clubs in the states
@@jonesy2111
And don't misunderstand me ... I'm a huge fan of the Clash, especially London Calling and the unfairly maligned Sandinista and the singles around those albums. They would have fully deserved to fill arenas on their name alone. But that statement is a little out of context here.
Still, opening for the Who ain't much to sneeze at either.
@@christopherwall2121 Metallica toured the Master of Puppets album with Ozzy Osbourne, so even greater success could have been possible for The Clash had they gone another album (or a few)
Fun Fact: Vince White's real name is Greg. He was forced to change it by Paul Simonon, who "didn't want to be in a band with a guy named Greg" 😂😂😂
Greg is a great name from Russia/Scotland, 😢
Just to clarify something, Topper Headon was also sacked from the band because of Bernie Rhodes. The band wanted Topper to get clean and come back. Rhodes hated Topper, referring to him as a "tosser" or homosexual because he couldn't stand Topper as a person. When he put The Clash together in 1976 Terry Chimes was their original drummer. Rhodes didn't want him to leave when he did, and took an instant hatred towards Topper when he joined. So Bernie told them Topper was not going to be coming back, but instead Terry Chimes was put back in the band after the Combat Rock was released. He appeared in the video for their biggest hit 'Rock The Casbah,' mostly composed and tracked by Topper except for the vocals, lyrics, and guitar parts.
Bernie was an evil conniving prick who had it set in his mind he was going to destroy The Clash if he ever got to come back. And Joe has openly admitted it was the worst mistake of his life letting Bernie come back as their manager. And yeah, none of those interviews after Mick Jones had left the band were genuine. Joe was saying all that garbage in order to appease Bernie. None of the songs were composed by Joe on 'Cut The Crap.' That was all Bernie. And you can tell because if you listen to all the music Joe put out after the end of The Clash you will hear some of the most amazing compositions ever written. Joe wrote songs during his solo career that make you feel like The Clash could've been on them under assumed names, much like The Beatles were on each other's solo records over the last 5 decades. I know they were not, but the vibe on some of those songs make you feel like they could've been. As a diehard Clash fan it hurts me they fell apart like they did because they truly were the only band that ever mattered. My whole life changed because of them, and I am forever grateful for their music, their lyrics, and their political beliefs.
It's a real shame Bernie owns the rights to their music because 'Cut The Crap' should be lost to the septic tank for all times.
Terr Cain this is a good comment.
Tosser is a another way of callimg some one a wanker
Earthquake weather was sacked by critics but its better than cut the crap
@@rhyssatterfield7487 Earthquake Weather is a fantastic record.
@@grindcorejazz1392 Perhaps, but in the way Bernie has said it in interviews it sounds like he was calling Topper a homosexual.
My dad used to call the version of the band that did CtC "The Crash" and never played any of the songs from the album. I now know why.
The Clash's last hurrah, yeah, but I dunno if that's quite fair to Strummer, who produced some really good solo stuff.
Shou :)
The angry confidence with which Joe declares "drugs are over!" is the same vibe I want to give off when I'm discussing stuff I don't like.
"Olives are over! Leopard print is over! Racism is over!"
Parmesan cheese can shove off
I think John Lyden can act like that too sometimes
"Everyone who eats an olive is a Greek, and Greeks can... shove off!"
I don't think the decline of punk is really much of a mystery. I feel like the original 70's punk groups were pretty diverse, and it makes sense all ended up in different places (or no where at all) by the 80's.
The Ramones gave into their old-school rock/pop side with end of the century, and spent the rest of their careers trying to rediscover their original sound; the Sex Pistols imploded after one album; and the Clash (on their peak album no less) veered heavily into reggae/ska and radio-ready rock hits.
The genre as a whole kind of gave way to poppy New Wave (something Blondie was always closer to). The most appealing aspect - the energy and distorted guitar power - were retooled into popular music
By the end of the decade, the continually stricter definition of "punk" narrowed the genre down to a more niche market, in the form of hardcore punk and other spin-offs.
And the real spirit of punk moved on to heavy metal.
Another thing that I feel lead to it's decline is that punk was too limited, its entire point is keeping things simple but eventually you'll want some experimentation and that's why post-punk and new wave happened
@@BrendanJSmith can't remember the last time I heard a metal song about hating the government
@@MYNAMACHEF Peace Sells by Megadeth.
@@BrendanJSmith right, black sabbath would count too
But most political metal songs are from the yesteryear. Contemporary metal focuses on little more than brutal imagery
Hey Todd, have you ever considered doing "Idlewild" by Outkast for this series. I think it would be a good fit for Trainwreckords as it ended up breaking the duo up, is musically very inconsistent due to the creative differences between 3 stacks and Big Boy at this point, and that it also served as a "follow up" to the widly successful Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, meaning it was going to be a flop from the start. Also because Outkast's history is very intersting to dive into, and the context surrouding the duo's creative differences can be traced back as far back as the album Stankonia.
"We are not calling ourselves Shit Sandwich, and that is final." - Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
Perfect segue to Wham in the beginning! The little touches like that keep me watching and rewatching these reviews!
I actually laughed out loud when that happened.
10:08 going off on hippies sounds so Eric Cartman.
TRAINWRECKORDS : SQUEEZE by The Velvet Underground.
you're losing money, Todd.
Does it really count as a Trainwreckord if the band was already dead by that point? It's pretty much just a Doug Yule solo album released under a former band's name for marketing purposes.
@@VinchVolt You got a valid point there. Still, I would like to see the story behind that album and the attempt of Doug Yule trying to maintain VU alive.
VinchVolt well I mean the clash we’re dying/dead when they made cut the crap
@@thomaslippiatt7107 To a degree, yes, but it at the very least had a cohesive lineup and lead member Joe Strummer. Squeeze is literally just John Cale's replacement and whichever session musicians he could get his hands on at the time; no founding members of the band had any involvement with the record.
VinchVolt this is true
I heard We Are The Clash in the thrift store a few weeks ago. Amazing. Someone's a fan
16:40 At least Phil Collins actually knows how to play the drums and make good beats.
Have you heard the stuff he did with his fusion band Brand X back in the 70s? Dude's not just competent but straight up legendary. Somehow he's both one of the most successful and most underrated drummers in rock simultaneously. He's to the drums what John McVie is to the bass.
Well he was the drummer for the band before peter gabriel left.
Exactly! He's a great drummer, AND a great singer too! One of my favorites from the 80's. I love all of his solo work, and his work with Genesis as well!
For most of my teenage years, I listened to The Clash, totally enamored and absorbed and in love with what I was hearing. It was innovative, and meant something, and just felt like such a complete sound and vision of what mattered. I had cds, and posters, tshirts, books...
I collected every record, and played them til I knew the lyrics to every song..... except this one. I had heard terrible things about Cut The Crap, and avoided it like the plague. Eventually, years later in my early twenties, I decided it was time to give it a shot. Big mistake.
Listening to Joe turn The Clash into.... this.... was so upsetting. I still had the old stuff to go back to.... but I never got that taste out of my mouth.... that feeling that they had a perfect legacy, stained by one bad final project....
I wouldn't let this album effect my view on The Clash. London Calling and Combat Rock are just too good to ignore.
I can see where you're coming from at least. This album is really bad, but I think it shouldn't really effect the other albums the band put out.
That was me in my teenage years also, absolutely warped my personality (in a good way) age 17. The thing for me, though, was that I read Kris Needs' book on them pretty early on and I ended up putting all my disappointment and anger right into Bernie Rhodes. Like, I was disappointed in Joe for that record, I still am, but more than anything I blame Bernie for taking advantage of him and taking over. Joe Strummer was a good man, and I won't let the ghost of Bernie take that away from him.
16:00- Todd's impression of Joe singing "Hey Mickey" is hilarious. 😂😂