Taking Sides: Cut the Crap by the Clash VS. Reverberation by Echo & the Bunnymen

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ERASED BY HISTORY, BATTLE OF THE BLACK SHEEP

Not so much a question of which album is better (one might be hard pressed to form a convincing argument on behalf of either dubious artefact) so much as which hurts less. Both recorded after key members had flown their respective coops, Cut the Crap and Reverberation get precious little mention in the bios of each band. If anything both have become somewhat farcical collectors items (I think Cut the Crap is probably easier to track down), though certainly not because of the inclusion of any magical tracks.

Of the two, Cut the Crap did have "This is England" going for it. An empassioned Strummer anthem, marred by limp beat box effects. Elsewhere it was a dire, dour affair. But Reverberation, on the other hand, didn't even feature Ian McCulloch....arguably the strongest link in the Bunnymen chain (if you fail to appreciate Will Sergeant's wonderous guitars). Even Will's fretwork couldn't save this album from swan-diving catastrophically into a boggy swamp of muddled mediocrity, sinking without the slightest trace. Unsurprisingly, McCulloch's replacement Noel Burke hasn't been heard from since.

I used to own both, but have since parted with both. Anyone still own them? Anyone still play them?

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 22 October 2004 05:15 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.lyred.com/covers/echo___the_bunnymen_-_reverberation.jpg

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 22 October 2004 05:16 (twenty-one years ago)

I also have owned both (I thought at first I'd originated this thread wayyy back)

Cut the crap is a failed Clash album, it's not as bad as everyone says and I do play it on occasion.

Reverberation is a band that sound a bit like Echo and the Bunnymen. There were many bands like that at the time, and this album is no worse than any of them. But it is not a 'failed' Echo album, more a 'not' echo and the bunnymen album. I have it on tape and quite enjoyed it, but I have other albums to play...

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 22 October 2004 07:53 (twenty-one years ago)

A long, long time ago. I used to really like Reverberation. I lived in shame, hid from neighbors. I didn't advertise this fact.

But I don't have it now in my posession to play. I guess that says something.

I wouldn't choose the Clash over that, though.

― Bimble (bimble), Friday, 22 October 2004 08:03 (twenty-one years ago)

I went to see one of their last gigs (before Mac left) at the Wembley arena.

Next time I saw them 'around', it was 2 years later, they were playing the After Dark club in Reading.

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 22 October 2004 08:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Shouldn't we throw The Velvet Underground's "Squeeze" on here as well?
I've never heard any of these records.

― A Million Talking Hot Dogs (AaronHz), Friday, 22 October 2004 08:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Cut The Crap (CBS, 1985; now CD) #16. Much maligned on release in an England grown cold, but an ambitious and moving state-of-the-nation address with innovative use of rap rhythms and atmosphere.

Picks: ‘Dictator’/ ‘Dirty Punk’/‘Are You Red…y’/‘Cool Under Heat’/‘Movers And Shakers’/‘This Is England’/‘Fingerpoppin’’/‘Life Is Wild’

England's Dreaming (1991), Jon Savage

― nodogsbody (J. Sot), Friday, 22 October 2004 09:40 (twenty-one years ago)

I'll cop to owning and enjoying Reverberation.

The trick to it is not thinking of it as an Echo/Bunnymen album. Same goes for any records of this type. View it as an entirely unrelated artifact.

Similar to how the only way a Texan can enjoy Taco Bell is by not viewing it as Tex/Mex food.

― Edward Bax, Friday, 22 October 2004 11:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Cut the Crap sounds a lot better if you skip the truly awful opening cut.

― Not That Chuck, Friday, 22 October 2004 12:38 (twenty-one years ago)

I actually *like* the song "Enlighten Me"
and "This is England" is kinda okay.

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Friday, 22 October 2004 12:40 (twenty-one years ago)

I like Cut The Crap a lot, certainly far more than the dire Combat Rock LP that preceeded it. Mind, I've come to think of it not so much as a Clash record, more a Joe Strummer LP which, so I've read, manager Bernie Rhodes added all sorts of extraneous noises to. Not the best LP in the world, fer sure, but several of the songs (This Is England, Dirty Punk, Dictator, We Are The Clash)are great, plus Sparks did a wonderful cover of We Are The Clash on a recentish Uncut cover mount.

I used to own Reverberation. I don't now. I neither miss it, nor remember anything about it other than an all-pervading impresion of dullness

― David Simpson (David Simpson), Friday, 22 October 2004 14:47 (twenty-one years ago)

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