History Music / CutTheCrap

* CanonDiscontinuity: Official sources try to ignore this album as much as possible; the most attention it usually receives is in bitter passing, it was outright excluded from the 2013 ''Sound System'' BoxedSet, and it wasn't added to the band's Spotify page until long after the rest of their backlog had spent a good while being available. "This Is England" is the only song from the album that appears on any compilations, if any ever acknowledge the album.

''Cut the Crap'' is the sixth and final album by Music/TheClash, released in 1985. It's also the one that the band doesn't like to talk about, and not without good reason: the album was heavily plagued by poor production and a ton of infighting, and frontman Joe Strummer was reportedly depressed and demotivated enough in the wake of its release to call it quits with the Clash in 1986, not long after its release.

* [[AbsenteeActor Absentee Musician]]: Joe Strummer is the only Clash member to appear on most of the album. Guitarists Nick Sheppard and Vince White's contributions were almost entirely buried in the mix, while drummer Pete Howard and longtime bassist Paul Simonon's contributions were replaced entirely, the former with a drum machine, and the latter by session bassists.

When released, the album was shelled with ridicule from critics and fans alike. Flopping harder than a beached trout in both the record stores and the charts was only the least of The Clash's problems-- Joe Strummer himself was personally horrified as to how the album turned out (not helped by the fact that people mistakenly thought that the "Jose Unidos" pseudonym for Rhoades was referring to himself), declared it to be an OldShame for the rest of his life, and disbanded the Clash soon after in early 1986. The album is seen by critics, analysts, fans, and the public at large as a pariah in popular music, and in the Clash's own merchandise, the album is pretty much treated as an UnPerson: very little is mentioned about it in their history books (if at all), and it is completely omitted from box sets and compilations, with "This is England" being the only source of representation it ever gets, if at all. Most official retrospective material about the Clash consequently leaves a vague chronological hole after ''Combat Rock'', hastily glossing over ''Cut the Crap'' and skipping straight to the band's dissolution in 1986. The closest the Clash ever got to acknowledging this album's existence was by permitting its inclusion in the 1999 remastering campaign of their back-catalog and by allowing it on streaming services-- even then, the arrival of ''Cut the Crap'' in both of these campaigns was a begrudging and heavily belated one, to the point where the turn-of-the-millennium remaster was [[NoExportForYou only released in Europe]].

However, a few songs, most notably "This is England", were given praise nonetheless, and the album's songwriting is generally seen as on-par with previous Clash material-- it's the production that's the real issue. The album has also been VindicatedByHistory somewhat for this reason, but many Clash fans still see it as just tragic. Those who knew its troubled development have come to see it as a massive WhatCouldHaveBeen that went wrong due to the constant struggle for power that dogged the album's development; many others pretend that the album never happened. Bernie Rhodes meanwhile [[NeverMyFault denied that the album flopping was his fault, blaming changing tastes and censorship.]] Nevertheless, the album remains to be the most infamous in their catalogue, and served as the GenreKiller for PunkRock as a mainstream force in the 1980s, with the genre returning to its underground roots and staying there from that point onward (barring the brief PopPunk boom of the late 90's and early 2000's).

''Cut the Crap'' is the sixth and final album by Music/TheClash, released in 1985. It's also the one that the band doesn't like to talk about, and not without good reason: the album was heavily plagued by poor production and a ton of infighting, and tanked so hard as a result of these tense circumstances that Joe Strummer was reportedly depressed and demotivated enough to call it quits with the Clash in 1986, not long after its release.

When released, the album was shelled with ridicule from critics and fans alike. Flopping harder than a beached trout in both the record stores and the charts was only the least of The Clash's problems-- Joe Strummer himself was personally horrified as to how the album turned out (not helped by the fact that people mistakenly thought that the "Jose Unidos" pseudonym for Rhoades was referring to himself), declared it to be an OldShame for the rest of his life, and disbanded the Clash soon after in early 1986. The album is seen by critics, analysts, fans, and the public at large as a pariah in popular music, and in the Clash's own merchandise, the album is pretty much treated as an UnPerson: very little is mentioned about it in their history books (if at all), and it is completely omitted from box sets and compilations, with "This is England" being the only source of representation it ever gets, if at all. Most official retrospective material about the Clash consequently leaves a vague chronological hole after ''Combat Rock'', hastily glossing over ''Cut the Crap'' and skipping straight to the band's dissolution in 1986. The closest the Clash ever got to acknowledging this album's existence was by permitting its inclusion in the 1999 remastering campaign of their back-catalog and by allowing it on streaming services-- even then, the arrival of ''Cut the Crap'' in both of these campaigns was a begrudging and heavily belated one, to the point where the turn-of-the-millennium remaster was [[NoExportForYou only released in Europe]].

However, a few songs, most notably "This is England", were given praise nonetheless, and the album's songwriting is generally seen as on-par with previous Clash material-- it's the production that's the real issue. The album has also been VindicatedByHistory somewhat for this reason, but many Clash fans still see it as just tragic. Those who knew its troubled development have come to see it as a massive WhatCouldHaveBeen that went wrong due to the constant struggle for power that dogged the album's development; many others pretend that the album never happened. Bernie Rhodes meanwhile [[NeverMyFault denied that the album flopping was his fault, blaming changing tastes and censorship.]] Nevertheless, the album remains to be the most infamous in their catalogue, and served as the GenreKiller for PunkRock as a mainstream force in the 1980s, with the genre returning to its underground roots and staying there from that point onward (barring the brief PopPunk boom of the late 90's and early 2000's).

!!But now these are the tropes, howling from your radio![[note]]PAH! PAAAHH! PAAAAHHHHHHH![[/note]]:

* IndecipherableLyrics: "Dictator" suffers from this thanks to the murkiness and electronic cacophony of Rhodes' mixing.
* IntentionallyAwkwardTitle: Not just for the semi-profane word "crap", but the title was way too tempting for a ReviewIronicEcho, which many reviewers jumped at, with quips along the lines of "this album really needs to take its own advice."

* NewWaveMusic: The album was made to be passed off as this with some elements of SynthPop rather than ''just'' PunkRock, much to Strummer's horror.

* RadioVoice: Several of these are heard in the background of "Dictator", contributing to the already bizarre hodge-podge of out-of-sync drum machines and synth farts that define the song's finalized mix.

->"This is England,\\

This is how we feel..."

[[caption-width-right:350: ''"This is England/This is how we feel..."'']]

* IntentionallyAwkwardTitle: Not just for the semi-profane word "crap", but the title was way too tempting for a ReviewIronicEcho, which many reviewers jumped at, with quips along the lines of "the album really needs to take its own advice."