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This is the second punk album I bought, aged 15, in 1987. Its critically maligned, but not as bad as you'd think and with at least, to my mind, three of the best songs the band recorded (Dirty Punk, We Are The Clash, This is England). Its production was fraught with inter-band line up changes, intrigue and significant drama, and thus is a story worth telling. I would like to eventually take this to FAC, but would like pointers and advice at this stage. No need to pull punches :) Ceoil (talk) 11:51, 23 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

BLZ

[edit]

I've started looking it over, mostly keeping it minor so far—lots of tidying up references and little formatting things, plus some actual copyediting as I go. Here's a running log of some things that I thought should be commented on beyond the confines of an edit summary:

Lead
  • This first bullet point is not a comment but a note of praise, and something I want to get on-record because I know what I'm praising is sometimes disfavored: the use of quotations in the lead here is good and even necessary. "Catastrophic event" is something Wikipedia house style and its NPOV couldn't say, but in this case it's true, and it would be irresponsible to avoid expressing just how bad this record's rep is. Ditto for "one of the most disastrous ever released by a major artist and a complete failure artistically and commercially", and the use of a second line about the critical consensus helps reenforce that this was a widely shared perception at the time, and not just one writer's interpretation of events. Lastly, "designed to sound hip and modern — '80s style!" is perfectly soaked with sarcasm and cuts to the heart of what was up with the sound faster and better than a dry Wikipedia rendition could provide. Each of those quotations seems apt, well-selected, well-considered within the structure of the lead and the unfolding of information; I wouldn't cut or reword any of them.
Ok. Am struggling with how much to lay at Rhode's door. On the one hand, the sound and dreadful title is mostly down to him, on the other, Joe and Paul had fired Mick and Topper and then went awal, so he was, in a way, left on his own. Not withstanding, I think yes, the lead needs to quickly ascertain the long held consensus up front. Ceoil (talk) 10:47, 24 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
No longer struggling, espically after reading White and Howard's accounts. Article now clearer. Ceoil (talk) 07:12, 28 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Background
  • Regarding this edit: I took the phrase "musical centering" out as it seemed clunky and possibly redundant, but now I feel like there's more to that and something should be recovered from it rather than purely cut. I presume the band wasn't merely mad that Jones was using a synth, but mad that it was somehow forced to the "musical center". That probably just needs to be explained more clearly, because the previous wording left this "centering" as a passive action without any agent doing the centering. Was Jones insisting on a synth-heavy direction? If so the "musical centering" was not passive, it was Jones himself.
  • "The rehearsals were eventually abandoned ... [a paragraph break and a sentence or two pass] ... Not long into rehearsals, in late August or early September, Strummer fired Jones." New rehearsals, or the same? Maybe needs to be reordered, or have it spelled out that sessions were resumed/new sessions started later.
  • "The latter took the name Vince White after Simonon refused to play in a band with someone named 'Greg'". First off, this is an amazing and outrageously funny detail. Especially considering the man continues to go by Vince to this day. "Name me one cool guy called Greg"—c'mon Paul, you could have let him be the first, or at least let him try to be!
Something I wondered: how did they come up with "Vince"? I wondered if his middle name was "Vincent", but that was quickly checkable and was not the case. Whose idea was "Vince"? Was it Simonon's, was it poor Greg, someone else? Simonon seems the funniest possibility to me. We'd have a picture of his complete aesthetic spectrum of name-coolness, ranging from the uncoolest possible name of Greg to the ideal coolest name, Vince.
He was told that he was hense "Vince". No doubt it was Paul's idea, and obv based on alliteration. Reworded. Ceoil (talk) 10:57, 24 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The wording could be changed to "agreed to take the name Vince White" but I thought I'd run that by you. I don't know the full details from the sources, but based on what you've written to retell the story, I feel like this wording remains neutral/accurate while subtly reenforcing the banal absurdity of the situation. After all, here's a guy who gets the surprise opportunity to join the Clash, but only on the condition he has to agree to forsake his given name of Greg, which is deemed impossible to be cool. I think this wording would work regardless of the answer to my earlier query about who came up with "Vince", although it's what got me wondering about that question in the first place: "agree to" may be even truer/funnier if it was someone in The Clash who dreamed up the name "Vince". Saying he "took" the name is correct strictly speaking, but it gives him more agency than he may have had in what sounds like an undignified/petty/silly situation.
  • Probably worth noting for any Clash neophytes that reggae had become a hallmark of their sound, so avoiding playing reggae was purposeful (not just a context-free aesthetic inclination). I take it most readers will be well schooled in the Clash, but my attitude is FA-worthy articles should be reasonably standalone for general readers.
    Would like get in a mention of blues, which were foundational for Paul's base lines, but also for Rotten and Wobble. Ceoil (talk) 14:01, 24 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "that he was planning to tour" — can't put my finger on it precisely but something about this phrasing feels slightly off. I think "planned to tour" or "was making plans to tour" would be better. These are apparently small adjustments, but I think it has to do with the (un)seriousness of Jones's intentions here. This sentence would probably also benefit from the addition of a clear signal (within the bounds of reasonable NPOV/accuracy considerations) that Jones intended these plans as vindictive/spiteful act. Or at least, he intended his communication with Graham to be vindictive/spiteful, since it sounds like he was never truly serious about these plans but was only trying to fuck with his erstwhile bandmates. His plans for a tour never materialized right?
    It certainly felt as vindictive to critics of the time; there was significant bad blood, which from a BLP POV is tricky. Will retry. Ceoil (talk) 11:18, 24 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Recording and production
  • "We didn't think... [and believe] 'Anyone can write a punk song!' That was our mistake" — I reworded this to: "We didn't think... [we believed] 'Anyone can write a punk song!' That was our mistake." I'm not sure what was cut/paraphrased from the quote so I had to go with what was there; and I'm sure it could be further improved/clarified from what I substituted. My concern was that the original wording could be read as "We didn't think and we didn't believe 'Anyone can write a punk song!' That was our mistake", which would seem contradictory and lose the meaning. I assumed the underlying meaning was essentially "We weren't thinking, and as a result unfortunately we believed 'Anyone can write a punk song!' That was our mistake."
ok. Ceoil (talk) 13:56, 24 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Now "Clash associate Kosmo Vinyl observed how the remaining members began to assume that anyone could write a punk song.[16] Unknown to the band, Rhodes had conceived his own solution to Jones' departure- he would write the music." Needs an em dash, but I dont known how to do that. Ceoil (talk) 07:08, 28 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Rhodes enlisted engineer Micheal Fayne due to his prior experience with programmed drum machines" — but why did they want to work with drum machines? They hadn't before right? Worth spelling out. But maybe this is answered by "Neither Strummer nor Rhodes had experience in producing records, and both sought radical ideas, including replacing live musicians with synthetic sounds"...
    Quick answer - they wanted an 80s style! sound. Actual reason is...couldn't afford to pay a drummer, and anyway, the album was basically being recoded in secret at this stage, over, reportedly, Joe's dead body. To be fair to Rhodes, the band was financially bankrupt at the time, for complex reasons. Will clf. Ceoil (talk) 14:13, 24 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Rhodes changed the line-up of the band." — This maybe downplays the unilateral nature of the decision. Also unclear (in conjunction with the sentences that follow): were they cut from the band more or less at the outset, or did they record for the album but were edited out/overdubbed with someone else?
    Have now made clear in the lead that its was Strummer and Simonon who engineered the line up changes. Will clarify in the body here that Jones' was long gone at this stage. Ceoil (talk) 21:13, 24 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Pete Howard is similarly absent from the album, although an adept drummer." — Is there a clear tie between the two parts of these sentences? This jumped out at me because I'm not intimately familiar with the line-up history of the Clash but, certainly from the Clash records I've heard, Simonon is absolutely an adept bassist—yet he isn't similarly defended on this basis. So my initial reaction to this sentence was: why, when discussing the replacements on the album, are we turning to Howard's skills, but not Simonon's?
Quickly I realize OK, this actually makes sense because—aha! Howard is a recent member of the band. It makes sense to highlight his skill, then, to say yes he was new to the band but it's not as if there had been a mistake in hiring him, it's not like he turned out actually to be incompetent or anything like that. But I didn't know how recent he was to the band—for all I knew he had been on for a while. The background focuses on the addition of Sheppard and White, not Howard, so I thought maybe Howard had perhaps been on Combat Rock or even earlier. Turning to The Clash article I learned Howard joined at the time of the US Festival, which begins the "Background" section. I think it should be made clear early on that he was a new member woh replaced a long-standing member, too. (This gets at my point about the standalone quality articles should ideally strive for; I have a middling knowledge of the Clash, with a better sense of their discography and impact than their actual history, but certainly an above-average knowledge compared to someone picked off the street—and this still required a little backtracking for me to fully understand.)
  • "Due to the terms of his recording contract, Strummer was unable to stop Rhodes." — Why? Do we know what it was it about the terms? The concept of "final cut" is familiar in the film context, was something like that going on here? I'm assuming the parties to the contract were the Clash and the label. Rhodes has a kind of unusual dual role here as manager and musical (ahem) "collaborator", and there's a thread through a lot of the article suggesting this dual role was a kind of conflict of interest. But it's not obvious what that dual role would have to do with the Clash's contract with their label. I would imagine that a label wouldn't ordinarily want to take sides between a manager and a band, given that it might usually be expected for those forces to be aligned in interest against the label, rather than in conflict with each other. So it's not obvious why the contract would give the upper hand to a manager/hijacking-collaborator in this context. (Forgive me, my perverse interest in musty contractual matters is likely a side effect of my lawyerly training.)
  • "Writer Gary Jucha maintained that the chanted choruses were a poor substitute for Mick Jones's backing vocals on earlier recordings, the Clash has used choruses to dramatic effect in recordings such as "The Magnificent Seven" and the "The Call Up", in their album Sandinista!. Somewhere in the underlined portion something happens that I can't quite untangle, can't figure out how/where to split/rewrite the sentence. It's the kind of error that is quite easily mendable once it's seen so I'm not too worried about it, I think I know what you were getting at but you would know best. —BLZ · talk 09:45, 24 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Music and lyrics
  • "while in 2017, Vulture ranked it at number 136 in its "All 139 the Clash Songs, Ranked From Worst to Best" survey." — true, but 139th on the list was "We Are the Clash", also from Cut the Crap. It might be better to single out "We Are the Clash" as the very worst, and/or to draw attention to the album's generally bad ranking since the bottom seven are all taken from Cut the Crap.
We know say, "In 2017, Vulture ranked it at number 136 in its "All 139 the Clash Songs, Ranked From Worst to Best" survey, two places above "We Are the Clash".[5]" Ceoil (talk) 07:03, 28 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • FA reviewers may question the inclusion of the cover to "This Is England" in this article. Personally, I think there's a cognizable fair-use case to be made for its inclusion. It's a means of visually identifying a particularly significant song, which is not far off from the reason for inclusion of album artwork generally, and I don't see how its use here would meaningfully interfere or compete with the rightsholders' ability to make commercial use of the image. Still, people get very uptight about fair use. I imagine this section will have one or two audio samples at some point, and there's a recently added image of Strummer in this section too; it may be easier to remove the cover to avoid clutter and a likely fair-use battle.
  • Yeah ok, have removed this.
  • This section adequately summarizes the (mostly lyrical) contents of several major tracks. I don't think it captures yet the overall sonic character of Cut the Crap. To be sure, the article does describe sonic/instrumental qualities at many points along the way, but this is where it should coalesce into a more complete picture of the album's sound.
Reception, Aftermath
  • These sections don't feel fully "fleshed out" yet, so my comments are fairly general. Over time I've come to prefer, when possible, a clear distinction between contemporaneous reception and retrospective assessments. A commingling of reviews from 1985 and writing from the last few years is, while not misleading exactly, not the clearest picture of the unfolding critical catastrophe. I think it's especially important in this case, since critical reputation is ultimately a huge part of Cut the Crap's legacy. It's probably best to sort retrospective critical reviews after the "Aftermath" and "Rereleases" sections. A few potential benefits of this organization:
  • Makes more narrative sense because it disentangles the reviews that helped depress Strummer into breaking up the Clash from subsequent reviews.
  • Easier to introduce Cut the Crap apologists as "the backlash to the backlash"
  • Cut the Crap's conspicuous absence from Clash compilations gets threaded into the overall narrative. Judging from the sources on RBP and that book, the album's omission from the box set and other comps seems like a bigger deal than I would have initially assumed.
Sources
[edit]

Here's a handful of articles from Rock's Backpages that mention Cut the Crap:

  • "Just as Combat Rock was propelling The Clash into rock's top flights, drug and ego-fuelled ructions split the band asunder. In 1985 Strummer and Simonon returned with three new henchmen and a vow to retrieve the punk purity the old Clash had lost somewhere along the way. What resulted was Cut The Crap, false-punk where rabble-rousing was confused with populism and shouting with sincerity. That The Clash were straining to recover their identity was all too evident in 'We Are The Clash', which not only did protest too much but sounded like a pastiche of the Sex Pistols. Yet, on 'Dirty Punk' and 'Cool Under Heat', for example, Strummer's gift for the tersely addictive musical and lyrical phrase is still audible beneath all the huffing and puffing. But only 'This Is England' is a guttersnipe anthem of which the writer of 'Career Opportunities' eight years previously could be wholly proud."
  • "The Vanilla material is clearly aimed at Clash collectors who routinely snap up underground recordings of the band. As Simonon himself freely volunteered, he's not bothered by bootlegs, so we decided to track down the foremost Clash bootlegger, a gentleman living in northern Italy who goes by the nom du rock 'Arnold Finney.' ... Finney gave us his opinion of the Vanilla Tapes and more. ...
HARP: Tell us about your On Broadway 4 and Rat Patrol titles.
Finney: Aha! Revenge on Sony and the 'kiss-Mick's-ass Clash fans' – they left out [material from] Cut the Crap on the box [BLZ: presumably Clash on Broadway, their only box set to date at time of publication] which was a commercial decision rather than a Joe Strummer one. With Rat Patrol the idea was to nail those demos for good as soon as a great sounding tape appeared."
  • "When Topper Headon left the band shortly before the release of '82's largely pedestrian Combat Rock album, the spell was well and truly broken. The Clash gradually dissolved; antipathy within the ranks led to the departure of Mick Jones, and although Strummer and Simonon struggled on to record '85's execrable Cut The Crap album, The Clash without Mick Jones were little more than the sonic equivalent of a pub with no beer."
  • "But things were coming apart. Headon had been fired because of his drug use, and Jones was given the boot in '83. There was one more album with a revamped lineup, 1985's Cut the Crap, but Strummer regrets that move, even referring to that band by a different name: 'the Clash Mark Two.'" (longer excerpt hidden below)
  • "The Clash" – Book Excerpt by Ira Robbins, The Big Takeover, 1994 (long excerpt hidden below)

Just found something else: We Are The Clash: Reagan, Thatcher, and the Last Stand of a Band That Mattered, an in-depth (400-page!) book on "The Clash Mark II". The general thesis is that post-Jones, post-Headon Clash has been tremendously underrated, and that while Cut the Crap is not as bad as its rep, it was hijacked by Rhodes and fails to capture the qualities of the live band at this time. The Google Preview is reasonably good, but frustratingly omits page numbers. Amazon has a preview but only in Kindle format—so again, no page numbers. It's also available in its entirety with a subscription via Scribd; I have a Scribd subscription, so I can read and search the entire book, but again it's in a custom ebook format without proper page numbers. It looks like Cut the Crap comes up in the introduction (which can be seen in Google Books), plus in Chapters 9 & 10. —BLZ · talk 20:34, 19 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

oh, excellent. Will be buying this, and should fill in a lot of the gaps. Ceoil (talk) 02:35, 23 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Something else I came across: last year's Joe Strummer 001 comp included some well-received demos of tracks that ended up on Cut the Crap, like a (really good) 1983 version of "This Is England" called "Czechoslovak Song / Where Is England". Comp's recent so sources are very accessible; here's Rolling Stone, the Irish Independent, and so on. Some of the details could be better suited to individual song articles but seems noteworthy, especially since critics generally seemed to turn a kind eye to the proto-Cut the Crap tracks. —BLZ · talk 00:51, 24 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yeah. Personally I find the version of This is England too labored, especially the bass line is fussy (and dub bass is what attracted me to the clash in the first place), and given the lyrics are so strong, the laid back music is a miss match, and there is no real impact. Your wider point however is worth considering; ie that the article should be pitched more in terms of a lost opportunity rather than a fiasco. Ceoil (talk) 13:39, 24 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sources Mark II
[edit]

I checked the news database in WestLaw and found some additional newspaper reviews and articles, mostly American (one Canadian). There's a spectrum of usefulness here but I erred on the side of inclusion. Since these are offline without a subscription, I've copy-pasted the text of the articles then hidden them in the code under each bullet point. —BLZ · talk 23:42, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Morse, Steve (12 October 1985). "Clash, Jones Clash Again with Concurrent Releases". Boston Globe.
  • Sasfy, Joe (21 November 1985). "Rants Without Raves; Political Pap From the Revised Clash". The Washington Post
  • Lacey, Liam (21 November 1985). "Inside the Sleeve". The Globe and Mail.
  • Defendorf, Richard (24 November 1985). "The Clash". Orlando Sentinel.
  • Samuels, Lennox (24 November 1985). "The Clash's New Album Proves Musically Apt, Politically Irrelevant". The Dallas Morning News.
  • Bream, Jon (10 January 1986). "The spirit moves Al Green". Star Tribune.
  • This is a review of Big Audio Dynamite's '85 album, not Cut the Crap, but it does comment on Cut the Crap. It strikes me that most of the reviews I've posted here compare This Is Big Audio Dynamite and Cut the Crap, mostly unfavorably but not always.
  • More of Strummer dissing Cut the Crap. May reinforce—or be redundant to—what's already cited.
  • DeRogatis, Jim (27 February 2000). "Rolling with old gold: Reissues bring out best—and rest—of classic pop albums". Chicago Sun-Times.
  • Pretty incidental—it's a review of the Clash remasters that only mentions Cut the Crap in passing, to note its omission and its status as the band's "sad finale". Mainly including because it's DeRogatis.
  • Melody Maker ran a poll of "pop stars, DJs and journalists" to find the the worst album of all time; Cut the Crap ranked 19th worst.

Ian

[edit]

Okay so I've walked through the article, copyediting as I go. It's certainly an interesting story, in the same way I suppose that an air crash investigation is interesting... I mean I even find their inspiration for the title to be trite, given "cut the crap" is a phrase that surely wasn't unique or original in Mad Max 2...

  • I agree with BLZ that the three quotes used in the lead are good indicators of its rep, although you might find yourself being asked to cull a bit at FAC. For me the "80s-style" one should definitely stay, and at least one of the other two but perhaps not both. Feel free to leave for now, see what others think...
  • This makes sense to me. "80s-style" is most essential; it has the most character and vividly describes the album's style, in a way dry encyclopedic paraphrasing would be unable to achieve. Both of the latter two quotes are about the reception, which is arguably repetitious, and could be trimmed or maybe one could be jettisoned if necessary. Maybe one could be moved into the reception section itself.
That said, I think the two quotes on reception work together in the lead, because they both help to prove a pretty extraordinary claim about the album's reception. Most Wikipedia articles tend to be fairly generous and gentle when appraising the reception to a work of art, as if they're squeamish to say critics didn't like something. This is anecdotal, but lots of albums that received a mostly negative reception are cushioned with the descriptor "mixed" on Wikipedia. In this case, quoting just one source on reception might raise the questions: was the reception really that negative? Are we taking just one source's word for it? Are we elevating one perspective above others? Using two quotes reenforces that the album's reception really was that bad, and indicates that there is a fairly universal consensus on this point. —BLZ · talk 23:14, 18 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Reception section seems a bit thin, do you feel you've exhausted all sources? In any case I would recommend asking Mike Christie to have a look at that section at least, as he has a good critical eye for these.
    No, agree that this section is weak. BLZ above suggested above that at least the reviews should be split between the very harsh contemporary reviews, and the sometimes more kinder retrospective reviews. Working on this. One thing, Strummer was very upset and frustrated by how the album was seen at the time; unsure if this is for the aftermath sect (some of it is there already), or better weaved into the first half reception. I would appreciate Mike to take a look after done, ok will ask. Ceoil (talk) 00:48, 6 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's it for the moment, I'll try to come back and offer more when/if I can -- as I said on my talk page, I'm not exactly a Clash fan (more the Pistols!) so TBH hadn't even heard of this final effort (whereas I could at least name you their other ones) and thus I can really only help with prose and presentation. At the moment it feels like a very solid GA-level article, and well done for that, I'd need a bit more time to consider its current FA-worthiness. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 21:54, 2 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A couple of other things while I think of them...

  • Re. BLZ's point about "The rehearsals were eventually abandoned ... Not long into rehearsals ..." -- I saw this as being a general statement in the first para, and then further detail in the second, i.e. that we were discussing the same rehearsals in two paras, but the fact that both BLZ and I had to think about it suggests maybe some reordering or combination might be in order. Again I'm happy to see what others think.
  • Kind of the same thing, we have the repetition in succeeding paras (the same ones as above) of "Jones and vocalist Joe Strummer had difficulty communicating" and "We weren't really communicating" -- perhaps just cut the latter from the second para and leave it as "relationship was...bad ... The group was dissipating"?
    Done. Ceoil (talk) 00:22, 6 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The last point also leads me back to the question of quotes... ATM the article does seem a little quote-heavy to me but that might (ahem) dissipate if more detail was added (assuming available, it may not be). OTOH many of them do seem to be either be quite pithy or else come from notables, both of which I think should be the criteria for using quotes instead of paraphrasing. I'll try and take another pass to refine my thoughts on that...
    Am in the middle of a purge; the better ones get lost i there are to many. Will update when done. Ceoil (talk) 00:31, 6 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Minor: I assume Bill Wyman of Vulture is not the Bill Wyman so if the writer isn't wikinotable then perhaps better to not mention his name lest it pull one up as it did me...
  • I made the same observation in an edit summary. It's quite the coincidence! I would support omitting his name to avoid confusion, and I certainly support omitting it from the lead. On the other hand, I like attributing writers by name in text, and it's somewhat unfair that a writer's name would be omitted (where it wouldn't be omitted ordinarily) simply because he shares a famous name by coincidence. I would also support something like "writer Bill Wyman (not to be confused with Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones)"; as long as it's to-the-point and parenthetical, I don't think it would be too much to draw attention to the potential confusion then quickly disperse it. —BLZ · talk 22:27, 19 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I haven't gone into source reliability or image licensing but may be able to later; formatting-wise, one thing that stood out was that for consistency you should decide if you want to link all wikinotable publishers or not. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:17, 2 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Ian, these are all very helpful, correct, and am working through...slowly. The publishers thing is done, and a few others also. Will update soon. I also don't really hold the the Clash in my top, uh, 30, but this album is close to me; you could not buy many Punk albums in IRE in 1986, and also Joe's singing / commitment is just mind blowing, esp considering the relatively weak raw material. Anyway Txs. Ceoil (talk) 09:40, 9 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Moise

[edit]
  • I was unsuccessfully looking for any possible additional reviews in Billboard and Spin in Google Books, and I came across this article from 1986 about Big Audio Dynamite that may or may not have useful background info. [[1]] Moisejp (talk) 06:00, 3 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
In fact, its a great insight that BAD made the same transition, only better, I very much agree, so many thanks my friend. Ceoil (talk) 09:37, 9 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Glad if the link is helpful. Update: I've been reading through the article and do have some comments, just need to find a minute to type them up, hopefully this weekend. Talk again soon, Moisejp (talk) 19:03, 9 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lead: From having reviewed a couple of your articles, and from our collaboration on Pod, I think we have a different approach with regards to the following: I very much try to make sure everything in the lead is in the main text. But this doesn't seem like a priority for you, which may be valid, I'm not sure. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section#Introductory text says, "The lead section should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it can stand on its own as a concise version of the article." I guess it depends how strict or loose one's definition of "summarize the most important points" and "concise version of the article" is. For me (I mean for the articles I work on) it's "cleaner" if I'm strict about mirroring the main text in the lead.
I personally also avoid putting quotations in the lead, thus ensuring as much as possible there are no footnotes coming out of the lead, but that may well be personal preference. In sum, covering both of my concerns/preferences above, if I was writing this article, I would move the quotations from the lead's third paragraph to the main text (the Reception section), and then paraphrase them (or more globally paraphrase the sum of the all the Reception comments) in the lead. For me, when I do that I can be sure I'm following MOS, but, again, if you're comfortable with your way and that you're still "summarizing the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it can stand on its own as a concise version of the article" then that may be valid. From the articles of yours that I've reviewed, I didn't notice any other reviewers mentioning this, so maybe it's only me who thinks this way.
Oh man, I just looked up and saw what BLZ wrote, which seems to be close to the opposite of what I just wrote, with Ian somewhere in the middle. Well, take or leave my ideas as you like.
yes, and didn’t love other edits to the lead, so have restored original claims. Ceoil (talk) 02:20, 17 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

More comments to follow soon. Moisejp (talk) 00:39, 11 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Background: "after a series of auditions hired Nick Sheppard and Greg White. The latter agreed to take the name "Vince White" after Simonon said he would prefer to quit rather than play in a band with someone named "Greg". After he asked White to "name me one cool guy called Greg", the aspiring musician took the pseudonym": Three instances of "after" in three sentences. Could be good to change at least one for variety. Moisejp (talk) 02:48, 11 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Recording and production: "Pete Howard is similarly absent from the album,[21][22] although he was an adept drummer." Likely subjective that he was an adept drummer. If you could find a second source describing him as a good drummer, maybe you could say something like "although critics have described him as an adept drummer". Or just say Jucha called him an adept drummer but the sentence going through my head for that sounds weak (when tied with "Pete Howard is similarly absent from the album"), but maybe you have some good ideas for wording to tie everything together. Moisejp (talk) 05:21, 12 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Music and lyrics: Both of the following sentences are sourced to Jucha, but seem to repeat each other, so maybe consider removing one or merging them together: "Rhodes's album version differs substantially from earlier known live recordings" & "He considered the final recorded version a lost opportunity, noting that he had "heard some killer live versions of it"." Moisejp (talk) 03:15, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Likewise these seem to repeat each other: "The guitar-based "Dirty Punk" is built from a simple three-chord structure reminiscent of the band's debut album, and was generally well received" & "The song is nonetheless generally well regarded". Moisejp (talk) 03:18, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    ok, done. Ceoil (talk) 02:00, 23 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • ""Movers and Shakers"' opening line ": Not sure about the grammar correctness of putting a possessive apostrophe after a song title—seems dubious to me. I would definitely turn that around to be "The opening line of "Movers and Shakers" ".
  • Maybe consider merging the "Movers and Shakers" sentence into the paragraph before or after to avoid a one-sentence para.
  • "It is generally regarded as the album's stand-out track and has been widely praised; Strummer described it as the "last great Clash song" ": A bit awkward because it goes from "widely praised" directly to Strummer's self-praise for the song, which may have readers momentarily wondering who was actually doing all the praising. Can I suggest you move "widely praised" to be just before Bill Wyman's praise, to show Wyman as an example of the "wide praise". And you could put Strummer's "last great Clash song" next to Wyman's "last great Strummer song" (possibly paraphrase one of the two, if it flows better). Moisejp (talk) 03:28, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reception: "The absence of Jones and Headon led many to regard Cut the Crap as a Joe Strummer solo album, despite Simonon being partially involved." It may not be clear how Simonon was partially involved. We learn he wasn't on any of the final recordings, which I presume means he was at the sessions, but none of his performances were used. If your sources state this explicitly, it might be nice to include.
  • "Reasons for the album's shortcomings included Strummer's disillusionment with the group, and his grieving over the deaths of his parents": Not clear what this means, and how official/speculative these reasons are. Moisejp (talk) 03:32, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Aftermath: "According to Howard, when Joe told them it was over, he gave them a thousand pounds each. Howard said to him that 'You followed Bernie's advice, and this is where it got you.' He said, 'Yeah, I know.'" " Is this missing an opening double quotation mark, or is there an extra one at the end?
  • "In the UK, the album had a lasting damaging effect on the band's reputation, which did not fully recover until Strummer's work with the Pogues on the Straight to Hell soundtrack in 1987." Could be better to mention whose point of view this is. And maybe give more info to back this up, if it's available—for example, in a footnote summarize a few positive reviews of Strummer's work in STH, which the reader can take as an implicit contrast with all the negative reviews given for CTC.
  • "Director Shane Meadows in 2006 titled his movie and TV show centering on young skinheads and oi punks in England in the 1980s, after "This is England" " Seems a little bit weak. Maybe if there was enough material for a section on "Cut the Crap in popular culture" it would fit in, but as it is now, it feels out of place.
  • Rereleases: There are no references given for this section, or for the Canadian chart position.
  • "Rereleases" vs. "re-released in Europe".

I enjoyed reading this article. Moisejp (talk) 04:28, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

sound man. 90% I agree with and are in progress. Ceoil (talk) 02:23, 17 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Cool, I’ll try to have another read-through in the next couple of days. Moisejp (talk) 03:23, 24 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oops, I think I made a mistake. I saw lots of Dones and for some reason thought you were finished everything, but now looking more carefully, I think you're still working on it. I'll hold off taking a second look until you're all finished. Just let me know. Cheers, Moisejp (talk) 04:11, 26 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Almost there Moisejp; gimme a week or so and will ping. Ceoil (talk) 19:22, 7 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yo! I'm working my way through the article again, making edits and I'll post comments here as they come up.

  • "Jones admits that by this point, his relationship with Jones had broken down and they weren't really communicating." I think one of these should be Strummer, I don't want to presume which one though! Moisejp (talk) 03:16, 22 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • yes, eek, done.

Mike Christie

[edit]

I just copyedited the reception section; please revert anything I screwed up. Generally the section looks clean and well-written, and I don't think you need much advice from WP:RECEPTION. However, like Ian I wonder if there are more sources out there. A search at www.rocksbackpages.com/Library finds a Jon Young article in Musician in 1986, and an NME interview with Joe Strummer from 26 July 1986; those might be worth looking at though I can't be sure as I don't have a subscription. I would think there are contemporary NME, Melody Maker, and Sounds reviews that would be useful; between them, if my memory is correct, those three were the only important general rock newspapers of the era. Is there a way to search those archives?

A couple of specific points from this section:

  • lead single "This Is England" received further negative reviews on its release -- up to this point no negative reviews have been mentioned; we've just said "disappointed", which I suppose implies poor reviews. But you follow it with At the time, critics viewed the album in a generally negative light; how about reversing the order, to something like this: 'The album sold poorly compared to earlier Clash releases, reaching just no. 16 in the UK charts, and no. 88 in the US.[55] Contemporary critics viewed the album in a generally negative light, and lead single "This Is England" received further negative reviews on its release.'
  • Critic Dave Marsh later nominated the track as one of the top 1001 rock singles of all time. I assume this refers to "This Is England", but it's not really clear. Since Marsh's opinion is not contemporary, it might make sense to move this to the last paragraph anyway.

Other than those points I think it's in good shape; I would just want to see more sources -- particularly for the original release I think they must be out there somewhere. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:27, 20 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks Mike. Yes you remember correctly, and in my book also the initial reviews in NME, Melody Maker, and Sounds are paramount. Have gotten a few books since, and am closer to buffing up this sect. I take your other points, and am working through. Ceoil (talk) 21:01, 27 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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