Crass transmit "Stations of the Crass" – three sides at 45 RPM, and zero patience for polite society

Album Description:

1979. Britain felt like damp concrete and bad headlines. Then Crass drop the double 12" "Stations of the Crass" and it doesn’t “arrive” so much as kick the door in. No warm-up. No handshake. Just noise, slogans, nerves.

I still picture it the way I first really noticed it: that fold-out sleeve sprawled on a kitchen table, tea going cold, black ink everywhere, like someone tried to print an argument instead of an album. It even tells you what it thinks a record should cost. Practical. Annoying. Perfect.

Three sides sprinting, one side bleeding

The first three sides run at 45 RPM, like the songs are trying to outrun the decade. Then side four drops to 33 RPM and you get the live set from the Pied Bull in Islington (7 August 1979) — not tidy, not flattering, and definitely not there to impress your hi-fi. That last side isn’t “bonus material”. It’s the room, the sweat, the edge of it.

Needle-drop moments that still bite

"White Punks on Hope" doesn’t politely make a point — it spits one. "Mother-Earth" drags the bigger picture in by the collar. And "Walls (Fun in the Oven)" has that grim little grin Crass do so well: funny for half a second, then you realise what you’re laughing at.

DIY production, deliberately unvarnished

The studio material was recorded at Southern Studios in London (11 August 1979), with Crass credited as producer. You can hear the choice in it: keep it raw, keep it urgent, keep it cheap enough to spread. The sound isn’t “unpolished” by accident — it’s a refusal.

Collector notes on "Stations of the Crass"

Format: Originally issued as a double 12" with studio sides plus a live side; different editions later chop and re-index the live material in fewer track entries, so track counts can look confusing at a glance.

Poster / sleeve: The packaging leans into the art-and-argument thing: notes, visuals, and that very Crass habit of making the sleeve part of the message, not just a wrapper.

The point: This record doesn’t want to “inspire” you. It wants to bother you. And if it’s not doing that, you’ve probably put it on too quietly.

References / citations