Various - Bullshit Detector
Original Release Date
1981Release Information
UK LP 1981 (Crass - 421984/4)
1 Andy T - Jazz On A Summers Day 2:20
2 Counter Attack - Don't Wanna Fight For You 3:24
3 Alternative - Change It 1:32
4 Clockwork Criminals - We Are You 2:46
5 Reputations In Jeopardy - Girls Love Popstars 0:52
6 Crass - Do They Owe Us A Living 2:39
7 Amebix - University Challenged 3:02
8 Sceptics - Local Chaos 1:58
9 The Sinyx - Mark Of The Beast 0:39
10 Frenzy Battalion - Thalidomide 2:01
11 Icon [Icon A.D.] - Cancer 2:50
12 The Speakers - Why 1:30
13 A.P.F. Brigade - Anarchist Attack 1:08
14 Fuck The C.I.A. - Right Or Wrong 1:09
15 Caine Mutiny And The Kallisti Apples Of Nonsense - Morning Star 3:10
16 The Sucks - '3' 2:35
17 Porno Squad - Khaki Doesn't Go With My Eyes 1:27
18 S.P.G. Murders - Soldiers 2:40
19 Eratics - National Service 1:43
20 Red Alert - Who Needs Society 2:41
21 The Snipers - War Song 2:10
22 Armchair Power - Power 1:45
23 Disrupters - Napalm 2:15
24 Andy T - Nagasaki Mon Amour 0:49
25 Action Frogs - Drumming Up Hope 1:08
Chart Placings
UK Indie Hit: 3, 18 wksCredits
None yetReviews & Opinions
PUNKY GIBBON: Crass Records had been receiving unsolicited demo tapes from lots of like minded artists. Here, they presumably decided to select the very worst - in terms of song-craft (there barely a single good song on the whole platter) and sound quality (most of this sounds like it was recorded in bedrooms onto portable cassette players, and not even good cassette players) - and put them onto one unlistenably awful LP, which they housed in a 12-page poster sleeve and sold cheap. "Life is what what you make it/Use it/Anything you want/You don't have to be able to play/You don't have to have something to say/Just do it/Fucking do it", says Andy T on the opening track, which is clearly the record's philosophy, but there's far too many bands with no musical ability at all to make this anything other than an endurance test. Some of these bands became better known, but even they sound terrible here. High-spots are few, but picks are Counter Attack, Alternative, and a early demo by Crass, which features just Steve and Penny. Worthwhile as a piece of social/musical history but nowt else.
SHIT-FI: Why the “Bullshit Detector” compilations have never appeared on a list of killer, top-shelf primitive shit-fi music is beyond me. Pound for pound, these compilations include an astonishing number of sub-basement-quality punk rock. Plus, these records were quite well-distributed, making them probably the easiest-to-obtain unheralded shit-fi classics. I figure their lack of latter-day critical attention has to do with the bad taste anarcho-punk leaves in the mouths of many listeners. Their loss! The overwhelming feeling I got listening to volume 1 was that the bands were way too humorless. Perhaps that is the distinction to be made between whatever this "scene" might be labeled and UK DIY. Also, most of the songs go on for way too long. A lot of the bands totally dispense with traditional notions of tuning, melody, tempo, meter, etc. A few of the songs make more sense as outsider or real people music than as anything remotely "punk". Also, the bands' artwork is charmingly awful overall. "Artwork" might not even be the right word for some of it. [see entire review here]
Additional Notes
Track timings are my own. This spawned two better follow-ups, Bullshit Detector Two and Bullshit Detector Three.
