Cutting Crew "The Scattering (Japan, Siren Records Ltd., VDJ-32205)"

The Scattering is the second studio album by the English new wave rock band Cutting Crew. It was released on 16 May 1989 in Canada and the USA on Virgin Records, and on 7 August 1989 in the United Kingdom on Siren Records. Despite including the US Adult Contemporary chart hit "Everything But My Pride", it met with little commercial or critical success.

In 1986, Cutting Crew had had a number-one US hit "(I Just) Died in Your Arms", the top 10 hit "I've Been in Love Before", and another Top 40 song, "One for the Mockingbird". All three were released to varying levels of chart success in their native UK and across much of Europe. However, their debut album, Broadcast, was less successful, failing to reach the top 10 in the US and the top 40 in the UK. Executives of Virgin Records were keen on the band delivering a follow-up album that both was popular on its own and had multiple radio-friendly singles lined up.

It was recorded mostly at Curtis Schwartz' Studio in Sussex, England, in 1988, the second-ever album ever to be recorded at the studio. It was set to be released the same year, but its release was delayed by a year due to seemingly managerial disputes, and it was finally released in early 1989.

When asked during a December 2008 interview about his favorite track by Cutting Crew, vocalist Nick Van Eede spoke fondly of the album's title track, stating,

"'The Scattering.' I think it's one of my best lyrics, telling of how the small villages in rural communities can die out when the life blood youth move away to the big cities. We had a lot of fun recording it as we flew down from Scotland with The Whistle Binkies who were a fabulous and famous folk band. We had 5 hours to record all their parts which included Bodhran, fiddle, pipes and accordion. This is still a firm favourite when we play live, even without the folk band!"

In a different interview, Van Eede talked about his frustrations with the continuous delaying of the album before its release, stating the song "(Between A) Rock and a Hard Place" had lyrics pertaining to the scenario.

“We wrote one slightly veiled song having a pop at US A&R antics in our 'Between a Rock and Hard Place' from The Scattering album. I sang, 'I got a brick but I can’t find a window,' as they continually blocked our albums release for months making us lose so much momentum.”

The Scattering peaked at number 150 on the Billboard 200. Its singles also failed to make much impact, although "Everything But My Pride" reached number four on the AOR charts. The late release of the album is often blamed by the band as the primary reason for their stalling momentum and popularity; dissuaded by the commercial under-performance of the album and its singles, bassist Colin Farley and drummer Martin Beedle left the band.

Nick Van Eede and fellow guitarist and bandmate Kevin MacMichael continued, delivering one final Cutting Crew effort in October 1992, Compus Mentus. The album failed to chart, and Cutting Crew disbanded in 1993.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Nick Van Eede and Kevin MacMichael, except where noted

1. "Year in the Wilderness" Van Eede/MacMichael/Tony Moore   4:44
2. "The Scattering" 5:01
3. "Big Noise" 4:00
4. "Everything But My Pride" 5:10
5. "Handcuffs for Houdini" MacMichael 3:43
6. "(Between A) Rock and a Hard Place" 4:17
7. "Tip of Your Tongue" Van Eede/MacMichael/Martin Beedle   3:36
8. "Reach for the Sky" Van Eede/MacMichael/Colin Farley   5:04
9. "The Last Thing" 3:57
10. "Feel the Wedge" Farley 5:35
11. "Binkies Return (Instrumental)" 1:31
12. "Brag" Van Eede 6:05

Total length: 52:43

Cutting Crew – producers

Peter-John Vettese – producer (1, 2, 3, 5-11)

Don Gehman – producer (4)

Curtis Schwartz – engineer, mixing (12)

Hugh Padgham – mixing (1-11)

Teo Miller – additional engineer

John Pennington – additional engineer

Matthew Ollivier – assistant engineer

Al Stone – mix assistant (1-11)

The Town House (London, UK) – mixing location

Bob Ludwig – mastering at Masterdisk (New York City, New York, USA)

Simon Hicks – A&R direction

Jody Sharp – A&R coordination

Jeffrey Kent Ayeroff – art direction

Melanie Nissen – art direction

Mick Haggerty – design, cover photography

Simon Fowler – band photography

Jeb Hart – management

James Wylie – management

Cutting Crew "Broadcast (UK, Virgin, 0777 7 86002 2 0)"

Cutting Crew are an English rock band formed in London in 1985. They are best known for their debut studio album Broadcast (1986) and hit single, "(I Just) Died in Your Arms".

Broadcast is the debut studio album by English rock band Cutting Crew. It was first released in the United Kingdom on 20 October 1986, and was later released more widely, including in the United States, Canada and Japan on 21 March 1987 with different packaging and four remixed tracks ("Any Colour", "One for the Mockingbird", "I've Been in Love Before" and "(I Just) Died in Your Arms"), all of which were released as singles. It was the first album to be released in the US by Virgin Records' new American imprint, Virgin Records America.

Broadcast was re-released by Cherry Red Records on 24 May 2010, with bonus tracks including for the first time on CD "For the Longest Time", the B-side of "(I Just) Died In Your Arms".

"(I Just) Died in Your Arms" reached No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and No. 4 on the UK Singles Chart, and later on, "I've Been in Love Before" and "One for the Mockingbird" became top 10 and top 40 hits respectively across various countries. The band then received a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist of 1987. Despite all this, however, contemporary reception to the album was mixed from critics and muted commercially.

Both the album and the band have been looked upon more positively in hindsight. In a retrospective review, Michael Sutton of AllMusic gave the album four stars. He said the album "never deserved the hacking [it] received from critics", and said that "the slick guitar rock on Broadcast may not have wowed the rock & roll intelligentsia, but it's a guaranteed crowd-pleaser, an underrated collection of simple, heartfelt love songs and up-tempo pop that reside between the stylistic boundaries of new wave and mainstream rock." He concludes the review by saying the album "is not a creative breakthrough", but is "simply an LP absent of any filler."

In the early '90s, the first seven tracks were included in the compilation album The Best of Cutting Crew, along with select songs from the follow-up studio album The Scattering (1989) and the single "If That's the Way You Want It" from Compus Mentus (1992). The band's second compilation album, Ransomed Healed Restored Forgiven, released in 2020, features orchestral versions of the four singles spanned from Broadcast, plus the title track, this one in a version half the length of the original incarnation.

Track listing

1. "Any Colour" (Nick Van Eede, Kevin Scott MacMichael) – 4:57
2. "One for the Mockingbird" (Van Eede) – 4:23
3. "I've Been in Love Before" (Van Eede) – 5:09
4. "Life in a Dangerous Time" (Van Eede) – 4:34
5. "Fear of Falling" (Van Eede, MacMichael) – 4:50
6. "(I Just) Died in Your Arms" (Van Eede) – 4:39
7. "Don't Look Back" (Van Eede, MacMichael) – 4:12
8. "Sahara" (Steve Boorer; Van Eede) – 4:49
9. "It Shouldn't Take Too Long" (Van Eede, MacMichael, Colin Farley, Martin Beedle, Mac Norman) – 4:05
10. "The Broadcast" (Van Eede, Chris Townsend) – 6:33

Cutting Crew – producers (1, 2, 4-10)

Terry Brown – producer (1, 2, 4-10), engineer (1, 2, 4-10), mixing (2, 7)

Michael Barbiero – producer (3), engineer (3), mixing (3)

Steve Thompson – producer (3), engineer (3), mixing (3)

John Jansen – producer (6)

Tony Taverner – mixing (4)

Phil Brown – mixing (7)

Tim Palmer – remixing (1, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10)

Denis Blackham – mastering

Bill Smith Studio – cover design

Dirk Van Dooren – illustration

Malcolm Heywood – group photography

Cutting Crew "I've Been In Love Before (Single & Video)"

"I've Been in Love Before" is a song by English rock band Cutting Crew. Written by lead singer Nick Van Eede, it was released as the second single from the band's debut album, Broadcast (1986). It reached No. 9 on the US Billboard Hot 100 the following year, making the song their second biggest hit in the United States.

Cutting Crew "(I Just) Died In Your Arms Tonight (Single & Video)"

"(I Just) Died in Your Arms" is a song by the English rock band Cutting Crew. The song was released as the lead single from their debut studio album, Broadcast (1986). It was first released on 25 July 1986 in the United Kingdom, and then released to the United States on 1 January 1987. The song was written by frontman Nick Van Eede, produced by Terry Brown, John Jansen and the band, and mixed at Utopia Studios in London by Tim Palmer.

The power ballad was the band's biggest hit, peaking at number-one in the United States, Canada and Finland, and reaching the top five in the UK, South Africa, Sweden and Switzerland.

The actual words "I just died in your arms tonight" originally came to Van Eede while he was having sex with his girlfriend, the French phrase la petite mort, or "the little death", being a metaphor for orgasm. After writing down his version of the phrase, he later used it as the opening line to the song as well as using it as the chorus.

There were two music videos produced. The North American version featured artistic fragmented shots using a model, with the band performing to camera. The UK version was filmed both in color as well as in black and white in a film studio.

Various Artists "Time Life: Sounds Of The Eighties - 1987"

Time Life: Sounds of the Eighties was a 10-volume series issued by Time-Life.