Best Before 1984
1986 compilation album by Crass
Best Before 1984 is a compilation of Crass' singles and other tracks, released in 1986, including lyrics and a booklet ("...In Which Crass Voluntarily 'Blow Their Own'") which details the history of the band in their own words. The album was named in reference to the notion that 1984 was the band's "'sell by date", the year that they had often publicly stated that they would split up. Indeed, the band ceased gigging and recording in that year.
For many years, there were plans to release an expanded edition of Best Before 1984, which would include currently unavailable material (such as the "Merry Crassmas" and "Whodunnit?" singles) and rarities, in the same vein as the 'Crassical Collection' re-releases of the band's albums. These plans finally came to fruition in 2019, with the announcement of an expanded two-disc version of the album available for pre-order on the One Little Indian website. Between 1 and 5 April 2019, Crass made the first disc of this reissue available for free download from their social media pages. The reissued album was finally released on 2 October 2020 on the now-renamed One Little Independent Records, including CD-sized replicas of the original poster covers from the singles.
Track listing
Original 1986 release
"Do They Owe Us a Living?"
"Major General Despair"
"Angela Rippon"
"Reality Asylum"
"Shaved Women"
"Bloody Revolutions"
"Nagasaki Nightmare"
"Big A Little A"
"Rival Tribal Rebel Revel"
"Sheep Farming in The Falklands" (Flexi)
"How Does It Feel?"
"The Immortal Death"
"Don't Tell Me You Care"
"Sheep Farming in The Falklands"
"Gotcha"
"You're Already Dead"
"Nagasaki is Yesterday's Dog-End"
"Don't Get Caught"
"Smash The Mac"
"Do They Owe Us a Living?" (Live in Aberdare from the last gig)
2019 remaster
CD 1
Thread 1
"Reality Asylum"
"Shaved Women"
Thread 2
"Bloody Revolutions"
Thread 3
"Nagasaki Nightmare"
"Big A Little A"
Thread 4
"Rival Tribal Rebel Revel"
Thread 5
"Sheep Farming in The Falklands" (Flexi)
Thread 6
"Rocky Eyed"
"How Does It Feel?"
"The Immortal Death"
"Don't Tell Me You Care"
"Rocky Eyed, Pt. 2"
"Sheep Farming in The Falklands"
"Gotcha"
Thread 7
"You're Already Dead"
"Nagasaki is Yesterday's Dog-End"
"Don't Get Caught"
"Smash The Mac"
Thread 8
CD 2
"Do They Owe Us a Living?" (live in Aberdare, 7 July 1984)
Thread 9
"Who Dunnit?"
Thread 10
"Questions in the House"
Thread 11
Thatchergate tape
"Over the Rainbow"
"Eggar in Your Face" - radio interview with Penny Rimbaud about the "How Does it Feel?" single
Thread 12
"Sheep Farming in the Falklands" (unreleased version)
Thread 13
"Merry Crassmas"
Thread 14
Song origins (1986 release)
Tracks 1–3 are from an early recording session on 27 February 1978.
Tracks 4 and 5 are from the "Reality Asylum" single, released in 1979.
“Best Before 1984” enters the record as 1986 compilation album by Crass. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Best, Before and compilation can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Best Before 1984” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Best, Before and compilation provides the most credible route into that argument.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 6, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q3638996. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1984, 1986, 2019 and 2020.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Best Before 1984” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.