THE CLASH - A Beginner's Guide To Their Albums
(Ranked from worst to best!)
"The Clash are the kind of garage band who should be returned to the garage immediately, preferably with the engine running." Charles Shaar Murray
Waiting to collect his dole money in Lisson Grove Labour Exchange sometime in early 1976, John Mellor couldn't help but notice the stares he was receiving from two scruffy street urchins in the queue opposite. Weighing up the situation, he made a mental note to punch the scrawnier of the two and make a break for it, should things come to a head outside. The other one, he reasoned looked "handy". What he didn't realise was, as singer of local R&B band The 101ers and known by his stage name Joe Strummer, they were fans of his and were planning to ask him to join their own fledgling band. Mick Jones (guitar, scrawny) and Paul Simonon (bass, handy) would eventually offer Strummer the role via manager Bernie Rhodes, an associate of Sex Pistols svengali Malcolm McLaren. He jumped at the chance. The 101ers may have been on the verge of releasing their own records but Strummer, like his new bandmates, had seen the future in the Sex Pistols. Heavily influenced by U.S. bands The Ramones and New York Dolls, the fledgling Pistols had supported The 101ers in April '76, and Joe knew immediately that he was "yesterday's papers. I mean, we were over." A reaction to overblown and pretentious music of Yes, King Crimson, Genesis et al, this new music was short, sharp and shocking. The Sex Pistols, followed quickly by The Clash and The Damned were the first wave of what became known as punk, a year zero for the nation's teenagers. Out went everything you knew from before. You didn't have to be virtuoso to form a band anymore. You didn't even have to be able to play, or sing. The Sex Pistols might have made all of the headlines, but after their untimely implosion it was The Clash that "were the only band that matters", the last gang in town, the band who's legacy has stood the test of time and continues to earn new fans and influence new bands across the globe.
CUT THE CRAP (1985)
So, starting at the bottom! The only real blip in their discography, they've only recently began acknowledging it's existence at all. They don't mention it in official documentary Westway To The World, it wasn't part of their series of remasters and it's not on Spotify. Why? Because for all intents and purposes it's not The Clash, despite the song "We Are The Clash" arguing differently. Mick Jones and powerhouse drummer Topper Headon had been long sacked by this point. All the magic had gone. Strummer knew it and had lost interest. Manager Bernie Rhodes had taken over production duties despite knowing nothing about the subject. Recorded in Munich with German session musicians, even the new line up of the band barely appear (even Paul Simonon is AWOL). For a band whose back catalogue had been so varied and eclectic (more of which later), it's a disappointing attempt at back to basics punk, mixing football chant backing vocals and heavy guitars with incongruous parping Eighties synths and drum machines, courtesy of Rhodes' hired hands (ironically making the whole thing sound like a poor version of Mick Jones' new band Big Audio Dynamite. so much for heading in different directions!). It's only saving grace is state of the nation address "This Is England", described by Strummer himself as "the last great Clash song".
Verdict: I consider myself a Clash completist but even I sold my copy after a couple of listens. I had a listen on You Tube and to be fair, it's not as bad as I remember it. It's still pretty terrible though by their standards, and terribly dated. Buy The Singles or The Essential Clash for "This Is England" and avoid like the plague.
Score: 2/10 (but only because it's not quite as awful as I remember it).
GIVE 'EM ENOUGH ROPE (1978)
Released on 10th November 1978, a whole 19th months after their landmark debut, it found the group in something of a transitional phase. Not wanting to repeat themselves but bound by the stylistic cul de sac of punk rock, this is a difficult and slightly uninspired record that wasn't helped by the fact they'd already released their best tunes since the first album as stand alone singles in "(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais" and "Complete Control". Glossier production with heavier, multitracked guitars, it's all a bit same-y, one exception being "Julie's Been Working For The Drug Squad" which introduces some swing to proceedings, new drummer and final piece of the jigsaw Topper Headon showing off his chops and hinting at the eclecticism to come further down the line. It's a shame the Strummer/Jones song writing trip to Jamaica didn't influence the music as much as the lyrics or we might have had something more three dimensional.
Verdict: That said, there a few stone cold Clash classics that rescue proceedings. Front loaded with "Safe European Home", "English Civil War" and "Tommy Gun", things getting off to a blistering start before "Stay Free" provides a late highlight. Worth repeated listens though surely it's no-one's favourite album. The highlights all appear on The Essential Clash.
Score: 6/10
COMBAT ROCK (1982)
Falling apart and burned out, Combat Rock would have been another double album had the rest of the band not disagreed and wrestled control from Mick Jones. In the hands of Glyn Johns, a producer with a reputation for saving "lost albums", the band managed to turn in a relatively concise album, and a bona fide hit that turned them into superstars in America. Sadly, as third single "Rock The Casbah" went top 10 in the US, it's chief writer and instrumentalist Topper Headon (playing piano and bass, as well as his usual powerhouse drumming) had been sacked for a heroin addiction that had begun to affect his playing on tour. This was the beginning of the end for the band, and a move that Joe Strummer would soon come to regret for the rest of his life. Whilst not as varied as Sandinista! or London Calling, it's still an eclectic mix taking in funk and hip hop, and is heavily influenced in it's cinematic scope by Taxi Driver and Apocalypse Now.
Verdict: Three bona fide classics in "Rock The Casbah", "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" and "Straight To Hell" but barely a wrong foot is placed on the other tracks, which wouldn't be the case if it were released as originally intended as a double album.
Score: 7/10
SANDINISTA! (1980)
The Clash had to take a cut in royalties in order to persuade CBS into releasing this triple album in it's unaltered form, the bulk of which was recorded in a three week period in New York across March/April 1980, though sessions for would continue up until August. Though sessions for the album were fruitful, they weren't that fruitful that there isn't a little bit of filler, the band obsessed with the idea of each side of vinyl having six tracks each. Thus we get multiple dub versions and a rendition of "Career Opportunities" sung by the keyboard player's children on side 6. As with all double/triple albums, the debate about whether it would make a better single album rages on. But like The White Album or Bruce Springsteen's The River (released two months later), it's intended as an eclectic, warts and all document of where the band were at the time and it's possibly their most interesting and rewarding work on repeated listens. The band were on fire at the time. As soon as one track was finished, the next was started with many of the tracks captured in their first takes. Encompassing jazz, rockabilly, gospel, funk and lots of dub, it also predates Blondie's "Rapture" by six months as the first white hip hop record in "The Magnificent Seven", which in instrumental form received heavy airplay on the predominantly black station WBLS in New York.
Verdict: It's easy for the layman to dismiss The Clash as simply a punk band. I challenge anyone to hold that opinion after listening to this. Yes, it's sprawling and long winded but it has multiple highlights and I'm still discovering new things as I listen now. At least in the digital age the option to make a playlist of your favourites is there!
Score: 7.5/10
THE CLASH (1977)
Everything about this album perfectly encapsulates the times, from the record sleeve to the lyrics about unemployment, boredom, class and race, to stencilled slogans on their jackets. Hardly a companion piece to Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols, which came out 6 months later and was somewhat overproduced, this was recorded almost live in the studio with minimal overdubs. In keeping with year zero aesthetic of punk, they eschewed a big name producer and recording techniques, instead recording with their live sound engineer with no separation between the amps, just banging the songs out as if it were a gig. Amongst their own 13 compositions is a 6 minute long cover of Junior Murvin's reggae hit "Police and Thieves", which on the one hand is an early indicator that the band were prepared to break the time constraints imposed by punk, whilst also acknowledging the affiliation between the two genres; reggae was played in clubs like the Roxy, because there were no punk records yet. It was an early foray into a genre that would continue throughout their careers, collectively and after they split up.
Verdict: A stone cold classic. A must for any punk fan. NB: The US version (also available today) wasn't released until 1979 and with a butchered track listing that included "I Fought The Law", "Clash City Rockers", "Complete Control", "White Man..." and the single version of "White Riot" in place of "lesser" album tracks. So, in theory, it is an even better album but not the time capsule that the band intended.
Score: 8.5/10
LONDON CALLING (1979)
When the band entered London's Wessex Studios with legendary Mott The Hoople producer Guy Stevens in August 1979, it was something of a make or break time for the band. They were somewhat rudderless following the exit of manager Bernie Rhodes and they had hit a brick wall artistically. Their second album had sold well but had disappointed some critics; and their Cost Of Living EP, whilst a success, featured a cover version, a re-recording and two rehashed, unreleased older songs. They'd even began to lose their distinctive look, the uniformity of their image around the time of the first album had gone and they had started to look like they were in different bands. If they weren't about to rustle up the finest work of their career, an album of unprecedented quality, it might have been time to worry. After two albums of pretending that nothing of any note had happened before 1976, they threw away the punk manifesto and opened the floodgates to the influences that had been hidden away. Their beloved reggae made it's appearance of course, most notably in Paul Simonon's first composition (and instant classic) "Guns Of Brixton", but rockabilly, jazz, rhythm and blues and dramatic Phil Spector-esque pop were also the order of the day. They intended to make "any music they wanted to". And lots of it. They had to con CBS into allowing them to give away a "free 12", 33rpm single" away with the album in order to release everything they had an even then, "Train In Vain" was added at the last minute. Sham 69 fans must have wondered what they were listening to. Released in January 1980 in the US, it became Rolling Stone's Best Album Of The Eighties and is regularly featured in the top ten album polls of all time. The front cover image of Paul Simonon smashing his bass, taken by Pennie Smith, was voted the best rock n' roll image of all time by Q Magazine. There isn't much about this album that isn't perfect. Even the promo for the "London Calling" single saw the band looking like (a) gang(sters) again.
Verdict: There are some albums that every modern music fan needs to hear; Revolver, Pet Sounds, Electric Ladyland, Dark Side Of The Moon... This is one of them. From "London Calling" to "Train In Vain", this is without doubt, one of the greatest albums ever.
Score: 9.75/10
