Give 'Em Enough Rope

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Total Tracks: 10   Total Length: 36:44

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Ira Robbins

eMusic Contributor

Ira Robbins co-founded Trouser Press magazine in 1974. (Think of it as a pre-Internet music blog). He was later pop music editor at Newsday and has written for ...more »

06.30.09
The Clash, Give ‘Em Enough Rope
2000 | Label: Epic

With the imposition of American producer Sandy Pearlman, who brought what he had learned working with the Blue Öyster Cult (if not the Dictators), Give 'Em Enough Rope (1978) does battle on a much larger scale, with bigger vision and juiced-up rock power. Clearly moving on and up from the debut's crude but effective urgency, Strummer and Jones not only shoulder an internationalist perspective (“Safe European Home,” “Tommy Gun”), they display unexpected sentimentality (“Stay Free”). It's unsettling how quickly the Clash had become its own subject, but the autobiographical “Cheapskates,” “All the Young Punks (New Boots and Contracts)” and the “Can't Explain”-quoting “Guns on the Roof” are purposeful, revealing and, in their way, profound.

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X-ile on Broadway

dadadata

This album may have been slicked up, but it sounds so much better than so much of what got spewed out in 1978 it's not worth discussing with "the critics." I defy anyone not to go nuts to "Safe European Home" and "English Civil War." What I don't like on the album after all these years ain't the sound. It's a few of the weak songs. Like the Stones' "Exile on Main Street" this one was perniciously dissed when it came out.

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Only the Clash...

thrillingdetective

... could release this great an album and have it referred to by the rock crits as merely "okay." Released by any other band of its era -- and particularly any "punk" band, this would be considered a masterpiece. This is the album where The Clash spit in the faces of the punkier-than-thou poseurs and took on the world. And songs like "Safe European Home" and particularly "Stay Free" show they were more than ready.

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The Clash

RABBIT

I like them in their "early punk" days and the later stuff...hey..it's the Clash.

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Underrated and underappreciated

oldpunkandrew

I admit, this was one of those albums I overlooked for a long time. I've been a Clash fan since forever, but "Give 'Em Enough Rope" was the forgotten album. But it's a great one, at least on a par with Sandinista and above "Combat Rock." Here, the Clash started to experiment with different styles, breaking out of the '77 punk mold and preparing the way for their masterpiece, "London Calling."

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Good not geat

rickstervc

Back in the day, I would buy Clash imported singles from the old Licorice Pizza in Downey, CA, and I thought they rocked. I hadn't yet plunked down for the imported copy of the first album, because it was pretty pricey, but the import singles I could afford. I waited for this, the first stateside lp release, and I was stuck wondering what the fuss was about. It wasn't bad, but it certainly didn't knock me out the way "White Man in Hammersmith Palais/1-2 Crush on You" did, or the way London Calling soon would. I certainly wonder what it would have sounded like if Guy Stevens would have been in the production chair. Still essential, as are all Clash recordings through Combat Rock.

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Underappreciated

Zotzedwriter

I agree with the review below. At the time of its release, this album was considered a disappointment compared to the band's seminal debut LP. However, it has many great tracks - plus, the best tune (IMHO) that Mick Jones ever wrote: "Stay Free."

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Underrated Classic

DoctorRock

The common wisdom of the rock press when this was released in 1978 was that it suffered from The Curse of the Second Album. Say what you want about the cleaner sound of the production--for a band that rocked its ass off like no other, this is the album that rocks its ass off like no other. The music and lyrics are the very soul of what rock and roll music is. A must. Criticism (again) to Emusic, however, for the incomplete file that cuts "English Civil War" at the 2:36 mark, before the track is over. WTF, guys?

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For their second album, the Clash worked with the American hard rock producer Sandy Pearlman, best-known for his work with Blue Öyster Cult and the Dictators. The teaming was quite controversial within the punk community, and the sound of Give ‘Em Enough Rope is considerably cleaner, yet the more direct sound hardly tamed the Clash. While the record doesn’t burn with the same intense, amateurish energy of The Clash, it does have a big, forceful sound that is nearly as powerful. What keeps Give ‘Em Enough Rope from being a classic is its slightly inconsistent material. Many of the songs are outright classics, particularly the first half of the record (“Safe European Home,” “English Civil War,” “Tommy Gun,” “Julie’s Been Working for the Drug Squad”) and “Stay Free,” but the group loses some momentum toward the end of the record. Even with such flaws, Give ‘Em Enough Rope ranks as one of the strongest albums of the punk era. – Stephen Thomas Erlewine

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