Icons: The Clash

In Order of Importance

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  The Clash (US Version) by The Clash Pick

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  As genial and familiar as the ripping guitars, rushing tempos and barked Britishisms of Joe Strummer’s vocals now sound, The Clash arrived in 1977 as a blistering jolt of punk ire. Although not every lyric offers the timely social critiques of “Career Opportunities,” “I’m So Bored With the U.S.A.” and “White Riot,” the songs jab furiously at all comers, even a dishonest junkie (“Deny”), the record business (“Garageland”), weekends (“48 Hours”) and prophylactics (the Mick Jones-sung “Protex Blue”). A funky cover of the Junior Murvin reggae number “Police and Thieves” signals a willingness to defy doctrine, an ethos furthered on the album’s belated American edition, which dropped four lesser tracks for three monumental singles, taking stunning measure of the band’s accelerating stylistic growth.

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  Give 'Em Enough Rope by The Clash

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  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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  London Calling by The Clash

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  London Calling pushes the Clash beyond the boundaries of punk rock. The music stretches out in a number of directions, with lyrics that make politics and anger factors rather than focus. “Koka Kola,” “Death or Glory,” “Clampdown” and Simonon’s violence-threatening reggae rumble, “Guns of Brixton,” hit reassuringly familiar marks, but songs about actor Montgomery Clift (“The Right Profile”) and lonely youth (“Lost in the Supermarket”), plus the surprise hit single “Train in Vain,” don’t encourage blood-boiling or fist-pumping. Few groups have redefined themselves so adroitly: taken on its own terms, London Calling is nearly flawless.

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  Super Black Market Clash by The Clash

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  An expanded version of the Black Market Clash EP, Super Black Market Clash adds assorted singles and remixes to the original recording but actually omits several that were on the original EP ("Capital Radio One," "Cheat," "Bank Robber," and "Armagideon Time"). A couple of tracks aren't that interesting, but the majority of the disc is splendid, featuring some of the band's best but unfortunately overlooked tracks, including "The Prisoner," "Gates of the West," and "Capital Radio."

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  Sandinista! by The Clash

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  Sandinista! has too much of everything – except the visceral rage that drove the first two albums and hardened the third. It’s a warm and loose family affair, rich with eclectic highlights, that drifts along for more than two hours and occasionally dips well below reasonable standards of quality and sense. The stylistic inclusiveness (rap, calypso, rockabilly, Motown, dub, more) foretells Strummer's post-Clash career, but obscures its achievements in the ill-considered surplus. At its best, Sandinista! is a joyful jukebox: music that rollicks and bounces rather than batters. At its worst, it's sodden with filler and unmitigated self-indulgence. After such monuments as “Hitsville U.K.,” “Somebody Got Murdered,” “The Call Up,” “Police on My Back” and “Ivan Meets G.I. Joe,” the Clash all but abandon ship, letting the album sink to “Career Opportunities” sung by children and an instrumental with sheep noises.

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  Combat Rock by The Clash

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  Cutting away Sandinista!’s relaxed sprawl for a single disc of arty urban grit on Combat Rock was a smart move – “Rock the Casbah,” “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” the haunting “Straight to Hell” and “Overpowered by Funk” broke free of the new wave marketing ghetto, making the Clash chart stars. (A terminal condition, as it happened.) Setting up shop in New York City recharged the group, upping the rhythmic ante and returning purpose to their lyrics and playing. But it also encouraged such dubious ingredients as Allen Ginsberg, a toilet bowl cleaner commercial and dialogue from Taxi Driver. In many ways a blueprint for Jones’ subsequent adventures with Big Audio Dynamite, Combat Rock will forever be the Clash’s Big Album, but it is adamantly not their best.

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  Cut The Crap by The Clash

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  Having fired Jones and reconstituted the Clash as a generic-sounding rock quintet, Strummer and Simonon made the all-but-posthumous Cut the Crap, an album so anomalous that it is rarely counted in the band’s oeuvre. If not for Strummer’s clattering Big '80s production, the songs -- all co-written by original Clash manager/manipulator Bernie Rhodes – could have made him a passable solo platter. Styled with castoff DNA of the era’s MTV clones (which actually suits the rueful, elegant “This Is England”), the album leads with its chin on nakedly defensive songs like “Dictator” and “We Are the Clash.” If not quite as awful as it seemed at the time, Cut the Crap is the only Clash album that doesn’t matter.

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