It was 1979 and not a great year to be in The Clash. After their sophomore LP Give 'em Enough Rope, it seems as if the critics and the fans had turned on them (the former for no longer being "cutting edge", the later for "selling out"). Their first tour of the U.S. had been a long arduous experience, one that nearly convinced the band members to give up and go home. The original punk explosion of 1977 had cooled down completely by this point with the Sex Pistols being long gone and thus media coverage of the punk phenomenon steadily decreasing. Punk was being dismissed as "old hat" by the press and many of those who still embraced the ideals were getting narrower and narrower in terms of what could be done musically and what could be said in the lyrics. In short, punk was becoming a genre and the Clash weren't about to become a generic band. They wanted a larger audience to get their message to.
Yet their attempts to win that larger audience brought as much contempt as it did good fortune, judging by the backlash to the group circa Give 'em Enough Rope. Also, drugs had invaded the band (Mick Jones publicly admitted to having abused cocaine in order to deal with the day to day hassle of touring) and, if the press barbs of former manager Bernie Rhodes be true, the whole band had succumbed to the rock and roll lifestyle that punk bands had claimed to be rebelling against. Factor in that the band wasn't satisfied with Give 'em Enough Rope overall and it was plain to see that the Clash had reached a point: either do something spectacular or go the way of the Sex Pistols and crumble.
What they ended up doing was recording arguably their best record.
For what would become the sessions for London Calling, the Clash worked with Guy Stevens, who Strummer said had the complete opposite approach toward music that Give Em Enough Rope producer Sandy Pearlman had. While Pearlman had spent many months and much money searching for the perfect mix, Stevens was more interested in emotion and spontaneity. The atmosphere he created enabled the band to write more quality songs in those sessions than they ever had prior. When they finally delivered the songs to the label, they were certain most of them would go to waste and the album would be a single LP. Against all their expectations, the label agreed to release London Calling as a double LP. Strummer considered it the band's first real victory over CBS. The morale of the band increased substantially.
Musically, London Calling still retains much of the hard rock appeal of the previous two Clash records ("Clampdown", "Death Or Glory", "Koka Kola", "Four Horsemen"), but stretches out much further stylistically. There's laid back music ("Jimmy Jazz", "Lover's Rock"), accordion driven punk ("Hateful"), brass driven sing-a-longs ("Rudie Can't Fail", "The Right Profile"), power pop ("Spanish Bombs"), melancholy bass driven rock ("Lost In The Supermarket"), and a contribution from bassist Paul Simonon that musically points the way toward their later material ("Guns Of Brixton", one of the best Clash songs ever). Perhaps what makes the greatest impression are the four songs that book end the album: take "Brand New Cadillac" and "Revolution Rock". Both are covers, but each betray the Clash's influences in their purest forms: the former being straight up rock and roll and the later being reggae. The title track is an alternative rock masterpiece, complete with it's simplistic and extremely memorable guitar riff (and bass line) and it's doomy, apocalyptic lyrics. Finally, the concluding "Train In Vain" provided the Clash with their first top forty hit. Definitely deserved as well since it may just be one of the most perfect pop songs ever recorded.
The album divided Clash fans even further. You had the fans of the older material who felt the band had sold out and you had those felt like London Calling was the band's long awaited artistic break through. As usual, the band toured relentless to support the album. After that, they went back into the studio to record their fourth LP. Titled Sandinista and released one year after London Calling, the new LP offered no less than six vinyl sides worth of material. The Clash were clearly at their creative peak.
Or, as some have suggested, they had grown too cocky from London Calling's success and had forgotten how to edit their own material.
Whichever the case, Sandinista offers more diverse sounds from the Clash, delving into gospel, rockabilly, disco, hip hop, funk, songs with female vocals, psychedelia, and even a song called "Rebel Waltz". And, of course, plenty of reggae styled songs. Unfortunately, the album was not very well received upon it's release. Some of the bad reviews made the backlash to Give 'em Enough Rope seem like tame misgivings by comparison. Nowadays, Sandinista seems to be one of those albums that brings out the whole spectrum of opinions in the listeners: some would defend it as three records worth of brilliance from a band at it's absolute peak, others find it so bad that's nearly unlistenable, while others may simply cite it as interesting but failed experimentation or a good double album that was dragged out too far. Regardless of whether or not it was just, Sandinista, more or less, hurt the Clash's popularity.
For what it's worth, Joe Strummer always defended it.
The plan for Sandinista was to release one single each month for the whole year of 1981, thereby musically blitzkreiging the band into the mainstream. Unfortunately, that plan never panned out for the Clash.
In the aftermath of Sandinista and prior to Combat Rock, the Clash went through a large shake up. Firstly, the Clash had a falling out with CBS management and suddenly Bernie Rhodes was back in the managerial position as though he had never left. Secondly, The Clash played their infamous 16 date run at Bond's International Casino in New York when the tickets oversold and the band doubled the amount of shows in order to satisfy demand. Finally, in what would be the beginning of the end, Topper Headon grew addicted to hard drugs.
The next album, 1982's Combat Rock, shows that someone, whether it be the band, the label, or the management, took the criticism of Sandinista's length to heart as it was just a regular single LP. Stylistically, Combat Rock can be divided into two categories: the experimental stuff and the singles. On one hand, you had music that made the Clash out to be some sort of English art/post-disco band (with synths and everything). On the other, you had a slew of singles that further entrenched the Clash in both mainstream and alternative radio. The disco-esque "Rock The Casbah" gave the Clash another top forty hit (seeing as it was dance club friendly) and alternative rock classic "Should I Stay Or Should I Go?"...well, that song is not just a radio staple nowadays, but a karaoke bar one as well. Also, there's the forgotten first single "Know Your Rights", an offbeat return to the angry rock of the olden days. Perhaps the most transcendent moment of the album is "Straight To Hell", supposedly about the consequences of the Vietnam War (at the very least, it bares one of Strummer's most passionate vocal performances and that is definitely saying something.
Though the Clash seemed at their peak commercially (and some would argue creatively...I'm not one of those people...sorry, not a huge Combat Rock fan), they were falling apart. By the time the Combat Rock tour was in full swing, Topper Headon was out and Terry Chimes (drummer for the first album) was pick in. Apparently, he and Strummer had a falling out over his heroin addiction. Headon decided to walk rather than get cleaned up. The band still managed to enjoy success and even supported The Who at Shea Stadium (notably the opening act was David Johansen, legendary frontman for the New York Dolls, who many consider to be the front-running band for both 70s punk and 80s glam). Still, the wound opened by Topper's dismissal continued to bleed. Guitarist and songwriter Mick Jones had a falling out with Strummer and Simonon. He was gone by 1983.
Many reasons have been tossed around as to why Mick was ejected from the Clash, a band that he helped start. One reason cited would be personal differences, meaning that Strummer and Simonon had decided that Jones was simply not pleasant to be around anymore (the documentary confirms this). Another reason that seems somewhat obvious would be creative differences (isn't that always the reason?). Judging from Mick's next band, Big Audio Dynamite, he wasn't up for the return to punk music that Strummer wanted. Others place the blame on Bernie Rhodes, believing that he pulled a powerplay and got in Strummer's ear to get Mick out of the band. Whatever the reason, the Clash truly died when Mick Jones left.
Unfortunately, the remaining members didn't know it. Enlisting three musicians by the names of Nick Sheppard, Pete Howard, and Vince White to make up what Strummer called "The Clash Mark 2", the band bashed out one more album in 1985. It was promised to be a return to the sound of the first album. Instead of sounding like the masters of hard hitting garage punk resurrecting an old sound, the album sounded like a mainstream 80s band trying to imitate 70s punk rock. The Clash Mark 2, sadly, probably had more in common with something like Twisted Sister. Even worse, Joe Strummer was now beginning to appear like a parody of his old self, or as one particularly cruel review put it, "a senile old rock god trying to recapture 1977". On top of all that, the title of the record was Cut The Crap...the obvious jokes and mockery of the title have been spewing since it first saw the light of day.
I may be critical of the Clash being "the only band that mattered", but it's quite obvious that Strummer's overall vision for the Clash was that the music had to matter. Not only were The Clash Mark 2 not working out, but the Clash simply didn't matter anymore. The group's name was finally put to rest in 1986.
All the members went on to do different things. Most notably Mick Jones enjoyed success with the aforementioned Big Audio Dynamite and Joe Strummer diddled around with film work and solo projects before he hooked up with The Mescaleros (Simon Stafford, Luke Bullen, Scott Shields, and Martin Slattery) and started making great music again. He died a few days before Christmas in 2002 of a heart attack at the age of 50. Judging from his last album, Streetcore, though, he definitely died during his second musical prime, if such a things exists.
The Clash have been gone for over twenty years (eighteen, if you consider The Clash Mark 2 to be The Clash, which I don't), but their legacy still remains. To me, the meaning of the music wasn't so much about "hating the man" as it was about creativity (whether it be through punk or through other kinds of music) and writing about what you know. If anything, The Clash were incredibly emphatic band, writing songs that conveyed the ills of the downtrodden but without getting overly sentimental or depressive about it. Truth be told, the songs still matter, even though some of the things they wrote about may be somewhat dated (though I don't mean dated in a bad way). As far as I'm concerned, as long as there's someone listening to "Career Opportunities" and realizing that they aren't getting a fair shake or someone who listens to "Lost In The Supermarket" and gives a thought to how things must suck for the lonely old guy down the street, the Clash live on. Now without further stalling, my picks for top three Clash records (hey, I can be indulgent if I want...)
01. London Calling - their best record. Period.
02. Singles - collects their 70s singles and shows how the band progressed musically from "White Riot" all the way to Combat Rock. Many not their best musically, but perhaps the best intro to the band...
03. The Clash (UK Version) - unless you're really into punk and as such...this is an essential record. No one's required to like it, but it definitely should be heard. If possible avoid, the butchered U.S. version.
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