70. Clash, "The Magnificent Seven" (1980)

(listen)

This is just another excuse to rave up Sandinista!, my favorite album running away by the Clash, all of whose work I may actually be attached to even more than ever, better than 30 years after the fact. But their best was the big black and red triple that traveled under the banner of an explicit shout-out to Nicaraguan rebels, built an entire song out of a scene from Apocalypse Now, recklessly sailed into the marshes of dub and back out again, and packed itself so full with gems it's hard to keep them straight. My magnificent seven at this moment: "Hitsville UK," "Rebel Waltz," "Somebody Got Murdered," "Lightning Strikes (Not Once but Twice)," "Up in Heaven (Not Only Here)," "Police on My Back," "Washington Bullets," "The Call Up," and—oh, wait, I'm over. There are 36 songs here and on another day it's conceivable I could name another seven or eight entirely as favorites. "The Magnificent Seven" is the first song on the first side and an apt curtain-opener, loose and freewheeling and auspiciously implying everything still ahead, self-consciously springboarding off the image of a big fat Hollywood western of the early '60s with Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Eli Wallach, Robert Vaughn, and James Coburn. American movie references are nearly as ubiquitous across the breadth of Sandinista! as the dub gestures. It's warm, it's funny, it's human, it's alive. Strummer's vocal, which I've seen characterized, somewhat oddly, as "white rap," is rambling and indeed almost conversational, big and wide open as only Strummer can be. He always did make you want to share a drink with him. But since no one can do that anymore, you can play this and raise a glass. To a class act, timeless. To other times. And to a better world, God help us.

Combat Rock (1982)

A few years ago I worked a crazy temp-style kind of job proofreading customer communications material for an insurance company. There was a crew of about a half dozen of us and we didn't actually have that much to do—the material was numbingly repetitive but long stretches of time, even days, would pass before we got new batches of it to work on. We got along fabulously and laughed very hard most days. Someone among them, or several, I can't remember exactly, were huge fans of this album, randomly bellowing things like, "This is a public ... service ... announcement," to which the rest of us soon enough learned to respond in unison, "With git-TARS!" I realize this can't possibly seem funny to anyone reading, but we were enjoying ourselves so I guess you had to be there, etc. But the point is that it sent me back to this album, condemned by virtually all around me in 1982 as the crassest sellout in history, largely by reason of actually spawning a top 10 hit, and it sent me back more generally to the Clash, at which point I started to realize how profoundly they lived on inside me yet and so many of us, attached in the guts like, old friends never forgotten. Joe Strummer was already dead by the time of that proofreading job so it was no longer possible to even pretend the Clash would come back some day and thrill us like it was 1980 all over again, or at least provide the opportunity to hoot at our own nostalgia. No, the arc of the Clash was more like (tiresome Boomer analogy warning) the Beatles; once it was over it was good and well over, finished, once and for all, finito, kaputski, hit the road Jack, done—with just a few random, fragmented reunions and promises for the real thing that ultimately all fizzled away before they could happen. In the end this band is as oddly rooted in their time as they are forever living above and beyond it. I saw them in 1984, playing an arena, and it was sadly all by-the-numbers by then. They were clearly finished. But this last great shot (not prepared to speak to Cut the Crap yet) is way better than I remember, the above-referenced album opener "Know Your Rights," the Tom Tom Club (really?) bounce of "Overpowered by Funk," and especially the Sandinista-like "Straight to Hell," moody and strange and powerful, which found a worthy home in M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes." All this and Allen Ginsberg too. God bless this band.

London Calling (1980)

Wow, when is the last time I put this on? I'm jumping around the room here. As product of three decades and more past, this clearly falls into a category of album I have discussed previously—those known better for being known than recalled for their features and charms. In this case, I'm a little surprised to count myself among those who either forgot how good this is or insufficiently appreciated it at the time. I mean, I remember sitting in a living room with my brother, with whom I shared a railcar apartment at the time, playing this loud every day for weeks. But I don't remember loving it in the way I have these past few weeks. WTF?! I still think that, pound for pound, ounce for ounce, Sandinista is probably the better album, but now we're starting to get into the questionable area of comparing and analyzing various ecstasies, and ecstasies, as we're all supposed to know by this point, are not there to be considered soberly—they are there to be enjoyed heedlessly. It doesn't hurt any that this kicks off in the title song with one of the most stirring and blatant generational calls to arms you may be privileged to encounter, anywhere, any time, nor even, indeed, that the album cover art itself self-consciously mimics a similarly positioned Elvis Presley album. They are out to change the world here, it's as plain and simple as that. And if they failed—only two years later they were getting routinely slapped around as sellouts, two more years out they appeared to be acting the part, and two years beyond that they were all but gone entirely, with nary a ripple on the surface of the water marking their departure, let alone their one-time presence—they did so as honorably as it's possible to do, leaving behind an indelible mark of which we have not yet seen even the edges. Compare this with the previous album, Give 'em Enough Rope, and the subsequent one, Sandinista, and all that followed, and it seems likely that we have another case of artists gone to the crossroads. Song by song, this is not that different from what's on Rope—yet there's something about it that's leagues and miles beyond. Partly it's the willingness to switch up on the musical styles—"Lost in the Supermarket" is sweet and wistful (and deceptively acerbic) in a way nothing of theirs had been before, "The Guns of Brixton" as dramatic and menacing and atmospheric. "Spanish Bombs" as swinging. And "The Right Profile" celebrates ... Montgomery Clift? Stagger Lee's in the mix too. And so it goes, up and down and across the four vinyl sides and full hour of this magnificent release. It's so good that it almost makes me sad that so little can or ever will compare to it, and that it's already happened and we won't see its like again. But I bravely wipe away my tears, and play again. LOUD.

Give 'em Enough Rope (1978)

As it happens, based purely on a reputation rising fast and a rush of slavering good reviews, this first Clash album available in the US is also the first I acquired, back when it was brand-new late in 1978. But as an adherent of new wave, who adored the Buzzcocks and appreciated "Anarchy in the UK" for its tunefulness and hooks, I was vastly disappointed. And I will say still that I think it's probably the least of all the Clash albums (Combat Rock has been routinely underrated, but we'll get to that). Yet for all that it's still pretty damn good—sounds better to me, in fact, than it ever has. The carp I had with it—along with not a few other folks, as it seemed to fall fairly quickly in estimation from that first round of approval, which I think in retrospect was more like rerouted love for the debut, still unavailable stateside at the time—the carp I had with it is Sandy Pearlman's production, which tends to push the more metal elements to the fore even as it crushes the sound into a thick sludge of assault. Now, well—is that bug or feature? You decide. My favorite song was "Tommy Gun," followed by "Stay Free"; both have a lot of churning emotion that drives them, though the former accomplishes it with an admirable cock-rock guitar figure. They're still probably my favorites, but for whatever reason—maybe hearing it with post-grunge ears?—the rest of it sounds at least proficient, and often much more, outright great. "Safe European Home" and "English Civil War" have points to make, which I didn't want to pay much attention to at the time. Ditto "Last Gang in Town" and "Guns on the Roof." "Julie's Been Working for the Drug Squad" is a flat-out charming goof. And that's how it goes. When it's not earnestly indulging sheets of anger behind a wall of bombast it's making with the good old yobby times, salted through with rank but affecting sentiment. On closer examination, issues of the day are soberly addressed: "Tommy Gun" about the Middle East aircraft hijackings of the time, for example, or "Julie's Been Working" about Operation Julie, a big-time LSD bust in England and Wales in 1977. Even a breakdown of the titles indicates something of what they're up to here: "gun" appears in two titles, "drug" in two titles, and also "war," "gang," and "stabbing." So while the good times are celebrated with no stinting on the exuberance, there's also something deadly serious underneath it all, not dealt with frivolously.

The Clash (1977/1979)

For various reasons (or "excuses") I never properly got around to this one until fairly recently. I know it's essential—and found I knew the tracks fairly well by the time I sat down to listen closely. It has been in the air for decades, after all, playing in record stores and clubs and at friends' places, and I had pretty well absorbed it. What I didn't understand nearly as well was how different the original 1977 UK release is from the way-late (thank you, CBS) 1979 US release, even though they share some 10 tracks of their 14 and 15, respectively. If the majority of the tracks are the same—and the versions identical, except "White Riot," re-recorded from the original—the sequencing is significantly altered. Most of side 1 of the UK version appears to be basically side 2 of the US version but there are many alterations. As with the Beatles albums of the mid-'60s, the result is that they are effectively two different albums traveling under the same title and cover art, and this in spite of sharing identical versions of nine songs. I find that I like the UK version better. It sounds more like the landmark this is supposed to be, fresher and more vital and natural. The US version, with such lengthy additions as the 3:58 "Clash City Rockers" that kicks off the first side, or "Complete Control" (which has a guitar solo), or the new-wave gesture of the telling cover (in this case, "I Fought the Law"), seems already to be about the task of creating great iconic myths for its time. The band hadn't yet entered the studio to record any of London Calling, but they were about to, and obviously the ideas that would come to define the Five Great Vinyl Slabs of 1980 (with Sandinista) were percolating. They also hadn't yet entirely thrown off the misbegotten feint toward metal bombast and monotony of Give 'em Enough Rope. All of which ironically makes the US version of their astonishing debut feel more like a transitional effort with a bit of an identity crisis. Yet none of that takes away either from the finest moments they both share: the rowdy and caustic singalong "I'm So Bored With the USA" (notably appropriate in this context), "Janie Jones," "Career Opportunities" (which would make yet another appearance, this time in a different version, on Sandinista), "London's Burning," or the big dub reggae exercise "Police and Thieves." For that matter, "Clash City Rockers" actually manages to effectively signal what was coming, and for that reason alone makes the US version nearly as essential. Oh bother, you need them both after all.

Sandinista! (1980)

Well, the Clash. For five years, from 1977 to 1982, they arguably had all of rock culture by the throat. They blew up and they were huge—then, more or less, they just blew away. With Joe Strummer dead now nearly five years I miss them and all they represented even more than I did 20 years ago. Sometimes it seems all we're left with is a lot of arguments about the relative merits of priceless treasure. That can be seen, for example, in the range of opinion about which of their albums is best. Most people probably say London Calling. A significant portion of fans claim the original, 1977 U.K. self-titled release as the landmark. I have even seen people stump for Give 'em Enough Rope and Combat Rock (and don't forget Black Market Clash). I am here to tell you that this is the one, understanding I'm in the minority, where conventional wisdom tends to deem it little more than an interesting failure. But this is only a failure when you consider the handful or so of weak songs, most of them found on the third vinyl LP of the original release, and forget about the best. The epic riches found here and only here are not matched anywhere else in all of their catalog: "The Magnificent Seven," "Hitsville UK," "Rebel Waltz," "Somebody Got Murdered," "Lightning Strikes (Not Once But Twice)," "Up in Heaven (Not Only Here)," "Police On My Back," "Washington Bullets," "Charlie Don't Surf." This is amazing stuff. But, to be fair, I'm going to call for an end to these kinds of lists and judgments. When it comes to the Clash, the best idea is to collect them all. (P.S. Lists and judgments to continue immediately following this post.)