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Dude went on to mention "Ghetto Defendant" to bolster his claim. The Clash are in the front rank whether you're talking about "rock", or "punk", or even "punk rock".
You will not be disappointed. For the Clash everything is in the mix, why not.
That Strummer and company were never going to let themselves get trapped in any kind of musical ghetto (pun intended) is obvious by the breadth of influences they shout out to on this record. Just listen to it, and then listen again and again.
I got into an argument with someone recently who said the Clash are not "punk". Laughable as all of this was, reading some of the comments here it would seem that the gentleman has some company in his opinion.
This record is so incredible that to try and describe it leaves me short of words.
While less ambitious than the former albums, `Combat Rock' covers styles and ideas pursued through all the bands albums. The final official Clash album was their most commercially successful, yet in terms of praise it has little.
I found the record interesting, and perhaps, one of their best. At this point, The Clash were beyond the mere label of "PUNK ROCK", and were branching out in new directions, that is perhaps why, the record was called, "COMBAT ROCK", in order to reflect, their somewhat urban sound at that time. Shortly after the 1982/83 tour, which I saw twice, they broke-up at the peak of their popularity, much like THE POLICE, who disbanded in 1983.
They did for British music what Hitler did for London. I am just going to pretend it was former Clash fans who finally discovered Flipper and are selling their Clash albums in the Amazon Marketplace. I am shocked. Everything else they ever did was atrocious. The only reason I am reviewing this album is because I just wrote a review of Flipper's "Gone Fishin'" and scrolled through the "Customers Who Bought.Also Bought" section and this came up. How does one become a Clash fan (the single most over-rated band of all time) and a Flipper fan. By the way, the only reason I give this album two stars is because "Rock The Casbah" was a pretty good single.
I think I may be leaning toward the latter assessment, and fair play to them for being that principled and self-aware.The Clash might have been on its last legs here, and the crazy success of Should I Stay and Rock the Casbah might have been the last straw--but Combat Rock is still a great album. but I still feel the album has some kind of unity. incipient despair.--that creep into even the few 'happy' tracks. That song needs to come with some kind of warning label, or be sold by prescription only to people who are too cheerful.It's a weird album, alright--you have Overpowered By Funk and Should I Stay, which are prime dance party material; you have Know Your Rights and Red Angel Dragnet, which are mostly spoken (or yelled) rather than sung; you have Ghetto Defendant, which features Allen Ginsburg talking about methadone kitties and doing the worm on necropolis; you have Death is a Star and Sean Flynn and Straight to Hell, which are downright beautiful and therefore positively scary.
Maybe dance in the aisle while you're at it. it's like riding the subway home over Queens as the sun sets on the day before the Apocalypse. I like the half-horrified, half-reverent references to pop culture, the beats, the basslines, the weird instrumentations. It was a hell of a swan song for the Clash as we know and love it--the music and lyrics are brilliant, and as for them having sold out. Well, I look at it this way: any band that puts a commercial for toliet cleaner in one of their songs (Inoculated City) is either A) not a sell-out, or B) conscious that they are a sell-out and very, very angry about it. Draw the blinds in your room, lie on the floor, turn the volume up to max and prepare to let Straight to Hell f--- you up. Maybe just the bitterness, sarcasm and--nihilism.
You don't ask questions--just look at the sunlight on the billboards and the graffiti and enjoy your last ride. I can never understand why nobody loves this thing. Topper, who got the pink slip shortly after its release, provides some KILLER drumming: Check out Car Jamming and Straight to Hell--no, actually don't check out Straight to Hell. And I like nihilism and dispair.
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