I have loved The Clash and been listening to them
for years, so reviewing them is a different experience. We are way past an
introduction, but of course there are still things that can be new. After all,
they had already been broken up for a while when I really got into them, so I
missed a lot.
Right off the bat, I had never listened to Cut
the Crap before. I don't regret listening now, but since I had heard
"This Is England" many times from The Essential Clash, I
wasn't missing much. You can tell they aren't working together as well. Having
seen Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten, and knowing this is after
Topper and Mick are gone and their disintegration is in progress, well, of
course the album sounds like that. You can give a lot of credit to Bernie
Rhodes for the engineering work on "This Is England", but I suspect
that could only be successful because the content of the song matches the mood
of what had been left.
I had known about "The Only Band That
Matters". While I could kind of concede the point - except that it's
obviously forgetting the Ramones - it goes against my general nature and
beliefs. Well, that was a promotional slogan from CBS, and I appreciate
learning that. I guess it never bothered me as much as it could have; that
level of brash is pretty punk.
Most important for me was finding this quote from
Mick Jones. He was talking about reunions, and how there was never a time when
everyone wanted to at the same time. I guess I knew that, because I knew there
had never been a big Clash reunion, but I hadn't known this:
"Most importantly for us, we became friends
again after the group broke up, and continued that way for the rest of the
time. That was more important to us than the band".
Band relationships can contain a lot of angst,
perhaps even more so for punk bands. I am glad they found their friendship
again, and that they valued it. I wish that would happen for more bands.
While I love the Ramones more (maybe it's a USA thing), I have to
admit that I think The Clash are better musicians. They have a wider range,
bringing in more influences and instruments. Going over their catalog now, I
notice that their track lengths are frequently longer than standard punk. There
are bands who have albums with that many tracks, but then those tracks are all
two minutes or so, and you can get through them pretty quickly. There are 36
songs on Sandanista!, and they bring in an amazing variety of sounds.
Listen to just "Hitsville U.K." and
"The Sound of Sinners" for an example of that.
You could say they are not typical punk. I certainly
know people who love to declare various bands "not punk" or "no
longer punk", but I don't think I've heard anyone pull that on The Clash,
and they'd better not. They were punk. They were also more than that. That
helped them influence a lot of musicians, far outside of one genre.
As I think about it, I can only think of three songs
of theirs that got much radio play, and only one of theirs I ever saw on MTV*. That
probably is a result of the punk label. Those are all good songs, but The Clash
has many, many more. There is so much that is worth listening too and worth
being heard.
That will never change.
*Yes, of course the three are "Rock the
Casbah" (also the video), "Train in Vain", and "Should I
Stay Or Should I Go".
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