The Clash

The Clash's masterpiece retains the convincing fire of their earlier LPs, but lets their passion loose across a range of styles. Whether they're playing old-fashioned rock 'n' roll, skanking behind a brass section or letting their love of reggae shine, each track sounds like a perfectly natural extension of what they always did best: make you dance and think at once.

By now, our expectations of the Clash might seem to have become inflated beyond any
possibility of fulfillment. It's not simply that they're the greatest rock & roll band in the
world–indeed, after years of watching too many superstars compromise, blow chances
and sell out, being the greatest is just about synonymous with being the music's last hope.
While the group itself resists such labels, they do tell you exactly how high the s... More >

Here's where they start showing off. If "Lost in the Supermarket," for instance, is just another alienated-consumption song, it leaps instantly to the head of the genre on the empathy of Mick Jones's vocal. And so it goes. Complaints about "slick" production are absurd--Guy Stevens slick?--and insofar as the purity of the guitar attack is impinged upon by brass, pianner, and shuffle, this is an expansion, not a compromise. A gratifyingly loose Joe Strummer makes virtuoso use of his four-note range, and Paul Simonon has obviously been studying his reggae records. Warm, angry, and thoughtful, confident, melodic, and hard-rocking, this is the best double-LP since Exile on Main Street. And it's selling for about $7.50. (Grade - A+)