The Clash - The Essential Clash

Round about the time when the Shea Stadium live album and the book came out last year, there seemed to be a bit of an anti-Clash backlash, and I started wondering whether The Clash were really as wonderful as they are cracked up to be, and as I remember them. Yes, they were. I'll say that louder. YES, THEY WERE.

It’s hard to analyse what was so great about them. Part of it was the feeling of unbounded confidence and (paradoxically for a band which was so anti-authoritarian) authority. That feeling started to trickle away after “London Calling”: for me, the watershed was “Bankrobber”. What were they doing? They weren’t gods any more. After that, they did some good songs, and a few remarkable ones (“Ghetto Defendant”, for example) but they just weren’t the same old Clash. That is why “Should I Stay Or Should I Go” (which was fairly unremarked at the time, as far as I remember) was so special: just one last flash of the old spirit.

Purists probably don’t like compilations like this, but it is a pretty good potted history (ending with Mick Jones’ departure, which is just as well). There isn’t any point whinging about the track selection, though, for example, “Armageddon Time” was surely important enough to merit inclusion. When I started to list (mentally) tracks which deserved to be here, and I realised that there weren’t any on “London Calling” that didn’t, it became clear to me that it was the band’s masterpiece.

I’m not going to attempt a track-by-track. Just a couple of comments. I had only heard “Clash City Rockers” a couple of times, and discarded it as lightweight. Big mistake, great song (the surreal take on “Oranges And Lemons” – “the bells of Prince Far-I???”). And, excited as I was by the original, I was wrong about their “Police And Thieves” (http://terrapinlistens2.blogspot.com/2009/02/lee-scratch-perry-and-various-arkology.html). And the best of their best – “Complete Control” and “White Man In Hammersmith Palais” – weren’t just great. Those songs had something – the nearest I can get is to call it a nobility - I can’t explain.