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but I still feel the album has some kind of unity. I can never understand why nobody loves this thing. 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. 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. You don't ask questions--just look at the sunlight on the billboards and the graffiti and enjoy your last ride. I like the half-horrified, half-reverent references to pop culture, the beats, the basslines, the weird instrumentations. And I like nihilism and dispair.
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. incipient despair.--that creep into even the few 'happy' tracks. 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. Maybe just the bitterness, sarcasm and--nihilism.
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. 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. 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.
Really after this the only band that mattered did not matter any longer. Was this the best Clash album., save that for Sadinista or London Calling but this was a excellent album by a band that most people never thought would play music like this. Punk started out with the Sex Pistols and The Clash and really ended in my opinion with this album.Come by my site sometime for a visit; Google Judemac Forever. I suggest picking this one up but if you want to sample the band, try a "Best Of release" from one of the many sellers on here and then check this one out. Besides the hit single's "Should I Stay Or Should I Go and Rock The Casbah, "Straight To Hell" and "Know Your Rights" were good solid tracks. The bottom line is this WAS the last important Clash release.
You have The Clash kind of treading new musical waters here:where there are some pretty standard fare dubby punk kind of tunes here such as "Know Your Rights","Car Jammming" and "Ghetto Defendant" (with Allen Ginsburg no less) there is also an attempt outside "Casbah" to do something poppier with "Should I Stay Or Should I Go",the other big US hit here anyway. seem to come a bit out of left field."Overpowered By Funk" is.well one of my favorites on the album definately goes by it's name as a heavy,percussive 80's "naked" funk groove. On a recent interview CD,which came from a local record store grab bag no less,members of The Clash described this as their last album with a united front,both musically and personally.Well that may be true,in a sense. Nevertheless there are some places here that,even for Clash fans accustomed to some of the warped grooves of Sandinista. Other tunes such as "Red Angel Dragnet","Straight To Hell" again do a pretty good job at the whole mutant groove thing.Of course there are some plain sharper attacks such as "Atom Tan" and the more ambient dub of "Inoculated City" has some great use of sound samples:it has been said that the great "2000 flushes" ad featured has been deleted from later pressings of this CD but mine has it so I am not worried lol.One track that really impressess me here is a tune called "Sean Flynn";with it's dissonant jazzy sound and likeminded sax solo it's definately about where I personally live musically.This whole thing ends with.a slower but similar tune really in "Death Is A Star".So,if you like a lot diverse,mutated punk-funk grooves with heavily leftisty political lyrics this will be just up your alley.For those punk fans who hate this album.here's another way to look at it as The Clash themselves admitted it:their concept of bringing their message to everyone would be felt just as well with the pop and abstract musical concepts dealt with on this album as with hard core punk rock because if their music felt like nothing but a huge attack,it would've never gained more then a cult following.They wanted to get as many peoples attention so they didn't change their message,just made music that could reach out to people who might not typically go for a Clash album.And from the look of how time has treated this album that was a pretty good choice. I will say that most of the drive and spirt in the band came from Joe Strummer and Mick Jones. And both left the band.well after a whole fiasco involving drummer Topper Headon,resulting in a feud.Well that's too bad because topper really put out here with "Rock The Casbah".It's a masterjam of the punk-funk movement (sorry Rick James).And it's got a message too but hey THIS IS THE "ONLY BAND THAT MATTERS" RIGHT.Well forget what the press said about them:the quartet are still on a mission here and the music is evolving yet again.
The Clash had long since stopped being a punk band ever since the second Cost of Living EP - a classic pop record in its own right - but still made waves with eclectic rock, pop, and reggae. But song for song, Combat Rock loses all the anticipation that had been building up since then; it was almost as if the band had spent itself. Combat Rock is an album in search of a style and a point of view. Joe Strummer had many, many more years of great music in front of him before his sad end, and that's one reason why Combat Rock is so painful to endure. In the 101ers, Strummer played ordinary rock'n'roll - before punk lit the British scene alight and pushed The Clash to the front stage.
great record, with flaws, but listen without prejudice and you'll fall into it more and more (i started decades ago) I like how they explore the sound of the guitar, different rithms but in a different, maturer way than in Sandinista. Ghetto deffendant, streight to hell, should i stay, rock the casbah. how the hell someone can say this is not one of the best rock albums ever.
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