Combat Rock

For a punk band the Clash had some odd ways about them. Kicking off with perhaps the best punk debut album [sorry Rotten, Cook, Jones & Matlock, in my book if you only make one album and then implode, even if it is superb, it doesn’t really count as your debut because it's also your valedictory], following it up with a strong second album and then losing a sense of direction and heading off into the dinosaur territory that punk was supposed to despise with a double and then a triple album [putting the Clash on course for some sort of vinyl disc Fibonacci sequence : 1,1,2,3 … an idea that prog rockers would have loved]. Fortunately somebody in CBS Towers had the sense to remember that the Clash were supposed to be a punk band before they continued the sequence with a 5 disc behemoth and instead we have the single disc that is "Combat Rock" [although Wiki tells me it was originally planned to be two discs] .So "Combat Rock", without the experimentation and variation that marked their previous two outings sits fairly firmly in a rock/reggae groove making it perhaps the most accessible set of songs in the Clash's varied oeuvre. Yes there are a couple of why-did they bothers, "Sean Flynn" feels unthought-through and "Death Is A Star" belongs somewhere else [on the studio floor perhaps?], but overall it's far more danceable than its predecessors; and with four A-sided singles from the twelve tracks: "Know Your Rights", the double A-side release "Should I Stay Or Go*" and "Rock the Casbah" and my favourite "Straight to Hell" it's also more appealing making it the band's most successful release. And with the imminent departures of Topper Headon and Mick Jones it turned-out to be the real Clash's last.*Should I Stay Or Go, I have always thought the answer was pretty obvious, if you go there will be trouble and if you stay it will be double, then save yourself some grief and go I say.

One of clash best LP’s

Fab

It was this album that got me listening to the band back in the 80s, still a brilliant piece of work, bluetooth headphones up full bung haha! Fantastic!

I bought this on vinyl when it first issued.........i thought it time i got it on cd

love it

Great

So very pleased with this album