My first ever purchase, their name stencilled onto my schoolbook, my much more knowledgeable friend informing me they had got rid of the man who wrote the music, Mick Jones, bugger. (Read the About page please)
Combat Rock was the album that broke The Clash in many ways taking them into the American top ten but effectively ending them with Jones and drummer Topper Headon both sacked.
It contains three classics known the second they start in Should I Stay or Go, Straight To Hell and the Headon inspired Rock The Casbah.
Know Your Rights opens the album in an aggressive manner and Inoculated City has its moments, but Red Angel Dragnet, with Simonon on lead vocals, and Car Jamming do not inspire.
Overpowered By Funk and Sean Flynn show a band stretching themselves and there is something infectious about Atom Tan.
It’s a good album, not a great one, they made better, and Jones had already delivered his final mix called Rat Patrol From Fort Bragg which Strummer, Simonon and manager Bernie Rhodes were not happy with due to the length, Glynn John’s remixed it and Combat Rock it became. Trouble was clearly brewing.
The Clash had gone from squats to stadiums within a matter of years. Strummer and Simonon sacked Jones stating he had drifted away from the original idea of the group. With Fort Bragg and his subsequent work with BAD it was clear Jones was going in a new direction so maybe a musical split was on the cards. If not. it was the worst decision Strummer, Simonon and the controlling Rhodes ever made.
7.5/10
GIVE IT A STREAM: Should I Stay or Should I Go?