Track Listing

1. Inoculated City
2. Know Your Rights
3. Car Jamming
4. Should I Stay Or Should I Go
5. Rock The Casbah
6. Red Angel Dragnet
7. Straight To Hell
8. Overpowered By Funk
9. Atom Tan
10. Sean Flynn
11. Ghetto Defendant
12. Death Is A Star

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7911 in Music
• Released on: 1999-10-04
• Number of discs: 1

From Amazon.com
The final album by the Clash's original Strummer/Jones incarnation is also their most inconsistent. There were musical and ideological rifts developing within the band, and it shows: the experimentation is almost as wild as Sandanista!'s (and the biggest experiment is heading away from their punk shiftiness and into a commercial rock sound), but they seem to be enjoying it less. The band's stabs at funk and poetry aren't terribly successful, but it all came together for two massive hits: "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" has the biggest, stupidest, most perfect riff this side of "Louie Louie," and "Rock the Casbah" pulls the band's politics, fine-honed sarcasm, and saw-toothed guitar sound into the service of a dance-floor beat. --Douglas Wolk

CD Description
It's not easy being the World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band (a tag the Clash inherited from the Rolling Stones, who had traded their emotional commitment for tax exile). What you doafter changing the world with your first few releases? The previous SANDINISTA was the Clash's WHITE ALBUM, exploring just about every musical style they could think of over the course of three LP's. COMBAT ROCK, then, could be their LET IT BE, an attempt to focus on visceral, accessible material, kidney-punching instead of bobbing and weaving.
There's an increased focus on funk here, as on the unlikely hit "Rockthe Casbah" and "Overpowered by Funk". Naturally, there's also a pronounced political element to the lyrics (the anti-authoritarian rant of "Know Your Rights", the post-Vietnam morality play of the moving "Straight to Hell".) Despite the renewed sense of focus, though, there's still a high degree of artistic ambition revealed in both the polysyllabic lyricsand the textured, overdub-heavy arrangements.

Customer Reviews

why is this so underated?
The final official Clash album was their most commercially successful, yet in terms of praise it has little. I think that to understand `Combat Rock' you have to first have been able to appreciate `Sandinista!' While less ambitious than the former album, `Combat Rock' covers styles and ideas pursued through all the bands albums.

`Combat Rock' features those two big hits, `Should I Stay Or Should I Go' and 'Rock The Casbah', while the remainder is often dismissed as disappointing. This disparity is very rewarding through further listening. `Sean Flynn', `Ghetto Defendant', `Red Angel Dragnet' are odd the first time round, and but more idiosyncratic and engaging with each further listen. The album musically embodies the bands strains and problems. The stripped sound production is obviously a result of its recording on the road. Another distancing feature of the album is the generally negative and down-tempo feel. This is in strong contrast to their earlier rebellious and up-tempo aggression on the debut and `Give `em Enough Rope' albums. Apart from the two energising hit singles the material sinks in differently. This makes for a totally new kind of Clash album. `Combat Rock' is the next step from `Sandinista!' yet it has a stronger set of pop tunes and hooks closer to `London Calling'.

All in all the greatest virtue of the set is 'Straight To Hell'. It is possibly the most beautiful and sorrowful song they ever wrote. It's inclusion half way through the running order can upset the mix, especially so since the listener is propelled into 'Overpowered by Funk'. `Combat Rock' is definitely an album for an open mind and is a great last hurrah for Mick and Topper. While it may be the groups most overlooked album, it is still as much a complement since the bands standard was so high.

(As a side note it is worth noting that it's so unjust that 'Know Your Rights' is always left off of other Clash compilations. I love it)

And Papa Sam says....
Following on from the gargantuan and indulgent "Sandanista" the Clash went and got a bit global on us with this album.
There's the standards that are unarguably, irrefutable classics. "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" - a no-brainer guitar riff that is so obviously mesmeric. "..Cashbah" being an eccentric classic with Topper's piano riff carrying it.

However, the real charm of this album lays in it's highpoint - the profound and elegant "Straight To Hell" which stands up as one of the most moving and bizarre tracks they ever put down. Bleak post-'Nam lyrics and a fascinating musical back-drop.

Some pleasant but indecisive noodling towards the end perhaps lets this album down a little from being a full-blown masterwork.
But this remains a defining album and a reminder of what The Clash had about them that so many other bands don't.
Even Travis Bickle pops up.

Excellent record.
This seems ot divide opinion more than any other Clash album - some see it as a sell out, others as a return to form following the sprawling, flawed Sandinista. Im certainly in the latter camp; i love this record, and certainly believe the criticism levelled at it is wholy unfair: its a "sell out", why? Because it had two hit singles on it? London Calling was hardly Aphex Twin either, was it? Ironically the Clash's attempt to "reign it in" following the musical binging that was Sandinista is where, in my opinion, this album fails. It has a fairly good cross section of musical styles on here, but fails to really sink into any kind of groove due to the genre-hopping combined with its relative (ie for a Clash album) brevity. Strummers lyrics have also deepened on this record - Allen Ginsberg turns up on Ghetto Defendant and its clear on some of the other tracks (Car Jamming, Straight To Hell) that he was an influence on Strummers songwwriting. It came out at a time when the Clash had just broke big (that is Shea Stadium, albeit supporting the Who, big) in America, and i think this is one of the major influences in people who claim this record is commercial. In my opinion, its no more commercial than London Calling or even the first Clash record, which did appear, lest we forget, in 1977 - a time when no punk record could fail.

Probably my third favourite Clash record, which would place it in my top 15-20 of all time. Love it.