The Clash - Combat Rock
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Free Music Notes for Combat Rock
Free Music Review: worst cd i have ever heard...EVER!
Hit: 1 Stars
this cd makes me want to cut off my ears...i like the clash but...this cd was so horrible...go buy something that you will be able to listen to without your ears bleedingFree Music Review: Take Out A Lesson, You Sorry Punk Ignorants!
Hit: 4 Stars
The Clash got a lot of flack for being the Beatles of punk rock . . . 'haps that's one source besides Mao-wear Commie greens for their "combat" outfit fashion sense. Experimentation? Guest poets? DUB VERSIONS?? Is this punk???
This is . . . "radio Clash".... Who are these poor fools in here saying this is the worst Clash album? Or even, I gasp even to quote, a bad album altogether? Better they should stick with their INXS and "80's music" "nostalgia" albums and get along with you now, you silly sissies, probably thinking the Bay City Rollers "started it all" . . .
This album is no more an "insult" to punk rock than, say, the Talking Heads. I never could understand my high school buddies loving "London Calling" & "Sandinista" but hating this album. Some years later maybe some admitted they "were able to appreciate" this album. How are these songs a trial to rock out to? Wall, I don't get it.
Let's take a little walk through this album and see what I'm talking about:
1. "Know Your Rights" OK, OK, right at the starting line I have to contradict myself; very well then I contradict myself. But it's practically a standard for this great band for their first song on the album to suck. And there's no way that "Know Your Rights" (all three of em) doesn't suck. "London Calling", "Safe European Home", "Magnificent Seven" all suck, and are all followed by great albums. Now "Clash City Rockers" doesn't suck, but it isn't as hot as the songs that follow on the first album, but anyway that's the counterfeit US version, and "Janie Jones" on the UK version definitely does NOT suck. 3/10.
2. "Car Jamming" This a great song, much better than most rockers on the "London Calling" album, even. This SHOULD have been the first song, and I always cut to it first when I am putting it on for my homies Friday nights. "I thought I sawr Lauren Bacall / In a car jam!" -- Joe Strummer is great on this song, -- "ab-so-lut-e-ly". 10/10.
3. "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" This is a pretty dumb song, so of course it was a big hit. Like what James Dean would've sounded like if he had been in a punk rock band. Let's say I enjoy this song a lot more when I'm drunk. 6/10.
4. "Rock The Casbah" 9/10.
5. "Red Angel Dragnet" One of the coolest songs they ever did. Here we have all the more far-out moments in "Sandinista" coalescing into a more rocking "version". "I come from a long way away / And I know a fine thing when I see it." Be sure and play this loud as hell, and listen for Joe quoting DeNiro in "Taxi Driver": "One day a rain will come to wash all the scum off the pavement". 10/10.
6. "Straight To Hell" A very weird song about Vietnam and Coca-Cola. I like it, and Strummer is very funny on this one. "It ain't Coca-Cola / It's rice." 7/10.
7. "Overpowered By Funk" This is the start of side 2, and I admit it IS a little off-putting at first. But I've grown to like it, especially at the end with the guest-rap by that New York 80's graff. artist name I can't remember. 7/10.
8. "Atom Tan" A real cool call-response song with Joe sounding like a New Wave Dylan from England and Mick backing him up. This song is slow and takes a while for the drums to kick in, a plodding marching beat, but it drives . . . I hum this song alot after I hear this album. 8/10.
9. "Sean Flynn" This is the one to make punks scratch their liberty spikes . . . the one that Rancid will never cover or copy-cat. It's a very pretty song, though, and much more enjoyable than similar material on "Sandinista" 7/10.
10. "Ghetto Defendent" Like some reviewer somewhere said, this song, which has a guest vocal by Allen Ginsberg, is "a lot better than it deserves to be". I like the drums on this, and Ginsberg's nico-throated speech is pretty cool contribution, actually. But it's not really a high-point of the album. 6/10.
11. "Inoculated City" This is fairly interesting filler. No musician should be encouraged when someone refers to their songs as "interesting". But 2 duds out of 12 isn't something to be ashamed of. 5/10.
12. "Death Is A Star" This is quite simply one of the prettiest songs I've ever heard. One of the things I like about this album is the greatly increased depth and complexity of the lyrics. The words by themselves are a very moving poem. "And clouds are high in Spanish mountains / And a Ford roars through the night full of rain", -- Strummer whispers the song to it's tinkling-rain-piano conclusion. A fitting end for this kind of band . . . unexpected and wonderful. 10/10.
I wish this album were longer. It's amazing to think with all the inner conflict going on in the band at this time they were able to put out such a solid, however diverse, album. I don't think this is the Clash's "worst" album at all. If I had to pick one for that I'd say it was "Give em Enough Rope", --which is still a great album and has my 2nd favorite Clash song on it, "Stay Free".
So in sum, it's a long way from "White Riot", but this is in no way a record you can allow yourself not to own. You should write the people in here who wrote bad reviews for this album; they should sell you their's since they're obviously too dense to recognize pure gold when it comes straight outta Brixton and hits em in their acne-pocked idiot faces!
Free Music Review: i'm overpowered by funk, isn't anyone else?
Hit: 3 Stars
Recently I've been on a bit of Clash kick, fully realizing that after listening to this band for about 5 years now they are perhaps my favorite group of any genre. I revisited this album recenlty for the first time since trying to get into it when i was in high school. It didn't sink in too well then, however i figured with several years of maturing in musical taste i could perhaps appreciate this record once and for all. Well being as open-minded towards multicultural music as i have been as of late i can safetly say i'm in good position to say that Free Music Review: They went from "the only band that matters" to a band that didn't matter at all
Hit: 2 Stars
There are a few good songs such as the ska inflected Know Your Rights, but the hits Rock The Casbah and Should I Stay Or Should I Go are the best songs on this disc. Most of the other songs are only OK, either not rocking enough to hold my attention or not experimental enough to be interesting or just plain bad songwriting. For example Red Angel Dragnet is a reggae song they could have done in their sleep, already boring, then they up the disappointment level by giving it some of the stoopidest lyrics the Clash ever committed to record. There are more reggae influenced numbers, some really mellow experimental numbers (Sean Flynn) and some pedestrian anglo-funk but nothing approaching the aggression both musically and lyrically of their previous work. The Clash's edge was getting dull, and their loss of passion, and musical direction was never more apparent. They sound like clueless old men smoking up in the studio and fiddle-farting around putting on endless "spoken word" and piano noodling overdubs. Very little of this album has anything to do with punk rock or rock in general for that matter. It's disjointed and very unsatisfying. Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon had some well documented problems with Mick Jones so bye bye Mick. They put out one more very poor album and called it quits.Free Music Review: Big Letdown After A Creative Peak
Hit: 2 Stars
London Callimg and Sandinista showed The Clash developing from their initial punk beginnings to a great studio band making excellent albums with much depth. The rot set in with Combat Rock, which for all purposes really is the last true Clash album(Cut The Crap can be dismissed altogether). This album is nothing more than two hit singles sandwhiched between a bunch of filler that sounds like the worst moments of Sandinista, plus two pretty decent songs "Know Your Rights" and "Straight To Hell".I have it because it's The Clash, but hardly their best.