Clash on Broadway: Disc 1

I love so many of these but I can't deny "Police and Thieves"

was just singing "What's My Name" to myself yesterday, good timing here

This was my first box set too.

As I put this box set on my Christmas list--in, what, 1994?--specifically so that I could own any non-album tracks I didn't have--my voting strategy here is going to be to vote for the track that I was happiest to own/discover at the time.

I will insist, perhaps controversially, that the US version of the debut is superior to the UK one. The former is what I have always owned, and as much as a Clash die-hard as I was (and still sorta am), I was never terribly impressed by the songs dropped for the U.S release in favour of what I have always thought of as unquestionably stronger material. I remain happy to have those songs here, but this is the only context in which I am ever compelled to listen to them. Ditto the b-sides collected here.

The demo and live versions that bookend the disc are fine, and if you are doing a box set, I guess it makes some sense to vary things a little bit rather than just replicate albums that everyone already owns.

I suppose this is my rather rambling way of saying that "Capital Radio One" is clearly the best non-album Clash track from this era, and that gets my vote.

I used to own this box, but now all I own is the big booklet that came with it.

These things can never be comprehensive, but I just noticed that it includes a live version of "I Fought the Law" instead of the studio version. I always found the studio version fascinating, because it is recorded so much better than anything else on the band's debut(s).

I had no idea til now this wasn't a live album

xp well the obvious reason for that is because it was recorded 2 years later

The liner notes indicate that the live version of "I Fought the Law" here was the one done for the movie Rude Boy (never saw; remember people on 90s-era Clash usenet group claiming it sucks).

I love so many of these but I can't deny "Police and Thieves"

because it was definitely weird walking around an office building where like 50% of the workers are all carrying fully loaded guns just casually under their suits all the time. Scaring the nation with their guns and ammunition indeed

Complete Control

I could vote for many of these and "White Man in Hammersmith Palais" might be my actual answer, but today I'm really feeling "I'm So Bored With the U.S.A."

Shout-out also to "The Prisoner," so great — "Johnny Too Bad meets Johnny B. Goode in the Charing Cross Road" is as succinct a description of the Clash as you'll find.

Tough choice btw Complete Control and White Man

In other words: US version of the first album rules.

Voted Protex Blue only bcuz my fave early The Clash moment is that sweet little one measure barely a guitar solo

Current mood: I'm So Bored With The U.S.A.
Likely vote: White Riot (single version or album version? I never owned this box)
Second-place vote: Clash City Rockers

And yeah, the US version of the debut album stomps all over the UK/original version.

That opening drum fill on "Capital Radio One" might be my favorite 2-seconds of music ever, gets me so frickin amped up whenever I hear it to this day, so voting for that narrowly over "White Man"

Went with "White Man in Hammersmith Palais"

I love hearing the singles on their own. I go back and forth on whether I wish singles from bands like the Clash, the Beatles, the Stones, etc. had made it on albums - undoubtedly the albums would've been better, but there's also the trade-off where they likely would've recorded less music (who knows if the "weakest" tracks would have been the ones that wouldn't have been recorded - sometimes a band's best stuff was the last number of a session because they needed something to fill out the album) and I get the appeal of having the singles stand by themselves.

Obligated to go White Man in Hammersmith Palais.

c-o-nnnnn control!!

Total!

Its colossal righteous power should be diminished by the fact that is a petty gripe about their record label

But somehow that actually makes it more awesome!

ha tbh it does diminish it a bit tbh but it's still one of my favourite songs. I voted for it anyway

I only know the tracks on this that were on either or both versions of the debut. I'm voting for "Deny" from the UK over "Complete Control" from the US.

I've always wondered what Greil Marcus meant in Mystery Train, where he says something about them "stealing licks from Trout Mask Replica" on this album. Does anyone else hear anything on here copied from Beefheart? Or does he just mean "there are two loud guitars", or "Frownland" = "Garageland"?

i've read that strummer was a quite big beefheart fan

but nah, never heard any similarity at all

going for "complete control" over "(white man)"

it does diminish it a bit tbh

It’s a halfway point between “this is a chord / now form a band” and “Some Of Your Friends Are Already This Fucked” — a thrilling piece of art, quickly and powerfully crafted, that serves as an instructional text to kids inspired by punk. The compromised nature of the lyric is merely further proof of its own message — and having stumbled, the band would fuck themselves over further in the future by letting CBS diddle them on LP royalties, twice, in order to save face re “authenticity.”

anyway as automythologising songs go, it’s less cringe than Garageland or I’m So Bored With The USA. The Clash: too earnest to be embarrassed.

I'm So Bored isn't cringe, it's funny.

They’re all funny!

I'm So Bored isn't cringe, it's accurate.

sic otm, for a guns blazing, gauntlet thrown declaration of war, the first album is kind of a riot (pun intended?).

Complete Control because Janie Jones is a demo

"I'm in love with a rock and roll wall
I'm in love with a great big stone wall...."

in the intro to the sniffin glue anthology mark perry says that you can hear *ELP* all over early clash, which is a better claim than beefheart (bcz funnier)

nThe single track on "From Here to Eternity" that I prefer to the recorded version is "Complete Control". The "Whhhhhhaaaaaaaaaa" gets me every time.

I thought I was going to be in the 'basic' camp but yeah, 'Complete Control'.

the first album is kind of a riot

They never stopped being funny, really. There's odd bits and pieces all over the albums. I think the whole "only band that mattered" rep does a disservice to how freewheeling and loose the catalog is. It makes them sound dour, but they rarely were.

agreed, see all the goofy parts on Sandinista especially

Den Hegarty of Darts

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Love this one, their covers are so great. Love the bar-drunk backing vox. And the dubby breakdown.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6_gVmCNflY

Went with White Man in Hammersmith Palais as my first instinct, though I think if I had relistened to Complete Control first, it would have been a harder choice. But this is all so good. I found myself unexpectedly taken with "Hate and War" this time around.

The contemporary impression of them as humorless scolds has always been wild to me considering how fun so much of the music is. Right from the first record, so many songs are filled with Joe and Mick doing silly voices, accents, impressions, comedy adlibs. Whatever else they were, they were clearly concerned with making sure their listening audience was smiling and having fun.

Complete Control

The contemporary impression of them as humorless scolds

where is this, i've never seen it

I mean I was still in diapers when they split so maybe firsthand fans can correct me but I feel like I’ve read plenty of stuff about segments of the public/press seeing them as hectoring know-it-alls rather than a fun party band, partic in the 80s. They say theyre socialists so why arent their concerts free, quit talking about Nicaragua and just play, etc etc. Obviously wasnt the only lens they were viewed through but it seems like that was certainly a thing, no?

I read and watched just about anything on the Clash that I could get my hands on when I was in high school, so I don't offhand recall the source, but I remember someone saying that circa London Calling/Sandinista!, the band's onstage reputation was punishingly serious, and (I believe it was suggested) aggressively masculine--whatever that means in the context of an all-male rock band in the early 1980s. I've seen/heard live clips of Strummer doing things like hectoring hippies ("let's party while our friends are dying!") alongside moments of him being goofy on stage, so I dunno. As others have pointed out, there is plenty of silliness on the records--LC and S! very much included and perhaps even especially.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Eh

vaguely surprised by #3 - always felt that one was a bit throwaway (an AWESOME throwaway don't get me wrong here)

only other human emotion I felt looking at that list - 'what's my name' deserved one vote (but no more)

Clash City Rockers is great, and another reason the US edition of the first album rules. I love the album opening with those big Townshend-ish chords.

#3 all about the fills

I think I prefer the slightly sped-up version on the single. The CD's kind of go back and forth between both versions, but I love them regardless.

When disc 2 poll?!?

^^

also, if any fans here have not read the 1977 Lester Bangs piece on them included in the Psychotic Reactions anthology, it's really great and essential imho.

I was lucky enough to see them on one of the very last Combat Rock tour dates, a memory I treasure, I had just turned 16

they played "The Prisoner"! a reggae band opened!

first time I ever saw slam dancing (Fear wasn't on SNL until a few weeks later, I saw that live too)

Tuesday is my busy day (I teach a class out of town), so Disc 2 coming tomorrow.

Hooray!