The Clash – Combat Rock, The People’s Hall Special Edition

By the time The Clash actually hit it big, I was completely uninterested. I had listened obsessively to “London Calling”, “Black Market Clash,” and “Sandinista,” but you couldn’t have paid me to listen to “Combat Rock,” not once the bros had gotten hold of it and thought pumping their fists in the air and screaming “Fuck the casbah!” was what The Clash were about. Ugh.

That’s not on the band, but fandom affects how we perceive artists, and the fact that the American public decided to get into the worst Clash album is no surprise. I just wanted no part of it.

I don’t even think it’s a bad album – by anyone else, it would be incredible. And there are some tracks on it that people love. But it definitely sounds like a band coming apart, which is what it was. “Know Your Rights” should, by all rights, be a good song, but somehow, it’s not. “Should I Stay or Should I Go” is a deserved classic, and “Rock The Casbah” is a perfectly fine song even if it attracted the wrong types of fans (in my opinion, living it and being appalled at the time). I know people for whom “Straight To Hell” is their favorite Clash track; I don’t get it.

Move off side one, and I can say that there’s just nothing there that needs listening to.

I was given this in 2023 as a prize for participating in a showing of “High Fidelity” my friend’s record store sponsored. A few of us from the audience got up on stage, answered a few questions, and were given prizes from a selection. Well, he’s my friend, and I didn’t want anyone else to get their second pick, so I took this collection. I even offered to give it back, so he could actually sell it, but it had been in stock for a while so there was a reason it was in the giveaway pile. So, fine. Now I own Combat Rock.

But the box really underplays “The People’s Hall Special Edition,” not even explaining what the three extra sides of tracks are. Well, they’re an assemblage of early versions of songs like “Radio Clash,” an intereresting collab with a graffiti artist, Futura 2000, and a number of unreleased tracks from the never-finished “Rat Patrol from Fort Bragg.” Overall, all a better record than “Combat Rock,” vastly more interesting to listen to. Will it get a lot of plays? No, but I don’t resent the space it’s taking up.