THE CLASH @ 45

 

Marking 45 years on the shelves today is the eponymous debut LP by The Clash, which was released in the UK on April 8th, 1977. Recorded over a scattered three week period in February of that year at a cost of a meager £4,000, it would go on to be considered one of the most important and influential albums to come from the UK punk movement.

The Clash came together early in 1976 after founding members, Mick Jones & Keith Levene, made a concerted effort to recruit Joe Strummer into their ranks and out of his position fronting the 101ers. Filling out their lineup with Paul Simonon on bass and Terry Chimes on drums, the group began playing gigs around London along with friendly rivals the Sex Pistols. Before recording their debut album, Levene would end up departing the band to dabble with Sid Vicious in the Flowers of Romance before eventually founding Public Image Ltd with ex-Pistol John Lydon in 1978. Levene is only credited with one song writing acknowledgement for What’s My Name from the debut LP.

Upon delivery of the album to label, CBS, its US counterparts passed on releasing it, citing that the production values were sub-par, rendering the LP not “radio friendly”. This, however, didn’t stop the album from gaining chart traction in the UK, along with several singles, which helped to make the band premier ambassadors of the punk movement along with the Pistols and The Damned. Even though the album wasn’t released in the US, initially, it became one of the best selling imports of the year, racking up over 100,000 unit sales. The album would eventually find release in the US and Canada in 1979 after the group’s second album, Give ‘em Enough Rope, though with a slightly altered track listing and cover color. The US edition swapped out 4 tracks for 5 different ones and a re-recorded version of White Riot.

The legacy of the album has become clear as it is acknowledged as one of the most important releases to come from the initial punk movement on either side of the Atlantic. My own relationship to the album goes right back to the dawn of my fascination with non-mainstream music early in 1979. The “A-B-Cs” of my “gateway” albums into the realm of the paths less traveled goes: The Cars (debut) > Ramones - Road to Ruin > The Clash (debut). Those three albums were the trifecta which knocked my musical trajectory off the “middle of the road” and onto a path that would lead to progressively more and more extreme music. DEVO, PiL, TG and others might never have caught my ear if it weren’t for getting curious about all these new groups being written about in music magazines like CREEM. The Clash also helped me meet people who would become musical compatriots, like that gruff blonde kid who asked me about my Clash record in high school assembly that one day and told me he was into the Pistols and had a cousin in the UK who periodically sent him cassettes of upcoming bands (hello Mark!). As such, it’s a watershed album for me and, I’m sure, for many from that generation.