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.
