THE CLASH
Combat Rock (1982)
Epic
Produced by GLYN JOHNS

What is a "sellout"? In pop music, it's the ultimate slanderous word for the band that used to seem vital, maybe like the only one that mattered, and somehow or another seems to have veered toward cynicism in all creative endeavors. Are you a sellout if you put your old song in a commercial? That all depends... on how obnoxious the commercial is and how good the song is, to name a couple of factors. Bob Dylan doing Victoria's Secret, now that was harmless fun, and Moby's PLAY becoming an ad industry in and of itself was somewhat amusing... "Revolution" in an ad for sneakers I could've done without. The point is, I think most cries of "sellout" are the result of people taking themselves and their "demands" of a performer too seriously.

I don't think "sellout" is the right word for the Clash. If it was, then I would nonetheless argue that they had earned the right after their supreme dedication to their fans and their craft prior to this. COMBAT ROCK represents something that bothers me on a much more personal level: I call it a "copout."

Up to this point, the Clash had been magnificently adventurous. GIVE 'EM ENOUGH ROPE progressed beyond the punk sound of THE CLASH, LONDON CALLING went steps and bounds above both, and SANDINISTA! saw them exploring every possibility that came to them. SANDINISTA! may have been overlong but it was also well ahead of its time and sounds today like the beautiful pastiche that may or may not have been intended. Like it or not, SANDINISTA! was something... it wasn't lazy, it wasn't an attempt to please everyone, it was incredibly inventive and was obviously the result of hard work and devoted experimentation. COMBAT ROCK is... nothing.

What we see on the Clash's fifth album is not a tentative step backward, but an enormous one that in its final moments strains to evolve but fails. Perhaps disheartened by SANDINISTA!'s lack of success, the band more or less gave up, meeting up with Glyn Johns to create an overly polished, very nearly sterile LP that tries in a very Pat Boone-ish way to regain the spontanaiety and energy of the eponymous album and early punk in general. Toward the end, weird lite-jazz interludes and a ridiculous spoken-word guest spot from Allen Ginsberg dominate to represent the band's edgier side. On LONDON CALLING it's been said that the Clash excelled at everything they attempted; on this record, they not only try absolutely nothing new but they fail even at being convincingly nostalgic -- nearly all of COMBAT ROCK comes off as hollow, especially twenty years after the fact.

Perhaps the best news is that the opening song and, incredibly, the first single, "Know Your Rights," is the worst song on the album, maybe by a longshot, and certainly the Clash's worst aside from CUT THE CRAP. Everything about it from its opening seconds to the final strains is simple-minded and irritating. The problem with back-to-roots vanity projects like this one is that when the revisited sounds were new, there was genuine feeling and substance backing them up. All they want now is the sound, or just the appeal of the sound, so everything done in such context is clearly superficial and grows more obviously so with every passing year. The only British punk band whose material generally still sounds perfect today, the Clash are stumbling here through antiquity.

You get the two songs that finally made them a household phenomenon. The Mick Jones-led "Should I Stay or Should I Go" is a pleasant trifle, but even it is a pale imitation of the brilliant "Train in Vain," an earlier star move for Jones. As for "Rock the Casbah," the only really great thing about it was the video; it's stilted, monotonous pub-rockabilly. In fact, the album is home to just one excellent song -- "Straight to Hell," a restrained and moving ballad memorably performed by Strummer in an army uniform on Saturday Night Live. The music simply feels like a shadow of the Clash's potential, almost an imitation of a great band. I mean, "Overpowered by Funk" simply isn't and if it was I doubt they'd name it that, "Sean Flynn" is fancy elevator music, "Death Is a Star" is the most pretentious thing ever released by a punk group, and "Red Angel Dragnet" is one of the worst songs I've ever heard. Seriously.

The part of me that loves the weirder stuff on SANDINISTA! can appreciate the robovoice and deadpan Ginsberg; "Ghetto Defendant" is nice to hear... once or twice. With a couple of exceptions, I can sit through the whole album without it bugging me, but at their best the Clash always made me want to stand to attention. This is not only the least exciting Clash music I've heard, it's among the most boring things I own. Three stars because of "Straight to Hell" and the singles and because it's not bad, but we all know the worst crime is mediocrity, and this is a major offender.

It's great to see the bands you love find success, but it's disappointing and rather pointless to see it when they seem to have compromised everything that made them appeal to you. And of course it would only get worse, with the departure of Mick Jones and the tepid CUT THE CRAP.