Combat Rock is the fifth studio album by the English rock band the Clash, released on 14 May 1982 through CBS Records. In the United Kingdom, the album charted at number 2, spending 23 weeks in the UK charts and peaked at number 7 in the United States, spending 61 weeks on the chart. The album was propelled by drummer Topper Headon's "Rock the Casbah" which became a staple on the newly launched MTV. Combat Rock continued the influence of funk and reggae like previous Clash albums, but also featured a more radio-friendly sound which alienated Clash fans.
While the recording process went smoothly, the producing process of the album was tiring and full of infighting between Mick Jones and Joe Strummer. Headon's heroin addiction grew worse and he slowly became distant from the band while Strummer and bassist Paul Simonon reinstated Bernie Rhodes as manager, a move not welcomed by Jones. The band had disagreed on the creative process of the album and called in Glyn Johns to produce the more radio-friendly sound of Combat Rock. Lyrically, Combat Rock focuses on the Vietnam War, postcolonialism, the decline of American society, and authoritarianism.
Combat Rock is the group's best-selling album, being certified double platinum in the United States and reaching number 2 in the UK. Reception to the album believed the band had reached its peak maturity with Combat Rock, as the album's sound was less anarchic but still as political as previous albums. It contains two of the Clash's signature songs, the singles "Rock the Casbah" and "Should I Stay or Should I Go". "Rock the Casbah" became highly successful in the United States and proved to be the band's anticipated US breakthrough.
Combat Rock is the last Clash album featuring the band's classic lineup. Topper Headon (due to his heroin addiction) was fired days before the release of Combat Rock (he was replaced by original Clash drummer Terry Chimes whom Headon replaced in 1977) and Mick Jones was fired after the end of the Combat Rock tour in 1983. Combat Rock would be succeeded by the Clash's last album, Cut the Crap, recorded and released without Mick Jones or Topper Headon in 1985.
Background
Following the triple-album Sandinista! (1980), singer/guitarist Joe Strummer felt the group was "drifting" creatively. Strummer and Simonon convinced their bandmates to reinstate the band's original manager Bernie Rhodes in February 1981, in an attempt to restore the "chaos" and "anarchic energy" of the Clash's early days.
During this period, drummer Topper Headon escalated his intake of heroin and cocaine. His occasional drug usage had now become a habit that was costing him £100 per day and undermining his health. This drug addiction would be the factor that would later push his bandmates to fire him from the Clash, days before the release of Combat Rock.
Production
Recording
The album had the working title Rat Patrol from Fort Bragg during the recording and mixing stages. After early recording sessions in London, the group relocated to New York for recording sessions at Electric Lady Studios in November and December 1981. Electric Lady was where the band had recorded its previous album Sandinista! in 1980. Joe Strummer, Paul Simonon and Topper Headon stayed at the Iroquois Hotel on West 44th Street, a building famed for being the home of actor James Dean for two years during the early 1950s.
After finishing the New York recording sessions in December 1981, the band returned to London for most of January 1982. Between January and March, the Clash embarked on a six-week tour of Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Thailand.
Mixing and editing
Following the gruelling Far East tour, the Clash returned to London in March 1982 to listen to the music that they had recorded in New York three months earlier.
Manager Bernie Rhodes suggested that producer/engineer Glyn Johns be hired to remix the album. This editing took place in Johns' garden studio in Warnham, West Sussex (not at Wessex Studios, as is stated by some sources). This was achieved by trimming the length of individual songs, such as by removing instrumental intros and codas from songs like "Rock the Casbah" and "Overpowered by Funk". Additionally, the trio decided to omit several songs entirely, dropping the final track count to 12.
During these remixing sessions, Strummer and Jones also re-recorded their vocals for the songs "Should I Stay or Should I Go" and "Know Your Rights" and remixed the songs with the intent of maximising their impact as singles. and new wave. A recurring motif of the album is the impact and aftermath of the Vietnam War. "Straight to Hell" describes the children fathered by American soldiers to Vietnamese mothers and then abandoned, while "Sean Flynn" describes the capture of photojournalist Sean Flynn, who was the son of actor Errol Flynn. Sean Flynn disappeared (and was presumably killed) in 1970 after being captured by the Vietcong in Cambodia. The band was inspired by Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 film about the Vietnam War, Apocalypse Now, and had previously released the song "Charlie Don't Surf" on Sandinista!, which referenced the film. Strummer later stated that he became "obsessed" with the film.
Other Combat Rock songs, if not directly about the Vietnam War and US foreign policy, depict American society in moral decline. The original version of this song included an unauthorized audio clip from a TV commercial for 2000 Flushes, a toilet bowl cleaner. The maker of this product threatened a lawsuit, forcing the group to edit the track, though the longer version was restored on later copies. The song quotes Martin Scorsese's 1976 movie Taxi Driver, with Clash associate Kosmo Vinyl recording several lines of dialogue imitating the voice of main character Travis Bickle. Bickle sports a mohawk in the latter part of Taxi Driver, this was a hairstyle adopted by Joe Strummer during the Combat Rock concert tour.
The song "Ghetto Defendant" features Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, who performed the song on stage with the band during the New York shows on their tour in support of the album. Ginsberg had researched punk music, and included phrases like "do the worm" and "slam dance" in his lyrics.
The song "Know Your Rights" starts off with: "This is a public service announcement...with guitar!" The musical style of the song was described as being one of the "more punk" songs on the album, reflecting the open and clear lyrics of the song. The lyrics represent the fraudulent rights for the lower and less respected class, with a nefarious civil servant naming three rights, with each right having an exception to benefit the rich or being skewed against the lower class.
Music for "Rock the Casbah" was written by the band's drummer Topper Headon, based on a piano part that he had been toying with. Finding himself in the studio without his three bandmates, Headon progressively taped the drum, piano and bass parts, recording the bulk of the song's musical instrumentation himself. The other Clash members were impressed with Headon's recording, stating that they felt the musical track was essentially complete. After hearing Headon's music, Strummer went into the studio's toilets and wrote lyrics to match the song's melody.
Lead single "Know Your Rights" was released on 23 April 1982, Combat Rock was released on 14 May 1982 and reached number 2 on the UK album charts, kept off the top spot by Paul McCartney's Tug of War. Combat Rock was the band's most successful album in the United States. However, in the UK, Combat Rock was tied with the 1978 album Give 'Em Enough Rope for the band's highest charting album.
"Rock the Casbah", which was composed by drummer Topper Headon, reached number 8 on the US singles chart. A fortieth anniversary reissue was released in May 2022 with demos and previously cut songs.
Reception and influence
Combat Rock peaked at number 2 on the UK Albums Chart, number 7 on the Billboard Pop albums, and the top ten on many charts in other countries. It was ranked at number 4 among the top "Albums of the Year" for 1982 by NME, with both "Straight to Hell" and "Know Your Rights" ranked among the year's top 50 tracks.
The United States Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified Combat Rock as a Gold album in November 1982, Platinum in January 1983, and Multi-Platinum in June 1995.
In a contemporary review for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau lamented the same attempts at funk and dub the Clash had tried on Sandinista! (1980). Nonetheless, he dismissed the notion the band were selling out and believed they were "evolving" on Combat Rock, writing songs at a "higher level of verbal, musical, and political density", albeit in less "terse and clear" fashion than on their early work. Slant Magazine listed the album at No. 80 on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980s". Kurt Cobain listed it in his top fifty albums of all time and in a 1991 interview stated "I think the best Clash album is Combat Rock. I fucking love that record! It’s definitely better than Sandinista!“
Track listing
Fortieth anniversary reissue
The songs added to the fortieth anniversary reissue were titled The People's Hall.
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