Combat Rock by The Clash

Combat Rock, the Clash's fifth album, came out on 14 May 1982, and it's the sound of punk's firebrand politicos finally figuring out how to get on American radio, while coming apart at the seams. The band produced it themselves, then brought in Glyn Johns to shape it into something leaner and more radio-ready, and the funk and reggae grooves of the earlier records are still here, now pointed at the Vietnam War, the fallout of colonial empires, the rot in American society and the spread of authoritarian power.

"Rock the Casbah", written by drummer Topper Headon, is a sly, bouncing strut that became a fixture on the brand-new MTV and gave them the American breakthrough everybody had been waiting for. "Should I Stay or Should I Go" is a dumb, perfect garage-rock riff with a question nobody could answer. "Straight to Hell" is its opposite, a slow, haunted drift, and "Know Your Rights" comes out barking.

Behind the scenes it was ugly. The recording went fine, but the production turned into a grind of fighting between Mick Jones and Joe Strummer, and Jones was unhappy when Strummer and bassist Paul Simonon brought back Bernie Rhodes as manager. Headon, whose heroin addiction had been getting worse, was fired days before the album came out, and Terry Chimes, the drummer he had replaced back in 1977, returned. It went to number 2 in the UK and number 7 in the US and became the band's best-selling record, double platinum in America, but some longtime fans felt left behind by the smoother sound. Jones was out after the tour in 1983, and it was the last album by the classic lineup.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.