Give ’Em Enough Rope by The Clash

Give 'Em Enough Rope, the Clash's second album, came out on 10 November 1978, and it's the London punks buffed to a harder, heavier shine by producer Sandy Pearlman. It was the first Clash album released in the United States, beating the American edition of their debut into the shops, and the first with Topper Headon on drums, who had joined just after that debut was finished. Joe Strummer and Mick Jones wrote most of it, their guitars scything over Paul Simonon's bass; the exceptions are "English Civil War", a reworking of the old American folk tune "When Johnny Comes Marching Home", and "Guns on the Roof", credited to all four.

"Tommy Gun", "Safe European Home", "Stay Free" and "Julie's Been Working for the Drug Squad" are the ones rock radio still reaches for. At home it climbed to number two, tying Combat Rock as their highest-charting album in Britain, though America only nudged it to 128 on the Billboard 200.

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