is there only me in the world who thinks THE CLASH were sh*t?

joe frady, I thought you were cool :confused::(:tears:
 
...All well and good but to some of us in the grime of salford it spoke nothing to me and my life, Politically the country was in a mess riots unemployment, electricity going of all the time crap building up in the streets because bin men are on strike again, even the dead not getting buried, why go to school you'd never get a job when you'd done....but i NEEDED the Clash in my life...

...the music is as pretty as pissed on concrete. I appreciate that at the time such brutality was completely necessary but that doesn't mean that listening to it thirty years on has to be anything other than torture.

The torture may be in remembering those times...
 
The Clash are very poseur. You automatically become 'cool' if you say you like The Clash, regardless of whether you actually like them.
 
You're not the only one. But I think you should reconsider your opinion. I can understand if you've only heard certain stuff you might think so. Listen to the first album then decide.
 
You mean...I could have become cool just by pretending to like The Clash? I didn't have to waste innumerable hours thorougly enjoying their records in a sad attempt to be cool? Damn, I feel cheated. :tears:
 
You mean...I could have become cool just by pretending to like The Clash? I didn't have to waste innumerable hours thorougly enjoying their records in a sad attempt to be cool? Damn, I feel cheated. :tears:

Well that's not actually what I said though is it? Of course some people actually like them, but they are without a doubt a band that people will claim to like in order to appear 'cool'. The fact they made as someone said 'political music' sort of tells me that certain people care less about the music they created, and a lot more about the image and reputation that the band had.

They sort of strike me as being like The Ramones in the aspect that you see plenty of people wearing t-shirts of these bands, and I'd imagine the ratio of these that actually know very few songs by the band is quite high in comparison to other bands, if you catch my drift?
 
I personally find that The Clash have been out of fashion for quite a while. They seem to be relatively neglected compared to their comtemporaries at the moment.
 
Well that's not actually what I said though is it? Of course some people actually like them, but they are without a doubt a band that people will claim to like in order to appear 'cool'. The fact they made as someone said 'political music' sort of tells me that certain people care less about the music they created, and a lot more about the image and reputation that the band had.

They sort of strike me as being like The Ramones in the aspect that you see plenty of people wearing t-shirts of these bands, and I'd imagine the ratio of these that actually know very few songs by the band is quite high in comparison to other bands, if you catch my drift?

I misunderstood, I'm sorry. You said The Clash were "poseur", which I took to be a comment on the band itself. You are right, The Clash are one of those bands like the Ramones that people use to establish 'cool' cred.

However, of all such bands, I think The Clash have the most substance. I tend to believe most people who say they like The Clash actually like them. But that's just my experience.
 
cant see them for anything more than a punk version of ub40, manufactured punk band who had their outfits designed for them, public schoolboy frontman with handful of catchy hits and some poor covers, what am i missing?

I think The Clash has 4 or 5 songs I really like and a bunch I don't like.

I wouldn't call them shit but they aren't great.
 
I misunderstood, I'm sorry. You said The Clash were "poseur", which I took to be a comment on the band itself. You are right, The Clash are one of those bands like the Ramones that people use to establish 'cool' cred.

However, of all such bands, I think The Clash have the most substance. I tend to believe most people who say they like The Clash actually like them. But that's just my experience.

That's ok, I apologise too if that's how it came across, my post wasn't a knock on The Clash themselves. Although, I don't particularly care for the band, I don't think they are fake or poseur or anything like that. It's just from my experience I have a mate who says The Clash are one of his favourite bands, but I honestly don't think he could name more than 4 songs by them. He just thinks that saying such things makes his music taste appear to be 'better' than it actually is. In my experience I think The Clash are one such band, through no fault of their own, who have many 'fans' like this.

Of course though, it's all personal perception.
 
yes i am a mere whippersnapper at just 41, may be been a little on the harsh side to call them sh*t, suppose they have their place in the history books but wildly over rated even "ifought the law" was a cover , just think they were not even as good as THE BOOMTOWN RATS (im gonna cop for it now!) looking at my itunes library i see 6 clash songs (which i never listen to) and around 25 rats songs which i think are brilliant and under rated - "when the night comes" "someones lookin at ya" "diamond smiles" "looking after no1" "rat trap" and the list goes on.......
 
yes i am a mere whippersnapper at just 41, may be been a little on the harsh side to call them sh*t, suppose they have their place in the history books but wildly over rated even "ifought the law" was a cover , just think they were not even as good as THE BOOMTOWN RATS (im gonna cop for it now!) looking at my itunes library i see 6 clash songs (which i never listen to) and around 25 rats songs which i think are brilliant and under rated - "when the night comes" "someones lookin at ya" "diamond smiles" "looking after no1" "rat trap" and the list goes on.......

But see, "I Fought The Law" is such a negligible part of The Clash's appeal. Off the top of my head I would list "Career Opportunities", "I'm So Bored With The U.S.A.", "Stay Free", "Bankrobber", "Safe European Home", just about the entirety of "London Calling", "Magnificent Seven", "Charlie Don't Surf", "Somebody Got Murdered", "Straight To Hell", and the 1990 UK remix "Return To Brixton" as excellent songs that speak more to The Clash's greatness than the supposed "hits".

The last two albums feature a lot of experimentation with reggae and rap but if you give them a chance they're actually very interesting and show off a pretty rich creative streak in the band. They were ahead of their time, although, I admit, The Clash didn't quite pull off their homages to reggae/rap in some cases.

Here's PE's Chuck D. on The Clash:

The first time I heard the Clash was in 1981 I was in college at Adelphi University on Long Island and one night I went down to this show in Manhattan--one of Kurtis Blows hip hip-hop package shows. The crowd was rough People from different camps were there--the hip-hop people and the punk-rock people. They even started throwing tomatoes at Kurtis so that's they type of wild kids who were there. But the Clash completely broke it that night it was an awakening for a New York cat like myself.

As I delved more into the music scene, I started learning about how the kids across the water in England were rebelling against the queen and the aristocracy Around the same time. Bill Stepheny a friend of mine from Adelphi and one of the original members of Public Enemy, started playing the Clash's records on his hip-hop radio show which opened up a lot of peoples minds He would reach into the Clash's catalogue as well as the Sex Pistols, and make those kinds of songs work in the context of a hip-hop show He was instrumental in exposing a lot of hip hop cats to what the Clash were doing.​
 
Just listen to London Calling - simply a great album. It was the band at their peak, both creatively and musically. To say they had progressed from their punk origins is an understatement, it remains one of the best double albums by any band.
 
The Clash are very poseur. You automatically become 'cool' if you say you like The Clash, regardless of whether you actually like them.

I don't think of liking things in the context of becoming "cool". If I like it, I like it. Whether the music is well known or unknown, I'll choose to like certain music because I just simply like it, I'm not going to be influenced by the other people around me saying, "They are posers!" and directly change my mind because of what others say about it.
 
am sure max splodge will tell you the story (if you ever get holed up in a blackpool boozer with him) of how "two pints of lager and a packet of crisps " had to be shelved for 3yrs while the clash ripped it off to make "white riot" not that maxs bank balance complained at the time.
 
Clash haters, how lame is that to be?
you got hate a lot of other bands too then i guess by default
i mean they were copied, imitated and sampled by many many who were to follow them
sure, they were not 'the original punk band' but thats just a stupid label :cool:
 
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