The U.K. version of The Clash is the greatest rock and roll album ever manufactured anywhere partly because of its innocence is of a piece -- it never stops snarling, it's always threatening to blow up in your face.
-Robert Christgau
On April 8, 1977 The Clash released their debut album in the UK, considered by many to be the greatest punk album ever released. American audiences had to wait until 1979 before CBS Records released a modified version of the album which exchanged some album cuts for mostly singles.
What comes through on my most recent listen is the snarling anger of the band and the musicality of Mick Jones's guitar. Spin's Alternative Record Guide calls The Clash a "truly frightening album, fast and trebly, with each song a distinct physical pleasure".
The MOJO Collection has a review that mentions how the receptionist at CBS Studios mistook the band for workmen because of their paint splattered clothes and that none of the group liked to be the first to arrive so each member would check in and then leave for an hour or two.
From this muddle of inexperience, ideological posturing and amphetamine overload, a magnificent record somehow emerged, one which distilled punk rock's intoxicating brew of anger, boredom and excitement better than any other.
Here's what Rolling Stone wrote in an issue proclaiming the album the 77th greatest in rock history :
"I haven't got any illusions about anything," Joe Strummer said. "Having said that, I still want to try to change things." That youthful ambition bursts through the Clash's debut, a machine-gun blast of songs about unemployment ("Career Opportunities"), race ("White Riot") and the Clash themselves ("Clash City Rockers"). Most of the guitar was played by Mick Jones, because Strummer considered studio technique insufficiently punk. The American release was delayed two years and replaced some of the U.K. tracks with recent singles, including "Complete Control" -- a complaint about exactly that sort of record-company shenanigans.
In February of 1977, the hardest working band in America released their debut album, the self-titled Cheap Trick. Produced by Jack Douglas ( Aerosmith), the album features a harder rocking sound than the later classic Cheap Trick albums that followed ( In Color, Heaven Tonight) . That said, there were songs that anticipated their hit making power pop sound like "Oh Candy", which was sadly inspired by the band's friend and photographer Marshall Mintz who killed himself by hanging. ( His initials M and M led to the Candy nickname).
Other favorites are "Elo Kiddies", the Beatlesque "Taxman Mr Thief" ( have you heard the Ardent Studios demo ?) and the dreamy "Mandocello", which is the name of am eight stringed instrument related to a mandolin.
I like what Jason Hernandez wrote in his RateYourMusic review : Any time any band "rocks" and delivers great pop at the same time, I compare them to Cheap Trick. Cheap Trick are the fizziest soda pop, the greasiest cheeseburger, the gooiest ice cream, the coldest beer, and the chewing gum with the flavor that lasts the longest.
For Rolling Stone Charles M Young wrote These guys play rock and roll like Vince Lombardi coached football: heavy emphasis on basics with a strain of demented violence to keep the opposition intimidated. The closest musical analogy is the Who, who have always sounded like the inmates of Bedlam on their best stuff. Cheap Trick not only sounds like their attendant forgot to lock their cages, they look like it, too. Half the fun of the album is staring at the pictures on the back and wondering if lead guitarist Rick Nielson really has fire ants in his underwear, and how Boris Karloff mated Henry Kissinger with Adolf Hitler to come up with drummer Bun E. Carlos.
Rock critic dean Robert Christgau gave the album a B, writing "I like their looks--two pretty-boys balanced off by two ugly-guys--and have no objection to their sound, which recalls the Aerosmith of Rocks. Nor am I shocked that they're not as powerful as the Aerosmith of Rocks, Jack Douglas or no Jack Douglas. But given their harmony singing you think they'd try and be more melodic. Sign of smarts: the way the phrase "any time at all" hooks 'He's a Whore.'"
The boys from Rockford would open for Queen on their 1977 American tour and win praise from Japanese rock journalists. The following year, 5000 Japanese fans would greet the band at the airport.
