The Clash "The Singles" (Legacy)
By Ben Taylor
Tuesday. Nov 21, 12:14 AM
The only box set that will ever matter to a bunch of collector geeks.

Just in time for the Xmas shopping season, Sony/Legacy has rolled out a deluxe box set of all The Clash’s original UK singles, as either 19 lovingly recreated 7”s or bonus-track-laden compact discs. This is, of course, a classic case of a record label repackaging a long-gone band’s material for further profit on the backs of slobbering fans with fat wallets. It goes without saying that any attention paid to The Clash is A-OK in my book, since they’re one of the best rock bands of the 20th century. If you aren’t familiar with them, go buy London Calling now. NOW. But if you’re already a fan, take heed, because this is one of the most obnoxious cash-ins ever.

Let’s break it down. The Clash were fairly prolific, from their signing with CBS in 1977 until their irksome later not-so-many-original-members line-up split in 1986, releasing a total of 19 singles in their UK homeland. Moving from basic snotty punk rock through revolutionary dabbles in reggae, dub, disco, and rap, they had the sort of growth, range, and ugly early demise of The Beatles. Since they broke up, they’ve never been absent from record store shelves, with all seven of their original albums moving smoothly into the CD era, along with one, two, and three-disc compilations (1991’s The Singles, 1988’s The Story Of, Vol. 1, and 1991’s On Broadway, respectively) along the way to rope in the newcomers and gird the old-timers. In the last few years we’ve seen a documentary, a live album, and the re-release of the classic Rude Boy film (ostensibly about the travails of their roadie, but featuring plenty of vintage late 1970s performance and behind-the-scenes footage).

There’s no shortage of Clash products available, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with their record label stoking the consumer fires. But it’s the very nature of this box set that’s so galling, with 19 separate discs in tiny little sleeves. I’d rather not get into any sort of pissing argument about punk ideals; The Clash were a major label band from the get-go, and major labels are in the business of making money, that’s just how it goes. But they did insist that London Calling and Sandinista! (two and three-LP sets, respectively) originally sell for the price of a single album, even forgoing royalties on the first 200,000 copies sold in order to get CBS to go along with it. I can’t see many bands going out on that limb these days (they’d probably just post the extra material on the web for free anyway).

If you’re a vinyl geek with money to burn, fine, knock yourself out, go buy The Singles box on 7” 45s (with all of the original artwork and labels recreated) for $80. Maybe you’ve got a jukebox you can load them into or something. Maybe you have the patience to sit there and listen to them in chronological order and get up and flip it over every three minutes. But everyone is saying that it’s really about the liner notes and photos. Think about how big a CD or 7” record is, though: how big are those photos going to be? Do yourself a favor and track down a copy of Mojo’s Clash special edition magazine from last year. Plenty of big photos (at least 8 1/2 × 11 inches) and archival and new interviews, and it’ll give you a lot more insight to the band than Damon Albarn saying, “There’s so much drama in this tune: it feels like you are in the middle of a dream” about “London Calling.” Literally, that’s the extent of the “exclusive sleeve notes” for that disc. Yeah, thanks mate, now go back to sucking Paul Simonon and Tony Allen’s cocks in your new band.

But wait, the box includes six tracks never before available on CD, including the NME-giveaway-only Capitol Radio EP. That EP has no new music, just two poorly recorded interviews with the band. And they’re indecipherable anyway. The other exclusive tracks are dispensable live versions of album tracks and edits of “The Magnificent Seven.” Edits. That means they trimmed down the full-length version. You’re paying more for less. Anyone with a computer and some freeware audio program could make their own edits. Hell, you could just fade the volume knob down and stop the disc early. This is idiotic.

So what does that leave you with? 19 CDs with between two and six songs each, and most fans will already own all those songs. Unlike The Beatles, The Clash didn’t release many non-album singles. The notable exception being “Bankrobber,” but that’s been available on CD for years. The rest is padded with album tracks and obscurities that are mostly available on Super Black Market Clash, a great compilation of rare material and b-sides. There are some Sandinista! dubs and remixes, but considering what a mess that album is, I’m not sure how many people were thirsting for this stuff. Oh yeah, there are three songs from 1985’s pathetic Cut the Crap, which is pretty much summed up by subtracting the words “cut” and “the.”

Ultimately, what this really boils down to is that, if you’re a completist, an obsessive collector, or a loved one doing Xmas shopping for a Clash fan and you don’t have any better ideas, The Singles box is a great piece of product. But for the rest of us, there’s better ways to spend $80 (list price, $55 Amazon pre-order). This is definitely a niche product for super fans, people who want the groovy looking box sitting on their shelves, those who want to feel like they were there then, and not necessary for casual fans. You can get most of this material elsewhere (and in less asinine form) and the stuff you can’t get, there are no great losses that will leave you a lesser person in their absence.

As much as I love The Clash, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the target market for this comprehensive collection of their singles. I’m not a completist, I don’t need any fancy boxes collecting dust on the shelf, and I think this whole method of releasing the rare material is predatory. Unlike Led Zeppelin and The Beatles, The Clash have plenty of songs available on iTunes, even their previous triple disc set On Broadway, so maybe you’ll be able to cherrypick from this. While these tunes would’ve made a nice four-disc set, for basic profit-driven reasons, Sony/Legacy decided to give the big middle finger to the consumers and issue these great songs in an incredibly stupid package. Steer clear unless you need more space-filling junk in your empty life.
www.theclashonline.com
www.legacyrecordings.com

Click here to buy this album on iTunes!

Click here to download the iTunes jukebox application for Macintosh or Windows!

Ben Taylor

Got something constructive to say? By all means, rant away. Gonna blab about something unrelated and/or talk shit? Don't expect your comment to stick around.