The Clash

I bought both those albums and have listened to them throughout the years and came to the conclusion they were driven by record company marketing just as much as any 'creativity'.

I listened to a lot of different music other than punk and I came to the conclusion that those later albums just couldn't match their earlier ones not because they weren't 'punk' enough, the Clash just couldn't write a decent song after 1978.

Grandoise and self indulgent pretentious pap springs to mind.

I'm open minded enough. They just didn't have the talent to execute some of their samey song writing ideas.

Most people know it's rubbish but are too scared to admit it for fear of ridicule.

Without Strummer, Jones did BAD which just proves how talentless he was latterly.

It was done for commercial reasons mostly

BAD were just a routine mundane pop band created just to give Jones something to do and make money for the record company.

There are two big myths about the Clash.

How radical they were and how good the music was.

Both are quite phony as the facts are borne out.

They were never as radical as the Ruts or the TRB.

Secondly, the musical 'progression'. Most people(if they are completely honest with themselves)struggle to listen to Sandinista because it's so bad.

Revisionists 40 years later don't make this any less so😐

Yep, it's only music and people are always going to be different.

The Clash were never really politically active as such.

Other than playing a few RAR events(which they didn't stick around for other than Mick Jones)it was all pretty much a chic radical pose.

Strummer seemed like a nice guy but he was probably less radical than say, Roger Waters.

The great thing about the Clash for me was the diversity of the members musical tastes and ideas. Topper was a Jazz fan, Simonon a reggae fan, Jones loved the glam scene and Strummer had a rockabilly leaning. They bought those elements together to take them beyond the limiting confines of the early punk movement where often it felt very regimented in look and musical style.
What felt like a sell out at the time was musical growth and maturity, can't deny any musician that, and that's why they didn't end up propping up the pension plan with plodding arthritic appeearances at Blackpool's rather sad "Rebellion Festival"

Bernie Rhodes told Joe and Mick to write about their own lives, their enviroment... day to day life
Hardly the stuff of being manufactured... if they had been, the songs would have been written by someone outside the band.

Same with the Pistols - McClaren had no involvement in creating the music.