The Clash: All the Albums, All the Songs

by Martin Popoff

Formed in London in 1976 by Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, and Paul Simonon at the outset of that city’s punk rock boom, The Clash went on to outlast their peers and create some of the most influential albums in rock ’n’ roll—not just punk—even breaching the mainstream in 1982 and earning the title “The Only Band That Matters” along the way. In their eight-year career, The Clash offered six CBS Records studio releases, including one double and one triple LP, and increasingly melded influences ranging from rockabilly to ska, reggae, and even hip-hop into their sound.

Veteran music journalist Martin Popoff dissects each of the 103 tracks, including the circumstances that led to their creation, the recording processes, the historical contexts, and more. In addition, an introductory essay sets the scene for each album, while sidebar features explore influences on the band, album art, non-LP singles, the band’s staunch political stance, and song details, such as running time, instruments played, engineers, and studios.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, History

240 pages, Hardcover

Published May 15, 2018

About the author

At approximately 7900 (with over 7000 appearing in his books), Martin has unofficially written more record reviews than anybody in the history of music writing across all genres. Additionally, Martin has penned approximately 85 books on hard rock, heavy metal, classic rock and record collecting. He was Editor-In-Chief of the now retired Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles, Canada’s foremost metal publication for 14 years, and has also contributed to Revolver, Guitar World, Goldmine, Record Collector, bravewords.com, lollipop.com and hardradio.com, with many record label band bios and liner notes to his credit as well. Additionally, Martin has been a regular contractor to Banger Films, having worked for two years as researcher on the award-winning documentary Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, on the writing and research team for the 11-episode Metal Evolution and on the ten-episode Rock Icons, both for VH1 Classic. Additionally, Martin is the writer of the original metal genre chart used in Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey and throughout the Metal Evolution episodes. Martin currently resides in Toronto and can be reached through martinp@inforamp.net or www.martinpopoff.com.

Reviews

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Clash are my favourite band.
They’ve had some strong competition over the years most recently in the form of the Artic Monkeys. But the Clash still reigns supreme. They proved to be so much more than just a punk band, developing and growing to produce some real classics.

I was 14 years old when punk started and I loved it. Even now, so many years later it still occupies a large portion of my playlist.

This book is for Clash fans. It’s about the albums and the songs and it makes for fascinating reading. We’re given information on each album and every song.
For example the song Garageland was written in response to a negative review by Charles Shaar Murray. He referred to them as a garage band that should essentially go back to the garage, close the door and leave the engine running.

After reading this I think it’s time to mix up my playlist again (something I aim to do every couple of months).
At the moment it contains:
White Man in Hammersmith Palais. (Actually it always contains this since it’s my favourite).
Career Opportunities
Car Jamming
London’s Burning
Safe European Home
Lost in the Supermarket
Overpowered by Funk

It’s so difficult to pick just a few each time.
I remember my parents saying punk wouldn’t last, it was just people who couldn’t play or sing and in five years time they’d all be forgotten.

Well for me they live on and books like this bring all the memories and feelings back.
Along with The Clash I always have several Sex Pistols tracks and usually some Siouxsie and the Banshees, Buzzcocks, Stiff Little Fingers and The Stranglers on my playlist.

My one regret is that I never saw them live.

I voluntarily read a review copy kindly provided by NetGalley.

[MissBecka Gee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let me start off by saying Martin Popoff is a research genius.
The guy can find out anything about everything.
This book was no exception.
If you haven't read any of his work, get on it!
He gave me the history and inspiration of every album and every song by The Clash.
It was amazing learning weird little facts behind some of my favourite Clash lyrics and how the ideas for them came to fruition. The details behind Janie Jones were particularly scandalous!
If you like The Clash...or even if you don't...pick this one up and give a read.
There's a bunch of cool press shots and facts for anyone who likes music!
Thanks to NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group – Voyageur Press for hookin' me up with a copy!

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

London calling to the zombies of death
Quit holding out and draw another breath
London calling and I don't want to shout
But when we were talking I saw you nodding out
London calling,…
Popoff is one of the most knowledgeable rock critics out there. Here, he gives us song by song and album by album the Clash, one of the most amazing rock-punk bands ever. Filled with bright popping photos, this book is your one-stop sourcebook on the Clash. Read it through once and then return to it as you listen to the different tracks. Somehow I always thought their catalog was bigger. And at any rate, all these songs are required to be played at maximum volume.

[Kirsty ❤️ · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a stunning book with a breakdown song by song with accompanying photos, art work and much more. 

It's comprehensive and just full of information. A must have for fans

free arc from netgalley

[Keith Chawgo · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is an interesting take and although it lacks the history of the group, we do get centred information around their albums and songs in full details. The interesting thing is that Popoff is able to delve deep into his understanding and background history of the songs and recordings as a whole. It is very seldom that the average punter gets an in-depth look at the output more than what you will find in this publications.

Beautifully presented with album cover art, photographs and single art work, this is a masterclass on how to put a book together. If you are not a fan of this classic group, this book may leave you a little cold or it may open your mind to check it out and dive into the phenomena which is The Clash.

The only downfall would be the lack of some more background on the group itself, dynamics and overall group but again, this information is pretty easy to source through internet and other books about this group as a whole. The back catalogue of information is really where this book is focussed and it does shine in this respect.

This is a definite for any fan of The Clash and those with a mild interest in performance, song writing and musical architecture of song and recording building. It may not be for everyone but those who decide to bask in the glory of the music, album and songs will not be disappointed.

[Literary Redhead · Rating 5 out of 5]

🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸

THE CLASH gives you an insider’s look at this iconic punk band by veteran music journalist Martin Popoff. Includes elegant descriptions of the group’s 100+ tracks, with photos, posters, album art, and more of interest to the rabid fan, of which there are legion. Terrific bio! 5/5

Grateful to the Quarto Publishing Group - Voyageur Press and NetGalley for the early copy, in exchange for my true review.

#TheClash #NetGalley

[Nona]

Some key takeaways:
1- I always wondered about the funny hats in the music videos and apparently, I’m not the only one. Their manager, Bernie Rhodes, issued a “No More Hats” edict, because he felt the situation was so urgent.
2- Rock The Casbah was initially written as a boy/girl song, until Strummer heard what Topoff had composed and written and that point, said “how incredibly interesting”, and rewrote it into the commentary it is today. Because that’s a natural progression.
3- The hiring of Nick Sheppard and Vince White “(actually Greg, but Paul refused to play in a band with someone named Greg!)”
4- Popoff did not need to pop off and clown on my favorite Clash song, One More Time. However, this comment on one of the lyrics, “"Stop wasting time" (if only!)” made me chuckle.

[Elizabeth Judd Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Going through all the albums song by song, this is for the fans. You might not always agree with the author’s view on each work, but it’s a good book on a great band.

[Ceridwen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Clash are a British institution. A little before my time, but everybody knows the hits: London Calling, Rock the Kasbah. They’re part of our history. A generation too late, nevertheless I grew up on them. We all do. And, the author, Martin Popoff, is a heavyweight in the world of rock and metal stories. He wrote Agents of Fortune: The Blue Oyster Cult Story, books about Ozzy Osbourne and Whitesnake. The man knows his music, and I was delighted to receive a copy of the book from the publisher.

They’re also not a band I know a huge amount about, besides the names of the band members, a few songs, and that they were part of the punk movement. I felt I could stand a little education in this area.

First things first: The Clash: All the Albums, All the Songs is a book for the fans. If you don’t know anything about the band, start with Wikipedia or something. This is not a history lesson. I didn’t come away with a vast amount more knowledge about who they were as people, how the band formed, or why they quit. What was interesting in particular though, was Popoff's thoughts on how The Clash related to mainstream culture, and vice versa, and their role and relationship to the wider movements happening within music at that time.

That being said, bear in mind that this book is a song by song exploration of The Clash’s music. This is more a literary documentary than coffee table fluff. If you weren’t a fan, if the band didn’t mean anything to you, you’d probably find it a bit much. It’s really detailed, for one, and written in the language of musicians; phrases like “musical architecture” and discussion of bass lines and rhythm. It doesn’t necessarily make for light reading. But if you like the band, and know the songs, it’s fascinating.

The layout and images are colourful, bright, eye-catching, and interesting in and of themselves. They tell the story of an era, as much as of one band. They were clearly chosen thoughtfully, as there was a good mixture of memorabilia, flyers, album covers, and the like. If you’re interested in British musical history, this book is good value for the images alone.

I enjoyed the book, though perhaps didn’t know enough about the band and their songs in the first place to make the most of Popoff’s intelligent and considered commentary. I would recommend it for die-hard Clash fans, or anyone with a general interest in rock and metal musical history.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Through short but descriptive essays on - you guessed it - each album and each song, the evolution of The Clash unfolds, as does the state of music and the world during the time (both in England and all over the globe, thanks to Joe and The Clash's willingness to "be political"). These are accompanied by tons of great photos, record artwork, posters, fliers and ticket stubs. A really great look at "the only band that matters."

*Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC, provided by the author and/or the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

[Jay Gabler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Exactly what it promises. I reviewed The Clash: All the Albums, All the Songs for The Current.

[Matt Herzog · Rating 4 out of 5]

always love journeying through my lads' catalog (albeit this author better put more respect on SANDINISTA's name or so help me-

[Nestor Rychtyckyj · Rating 4 out of 5]

The importance of the Clash cannot be overstated even though they haven’t been a band since 1983 (I don’t count the “Cut the Crap” version of the Clash). The latest entry in my Clash library is by noted rock writer Martin Popoff (he also wrote “Ramones at 40”) and discusses all 91 of the Clash songs that appeared on their albums (including “Cut the Crap”). The title is slightly misleading as “All the Songs” does not include the singles that were not included on the albums (example “1977”). Nevertheless, the book should be valuable to anybody that still worships the “only band that matters”, as I obviously do.

The book is filled with color pictures of the band, flyers, record covers from releases that I had never seen and all sorts of cool Clash memorabilia. Each album is introduced with a discussion of the recording process and then Martin Popoff analyzes the album song by song. He is hindered by the same constraints that any writer has with the Clash: Joe is long gone and neither Mick, Paul or Topper seems interested in talking about the band or their songs. Therefore, the only input about the motivation behind a song is based on old interviews or the author’s own opinion. This generally works well but trying to decipher what Joe or Mick were thinking about 35 years ago when they wrote a particular tune is a bit dicey. However, we do get some very informative interviews with the late Sandy Pearlman, Mickey Gallagher, Ellen Foley and Bernie Rhodes who discuss their roles while recording with the Clash.

The inclusion of “Cut the Crap” is debatable; it is not included in the definitive Clash collection “Sound Box”, but Martin Popoff does a good job of going through the entire album and playing the “well this would have been a good song if” routine that we all do. I also appreciate his discussion of “Sandanista” – my repeated listenings of the entire 3-record set have mellowed my harsh criticisms since I first heard it in 1980, but I agree that this would have been a great double album and side 6 is not ever required. Let’s also forget Combat Rock for now and focus on the first three brilliant albums. I’m somewhat spoiled after reading Marcus Gray’s “Route 19 Revisited” where he spent 500 pages talking only about London Calling, so I would have liked to hear more about the early Clash albums. But that’s nitpicking – this is a valuable contribution to the Clash history.

Two last points:
• Page 73 includes a part of the flyer from the Clash show at Masonic Temple in Detroit on September 17th, 1979 where I first saw the Clash.
• “Train in Vain” seems to almost deserve a chapter of its own. Marcus Grey has his interpretation of the song while Martin Popoff presents three possibilities for Mick’s song. I’m very inclined to believe Viv Albertine’s version which she discussed in her awesome book “Clothes, Music, Boys” where she talks about Mick taking the train across town to visit her and she wouldn’t let him in. I guess we’ll never know for sure unless Mick decides to write his own book.

[Emma Molyneux (Chi Town Book Girl)]

I got this book for free in return for my honest opinion via NetGalley.

I love music! It can make you feel regardless of if you want to or not, and vastly improve or worsen your mood based on the genre. As I've said many times before, I am a lover of the 60s-80s era and it wasn't until the last year, year and a half that I discovered 70s/80s punk. I was quickly turned onto The Clash and it didn't take long for me to become fan. So when I had the chance to read this through NetGalley, I couldn't pass it up.



This book pretty much breaks down the groups's songs, giving insight on their creation, historical context and more. For the most part I pretty much knew about who/what the songs were written about and the meaning behind them (every time I get a new obsession I always research it). But there were stories that I had never heard of, and pulled one from my back pocket while talking to fellow fans that had seen them in concert a few times. They were impressed and while they already knew the "trivia," had forgotten and was shocked I knew. It was nice to see old posters from their tours and receive stories here and there that I hadn't heard.



I think this is a great book for fans to have just for the sake of owning it. It's also a nice for someone just discovering the band to lend them more insight into who the Clash were, their writing, and process.

[Shawn Conner · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must-have for fans of The Clash. Great selection of pics and strong writing; Popoff is especially good when describing drum patterns and sounds and also parsing genres (not an easy task when it comes to a band as adventurous as The Clash). My main quibble is that it’s not quite “all the songs” though it does cover all the songs on the albums (not eps or b-sides) and even has a section on Strummer/Jones’ work on Ellen Foley’s Spirit of St. Louis. For this fan, that alone was worth the price.

[Vanessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must have overview of The Clash in all their glory peppered with some fantastic photographs and ephemera; some of the "rock writing" style used here gets under my damn skin in that hyperbolic, overly-serious yet painfully hip way, so watch out if you have a low tolerance for comparing guitar riffs to mortar fire, for example. A strong recommend, if parsed out in bits and pieces.

I received an ecopy from the publishers and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[JCS · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the format of this book and others like it such as Pink Floyd by the same author. It's easy to turn to the pages about your favourite album and find out lots of details about the reasons behind each song and lots of other information besides. Plenty of great photos and lovely for just browsing. Thank you to Net Galley for an ARC.

[Perry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't know much about this band, but appreciated the way they incorporated various musical styles and current films. I liked the format of this book more than the Pink Floyd book, even if I generally prefer Floyd's music.

[Aaron Badgley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent resource about The Clash and their studio output.

[Benjamin Kahn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent summation of the Clash's recorded output. By sticking to the music, Popoff misses some of the bigger stories - he mentions that Joe and Vince weren't getting along on Cut the Crap but doesn't explain why, touches very lightly on why Mick and Joe were on the outs - although to be fair, that's usually Popoff's approach. Popoff has changed his approach with a lot of his books lately - his early books on bands were mostly summations of their career in their words. His new approach seems to be more distant - he's done a whole series of books on different bands where he goes album-by-album, song-by-song hosting a conversation with a variety of collaborators, which change from chapter-to-chapter. He's written a book on Led Zeppelin where he basically just talks about each album with no input from anyone else. And he's written this one about the Clash.

I've never been a major Clash fan - I like a good amount of their stuff, but I was always more of a greatest hits/boxset guy than a own-the-whole-catalogue guy. I only really know two of their albums - London Calling and Combat Rock and the latter just they had it in a store that I used to work at so I'd hear it from time-to-time. I liked the former and thought the latter was a real mixed bag - some excellent songs, some terrible ones.

My feelings on this book are mixed. There is some interesting stuff in here. Insight into the kind of things that were affecting their musical direction, information about who played what on an album. But then there are also things that don't come off as strong. He doesn't have any interviews with bad members on the songs, so in a lot of cases, we're left with his interpretation. I've also struggled when Popoff interprets songs. Some of the explanations read like a bad undergrad essay - he'll take a lyric and then pull out what he thinks the writer was talking about. I noticed that more with the earlier stuff, so I do wonder if it was more with songs that I know and like, and therefore have my own interpretation on, than it is with Popoff getting it wrong. But I did find some of that stuff weak.

There are also parts where you wonder where he got his information. When he talks about Cut the Crap, he mentions how songs changed from the demo to the final version, and I kept thinking how did he get the demo for this? I would have liked a little more information on this, as it would have been interesting to know why things were changed.

In the end, an interesting enough book, although not essential. Not one of Popoff's greater efforts, but with definite merit.

[Matt · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is so terrible and so terribly researched. The "stories" behind all the songs seem entirely cribbed from "Clash on Broadway" liner notes and/or are painful descriptions of the tracks themselves (yes, we have heard with our own ears that guitars were largely panned hard left/right on a lot of the first album, but thanks for mentioning it again and again). Then there's the bit about "Give 'Em" being a metal album. It's basically down like a flaming zeppelin after that.

This feels like some really poorly thrown together website from 1996 that somehow made it to print. Save your money. This is a pile.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Clash probably were the most famous and quintessential punk band. Here you'll exactly see why: Janie Jones, White Riot, London's Burning, Career Opportunities, all albums in review, London Calling, their outstanding artworks, Sandinista, Combat Rock, Rock the Casbah, concert photos, many photos of the band. I really liked their music and am glad in having found this outstanding book. What an era and what a band. Was listening to their music while reading this. Highly recommended!

[Martin Castle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is required reading for any Clash fan but also for anyone who wants to get an understanding of how bands grow and change across albums picking up influences along the way which then appear in tracks years later or are repeated! I can’t believe the detail in this book and the research that it must have taken fantastic.

[Daniel Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author dissects each of the 103 tracks across the band’s six album career. This included the circumstances of their creation, lyrical inspiration and historical context. Includes wonderful band photographs and album art. Engaging book that was very informative about the discography of this legendary band. A shame to read about the dissolution of the band and the subpar final album.

[Amelia Raptis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love love love The Clash. Read this in a day; was a blast and I learnt so much. Was super helpful as someone who was born long after the band’s time haha.