POLL: Clash self-titled -- US or UK?

The US album is better. I understand the appeal of the UK version as the "original document" as well as its relentlessness and punk purity. But the US version is a much more interesting listen.

The US album also came with a 45, IIRC. So, you know, bonus!

 

I can see why folks would prefer the U.S. first album -- if only for the masterpiece that is "White Man in Hammersmith Palais" -- and the U.S. first album is easier listening in the sense that there are more fuller production, shapely rock records on it, not just spiky punk numbers.

Personally though I'll take the U.K. album which is what it is -- a punky blast of political/social rock very much of it's time and place -- and the 7" singles, and prefer to listen to 'em that way. I think the U.K. version of the album is much more of a coherent time capsule and statement on which I never much thought either sonically or thematically songs like "Jail Guitar Doors" -- which is at least in part a song about rock stars -- or "I Fought the Law" -- a great cover but a very American one with a more conventional, less punky rock arrangement -- fit so well on the album.

I guess part of it depends on what you think makes a great album great -- is it just the best collection of songs, or is it something about the aesthetic and thematic gestalt of the album and it's relationship to its time and place?

 

UK, Im so bored with the US

 

It sounds like I need both.

 

Wasn't it released to stop the imports and make 'em buy a domestic version? I DO like both but I don't consider the US an alternative

 

I think a relevant but related question is how many here got into The Clash at the time of Combat Rock and went backward?

I vividly remember my first exposure to The Clash came with CR, but we (the music centric guys I grew up with) quickly figured out there was good stuff on the earlier albums; we used to call the college station WXCI in Danbury, Connecticut every day after school (middle school at the time for me) and relentlessly request Tommy Gun!

 

As something of a purist who places tremendous value on an artist's intentions and on historical documents, I prefer the UK version....at least in theory.

In reality, though, the US version is even awesomer than the UK, and it's the one I play.

 

The 27 months between the release of the UK debut album and the U.S. hybrid/comp makes the U.S. Album more like a neither-fish-nor-fowl time-lapse reissue project. Very Beatlesque and Stones-like in serving up a strange altered picture of the early work to the Yanks. The U.K. Album is a sharp focused mement in time.

The other factor for me is that “White Man” and “Complete Control” will always be great, explosive, reportorial/diarylike singles — in the case of “Complete Control,” the greatest headlong aggressive hard-rock single of all time!

 

The only version is the UK version, the U.S. album called The Clash is a compilation, it didn't even get released until After a Give Em Enough Rope in the US!!

 

Yes, it was also released so as to have two titles in the bins and help justify the existence of "Give 'em Enough Rope" which wasn't held in the same high regard as the debut.

 

I had a good friend in college (1979) who bought me a ticket to the Clash show in Detroit that year and insisted I attend. I knew zip about them but went and was blown away by their power and passion. Thereafter I wore out a cassette of the Brit debut backed with "Give 'em Enough Rope" on the B-side.

 

I think it was Greil Marcus, who, when writing about "Complete Control" said that they took what was basically a gripe about their record company and turned it into one of the seminal anti-authoritarian rants from the era, and I certainly agree with him. Easily one of the best singles of all time, in my opinion, with a pic sleeve to match. For me "White Man..." is just about on the same level, transcendant music that is riveting to this day..

 

U.K. version...i bought the import when it came out. One of my first punk records back in the day...Three songs you need to have from the UK edition,
Cheat
Protec Blue
48 Hours

 

I think that honor should be shared with "Anarchy In The UK" as one of punk's greatest songs.

 

Let's not forget the US LP originally came with a bonus 45 of "Groovy Times/Gates of the West." The teenage me would vote the US version best because of that. I LOVED that single and obsessively played it to death (still have it, in fact).

But the UK edition gets my vote because it's so uncompromising. I remember Trouser Press saying the Epic Records felt the original version "was not fit for human consumption" which I found amusing and made we want to seek it out.

 

I preferred US, and that's how I voted, but I just listen to the UK debut and the Singles CD now.

 

Definitely the UK Album.
It is a more consistent album and of course "the original release". It is a really powerful album. If you listen to both versions you feel it immediately: the original version is The Clash in its original and more pure state. The American version is a pie of singles and songs of the first album for the "American market", a product designed by CBS / Epic

 

This !

 

The US version is the one I own and love.

 

You're looking at a BOTH man, right here!

 

The first album was of course released in Canada and then deleted when the "US" version came out, which is why Canadian versions of the US album have a blue sleeve.

 

I vote for the US version, and I'm fine with calling it a compilation.

In late-1977, they had the debut under their belt and were starting to realize what they were capable of. In quick succession they wrote the most unorthodox and ambitious songs of their career in Complete Control, Clash City Rockers, and White Man. This was the turning point for them, in my opinion, and these new tunes set against the brilliant debut material is the band at their peak.

When I pull up a random setlist from late 1977 (October 25, to be exact: Blackmarketclash.co.uk (formerly blackmarketclash.com) ), we get the following:

Complete Control
1977
Jail Guitar Doors
I'm So Bored With the USA
Clash City Rockers
White Man in Hammersmith Palais
Protex Blue
City of the Dead
Cheat
The Prisoner
Capital Radio
Police and Thieves
Career Opportunities
Janie Jones
Garageland
London's Burning
White Riot
What's My Name

This is the band I think of when I think 'The Clash', and the US S/T is the best official representative of this period. You can say the singles don't fit in with the earlier material, but I bet nobody in the crowd that night thought so. . .

 

US, for me.

 

UK
Jail Guitar Doors I don't care for.
I Fought the Law is completely out of place, it's from 1979!

 

The UK vinyl, first pressing, by a country mile. much better sonic consistency, better mastering, more bass.

I took Robert Christgau's suggestion and did a cassette comp of their '77-'79 singles/b-sides because it made a fantastic album all by itself.