Shock,horror, outrage poured from buckets in the late 70's. A huge cascade, a waterfall of hatred drowned young people. The 70's was so rotten the addled woodworm penetrated its fake plastc veneer. Mock po faced righteous outrage of the socially bewildered aghast at the cultural malaise.
When this album shuddered into life, paedophilia had not yet been born, drug use was bohemian, going abroad was a trip to Wales, university was for elites, jobs were for old people and schools were run by stick wielding psychopaths.
This album ripped through the musical world cutting through the flabby sinews, muscles and veins of the corpulent rock neck. It scythed through the wobbling rock chin severing the bloated conceit from the puddle living above it.
In the late 70's there were no jobs. Career opportunities to kick you up the dock? Join the army. The USA was extremely boring. The halcyon days of Sgt Bilko and the Twilight Zone existed on late night TV. Revenge stalked the day with numerous cops and robbers spin offs coupled with cowboys and indians engaged in genocide.
Garageland was a luxurious retreat, respite from the 3 incessant propaganda of the TV stations. Prog Rock was pushed out of the hot air balloon. Rock and Roll died way before Elvis. Stripped of pheromones it became bland predictable, lumpen and worst of all, boring.
This was the political album offering salvation, after the Pistols nihilism. It became cool to be poor. It deals with the confrontation with the state; White Riot, Police and Thieves, London's Burning, Hate and War. It was a time Baader Meinhof were engaged in struggle in Germany, the Red Brigade in Italy, France was voting Communist and the Unions in the UK could paralyse the nation. 1968 was seen as a failure due to a lack of committment. All the old forms of oppression were within a whisker of being swept into a torrent. The zeitgeist of the era.
It all collapsed during the Falklands. Patriotism emerged and Thatcher, the most unpopular Prime Minister ever, managed to salvage her non stop party. Harnessing greed to destruction, the rest was history. This album is a relic of the time when anything seemed possible. Defeat was not necessarily inevitable as it appears in retrospect.
The music speaks for itself, copied remitently. It veers from amphetamine rushes of White Riot to the dope fuelled groove of Police and Thieves. The Clash eventually moved to the USA and were deemed to have sold their souls to mammon. This album then became the symbol for a time of failure.
The 70's are back, mass youth unemployment, an arid stultifying American culture, an escapist form of black music in RNB and a labour government in trouble, paving the way for a Conservative reaction.
This time around the musical soundtrack is Cheryl Cole. Suddenly the Clash appear much more vital.
