Let's talk about The Clash! Anyone like them?! What's the "essential" albums? I can't really afford to buy any music right now (saving for coming events this autumn), but VH-1 Classic has been showing this documentary about how the band fell apart and it's got me thinking I should own something by them.
I see there's several boxsets out. One has the UK editions of their first five albums. Another box is all the band's singles and EP's, in a 19 disc (!!!) set. The third boxset, called Sound System, is apparently the first five albums plus most (but not quite all) of the non album material, plus various ancillary recordings, demos, live tracks, etc, plus a DVD of live footage and all the band's videos (just in case you didn't get sick of seeing Rock The Casbah every 20 minutes on MTV back in the day).
So is all the band's material that interesting? I know there's certain songs that I like, such as Tommy Gun, Train In Vain, Rock The Casbah, This Is Radio Clash, Should I Stay Or Should I Go, and probably a couple of others. Now, I know This Is Radio Clash was a non-album track, so to get that I'd have to buy either a best of (which I'm loathe to do, especially since some of them seem to have the track mixed up with it's B-side, which was called Radio Clash) or one of the boxsets, either the 19 disc singles set or Sound System. I think most of the other songs I like from The Clash are on their regular albums, and therefore can be bought individually, if one were to take that route.
So the question is: what's the level of consistency on the regular albums? Is there enough worthwhile music there to make it worth buying either of the two boxsets with the albums in it? I have a feeling if I buy one or two of the albums individually, I'm probably going to end up wanting to own all of them, so I might as well pony up for all the ancillary stuff too, right? What's the 411, guys?!
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