10 Rock Albums That No One Was Asking For

10. Cut the Crap - The Clash

It would have been perfectly acceptable if the Clash decided that they would call it a day after Combat Rock. The band had taken their sound as far as they wanted to at the time, and the idea of continuing on with a version of the Clash without Mick Jones just felt wrong. Joe Strummer was persistent though, and the Clash Mark 2 stepped up to the plate with one of the most placid punk albums ever made.

Even though you can hear Joe trying desperately to hold things together on this record, blending the Clash's angry sound with mid ‘80s synths just doesn’t work on this record, containing some of the more unnecessary songs the band would ever write and Joe’s most uninspired lyrics like on Dirty Punk and Fingerpoppin. After two people were brought in to replace Mick, the songs still feels like the band is at half capacity, especially on some of the synth heavy tracks where it sounds like the electronic assistance is out of sync with the rest of the instruments.

There might be a few salvageable songs on here like This is England, but even Joe seemed to be regretful of the album later on, never including any songs on their greatest hits albums and leaving the Clash legacy on a whimper rather than a bang. Mick Jones may have had his own thing going on now, but this is what Big Audio Dynamite would have been if it were played by someone with no musical experience.