Today marks the 45th anniversary of "the only band that matters'" second album, Give 'Em Enough Rope. Released on November 19, 1978, it was the Clash's first album in the United States (the eponymously titled first album, The Clash, hit American record store shelves on July 24, 1979, with 100,000 copies as an import in the interim). The album reached number 2 in the UK, and 128 in the United States.
American producer Sandy Pearlman (Blue Öyster Cult) disliked Joe Strummer's voice, so he turned up the dial on the drum track of every song to drown out the vocals.
UCR has a paragraph about the cover art:
The album cover art, designed by Gene Greif, incorporated a painting called "End of the Trail for Capitalism" by Berkeley artist Hugh Brown, which Strummer and Jones saw displayed at a punk-rock hangout they visited during breaks while working at San Francisco's Automatt studio. Grief paired it with a '50s postcard titled "End of the Trail." Photographed by Adrian Atwater, it featured cowboy Wallace Irving Robertson's lifeless body being picked apart by vultures.
My two favorite songs on the album are "Safe European Home" and "Stay Free." There are a few clunkers, in my opinion, most notably "Last Gang in Town," but it was a great album to listen to while waiting for 1979's incredible London Calling.
