Compilation contains the best

If you're a punk fan and The Clash didn't change the way you hear music, hang your mohawk in shame. When there was nothing in the States, the band tore out of Britain with an infusion of substance or fury on the airwaves, taking a three-chord spitfire genre and making it complex, even more meaningful and incendiary. The Clash is to white revolutionaries and the world what Public Enemy is to the black population. But Joe Strummer, Topper Headon, Paul Simonon and Mick Jones didn't push for separation. Playing an anti-racism concert and screaming for someone to care about something, the band did more for race relations in one reggae-infused song than our current president will do with four years in office. In a genre of bass players picked out of a crowd that hung more on safety pins than structure, The Clash made it impossible to scoff unilaterally at punk ever again. Epic Records has taken the best of punk's best and put it into 40 tracks -- with the Brit boys themselves choosing songs from all of their albums, even both versions of their debut, The Clash. This is the best of The Clash's controlled mayhem.