After reviewing the Sex Pistols' ' God Save the Queen', the next song to be reviewed was 'Complete Control', his review read: 'Sounds like the first one. In 1980, legendary guitarist Chuck Berry was asked to review some modern records by the St. The Guardian described it as 'the high watermark of the Clash’s punk period'. The song is featured as a playable track in the video games Guitar Hero: Aerosmith and Rock Band. 361 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In 2004, Rolling Stone rated the song as No. In 1999, CBS Records reissued the single with a live version of 'Complete Control'. 'Complete Control' reached number 28 on the singles chart, making it the Clash's first Top 30 release. The song was also Topper Headon's first recording with the band, following the departure of Terry Chimes. Perry's contribution to the track, however, was toned down – the band went back and fiddled with the song themselves to bring the guitars out and played down the echo Perry had dropped on it. 'Scratch' readily agreed.ĭuring the tracking session, some Clash and Perry biographies claim, Perry blew out a studio mixing board attempting to get a deep bass sound out of Paul Simonon's instrument, while a 1979 New Musical Express and Hit Parader article penned by Strummer and Jones stated that Perry had complimented Jones' guitar playing, saying he 'played with an iron fist'. When the Clash learned that Perry was in London producing for Bob Marley & the Wailers, he was invited to produce the single. Perry had heard the band's cover of his Junior Murvin hit ' Police and Thieves' and was moved enough to have put a picture of the band (the only white artist accorded such an honor) on the walls of his Black Ark Studio in Jamaica. The track was recorded at Sarm East Studios in Whitechapel, engineered by Mickey Foote and produced by Lee 'Scratch' Perry. I came out of the pub with Paul collapsing on the pavement in hysterics over those words. Bernie Rhodes had arranged a band meeting at the Ship, a pub in Soho's Wardour Street, where he said he wanted 'complete control'. The song also refers to managers of the time who sought to control their groups– Bernie Rhodes (of The Clash) and Malcolm McLaren (the Sex Pistols)–the song's title is derived from this theme. Stereogum described it as 'this extraordinary airing of grievances, a desperately catchy cataloguing of the many ills visited upon a young band experiencing its first forays into corporate culture'. The song is often cited as one of punk's greatest singles and is a fiery polemic on record companies, managers and the state of punk music itself, the motivation for the song being the band's label ( CBS Records) releasing ' Remote Control' without asking them, which infuriated the group.

The clash discography wikipedia