Since The Clash's demise, there have been many compilations of their work; unfortunately, most of them sound like they were sequenced with a dartboard. This two-disc collection, organized roughly chronologically, finally does them justice: The first disc shows the young Clash as the best rock band in the world: passionate, tough and tuneful. If those early punk songs don't have the shock now they once did — "White Riot" can be found on karaoke machines these days — they still can straighten your spine. The hint of reggae in "(White Man) in Hammersmith Palais" becomes the story of the second disc, as the group heads in all directions at once: funk, dub, the top of the charts. The coda is "This Is England," the Clash's lost classic: Joe Strummer looks around him, his country and band both in ruins, and spits in the eye of the world.

“Everyday People”

"Everyday People" managed to trailblaze in two different ways -- it was one of the first pop hits to deal with the subject of racial harmony, and it utilized Larry Graham's "slap" technique on the bass guitar, which would soon be copied by countless other bassists. Graham once said about his pulsating style, "I'd never done that before … that's where the freedom of creativity came in for the band, that we'd be allowed to do that." In 1978, the song's line "Different strokes for different folks" would be borrowed for the title of the hit television show Diff'rent Strokes.