Producers include: Mickey Foote, The Clash, Sandy Pearlman, Guy Stevens, Jose Unidos.

Compilation producer: Bruce Dickinson.

Recorded between 1977 & 1985.

Personnel: Mick Jones , Micky Jones, Joe Strummer (vocals, guitar); Nick Sheppard, Vince White (guitar); Nicky "Topper" Headon, Tory Crimes (drums).

Recording information: 1977-1985.

Photographers: Kate Simon; Bob Gruen; Pennie Smith; Paul Slattery.

Some would argue that if you only wanted two Clash discs in your collection, you should skip this 40-track overview and pick up The Clash and London Calling instead. No matter how transcendent those two albums are -- and they are among the very greatest popular music of the 20th century -- that overlooks the fact that the group had many, many great songs not on either album, including "Safe European Home," "Stay Free," "Bankrobber," "Rock the Casbah," "Straight to Hell," "This Is Radio Clash," and "Should I Stay or Should I Go," to begin with. That's where this 2003 compilation comes in. It fills in many of the gaps between those two records, while summarizing The Clash and London Calling well, providing a first-rate overview of the greatest punk band. It's not quite perfect, however: some great singles and B-sides fall through the cracks (notably "Gates of the West," "Jail Guitar Doors," "The Call Up," "Armagedion Time," "The Prisoner," "Protex Blue") and the Sandinista! selections feel nearly as haphazard as the album itself. Nevertheless, this does provide the best, most extensive and logical overview of the band yet assembled, and it's worthwhile not just as an introduction, but as a terrific listen. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

It's somehow fitting that the first Clash collection to be released in the wake of frontman Joe Strummer's December 2002 death should be the closest anyone's ever come to a truly definitive non-box-set anthology. The two discs essentially work chronologically, starting out with a dose of old-school UK punk from the days when the Clash were messengers of political fury and icon-shattering rock & roll fire (the raging "White Riot" and gloriously snotty "I'm So Bored with the U.S.A."). We can hear the incorporation of reggae rhythms with "White Man in Hammersmith Palais" and Junior Murvin's street-fighting tale "Police & Thieves," and the beginnings of the Clash's infatuation with American music on the Bobby Fuller cover "I Fought the Law."

Disc two finds the band truly at the peak of its powers, featuring tracks from LONDON CALLING and SANDINISTA, where both the lyricism and the stylistic palette were brought to a new level (the punk-rap of "The Magnificent Seven," the Caribbean lilt of "Rudie Can't Fail"). It's to this compilation's strong credit that it not only includes a healthy portion from the most "difficult" Clash album (SANDINISTA), but some vital tracks from the odd-ends collection BLACK MARKET CLASH (the dubbed-out Robin Hood tale "Bankrobber," the snarling "Capital Radio One"), making THE ESSENTIAL CLASH much more than a greatest-hits collection.