In an early photo of the Clash from 1977, the ever-sloganeering Joe Strummer—the band’s primary singer and the unrelenting mouthpiece and conscience—posited his feelings with a bit of punk rock de rigeur of the day. In broad, spray-paint stencil letters, his homemade shirt read “Passion is a Fashion,” in what stands up as pure dictum that crystallized not only Strummer’s feeling for the music he was making but how he lived his life. Though he passed in 2002, that passion and his exuberant spirit have lived on through his fiery, idealistic brand of rock and roll. Now that spirit has been captured to celluloid in a 2007 biopic/doc by rock chronicler and year-zero punk participant Julien Temple, Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten. The soundtrack, interspersed with spoken-word snatches of Strummer doing his own bit of radio clash broadcast jamming, is far from the straight-ahead and obligatory artist career retrospective. While The Future Is Unwritten offers some rarities that will leave Clash completists chuffed, the real story here—and the way that Temple chooses to help tell Strummer’s story in the film—is the textured aural vérité that provides the panoramic musical tableaux of the subject’s life. The story unfolds under the roof of tracks like Elvis Presley’s proto-punk, guttural soul “Crawfish”—a million miles from what most think of when it comes to the King—as well as Tim Hardin’s masterful folk ballad “Black Sheep Boy” and Nina Simone’s absorbing take on the Bee Gee’s “To Love Somebody.” Tracks from motivating forces like Dylan, MC5, U-Roy and key inspiration Woody Guthrie also figure into the picture. Strummer’s non-Clash material, like his early era with the 101er’s, represented by the infectious pint of pub rock “Keys to My Heart.” His twilight time with the Mescaleros is represented by “Johnny Appleseed,” a track also currently enjoying a second life at the opening credits of HBO’s offbeat surfers and messiah serial, John From Cincinnati. All in all, it’s a magnificently thought-out, musical fisheye view of what went into one of the most important and often unsung cultural figures of the last 30 or so years. The film has only been screened at festivals thus far, with a targeted wide release set for fall, but the soundtrack is available to impress you into the ideological and rocking sphere of Strummer now. Also on the racks is an update of the Clash’s collected singles—a popular UK import in the early days of CDs when availability of the band’s catalog had gone awry—that includes all 19 a-sides that the band issued in their existence in an odd, non-chronological order. The one carrot with this version is fantastic liner notes with rock luminaries—Pete Townshend, Ian Brown, the Edge, Bobby Gillespie and Billy Bragg among them—writing about each of the tracks. Otherwise most Clash fans will have what’s here in other places. For those in need of a lesson on “the only band that mattered” however, The Singles is not a bad starting point

“I won’t go away, after all I’m still crazy,” he claims on “Not Going Away.” So the Ozzman once cometh…the Ozzman then lefteth for a while…now…wait for it…This is reportedly the first album Ozzy has recorded 100 percent sober, and there is no doubt that this is his best since No More Tears. (Makes me think my work results may be better if I stop drinking too…but I quickly dismiss that as crazy-talk.) Gone are the plodding, boring—with one or two exceptions—songs of the past couple albums and back are the rockin’, high-energy, guitar-driven songs we love to hear from the Ozzman, thanks primarily to the return of writing credits and a more prominent role for Zakk Wylde. As much as the musical style reminds me of No More Tears, the message is entirely different. Then, Ozzy seemed resigned to hanging up the bat wings and riding off into the moonlight, even going so far as to call his tour that year “’No More Tours Tour.” Black Rain is different, revealing a newly energized demon ready to show the world that, as the critics and nay-sayers fall by the wayside, he is ready to further cement his status in rock history. Black Rain is full of highlights. The lead single, “I Don’t Wanna Stop,” showcases Wylde’s signature guitar squeal. “11 Silver” comes complete with a blistering guitar solo the likes of which is rarely seen in today’s world of nu-metal. “Here for You” is a ballad reminiscent of “Old L.A. Tonight” and would’ve certainly been a hit in the 1980s. “Countdown’s Begun” is a happy little ditty about Armageddon, while “Trap Door”—with a strong bass line holding it together—may be the hardest rocking tune of all. Overall, the Prince of Darkness is definitely backeth (that was worth the wait, right?) with a classic metal album that will not disappoint fans of his pre-Ozzmosis days.