The Clash - London Calling
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Free Music Notes for London Calling
Free Music Review: A Must Have Rock Album
Hit: 5 Stars
Aside from being one of the Clash's arguably best albums, this is also one of the best all-time rock and roll albums. If you are just getting into the Clash, get this one. It is a perfect blend of rock, punk, reggae, country, and swing. London Calling combines everything into an album no rock and roll fan should be without. My personal favorites include "Brand New Cadillac," "Hateful," "Rudie Can't Fail," "Spanish Bombs," "Lost in the Supermarket," "Clampdown," "Koka Kola," "Revolution Rock," and "Train in Vain." Every song on this album feels like a hit, yet only "Train in Vain" and "London Calling" were, albeit nominal hits only. From the cover of Paul Simonon smashing his bass in anger to the last twangy notes of the "secret track" of "Train in Vain," London Calling epitomizes pure rock'n'roll. The Clash were hot and tight, at the peak of their career, and the album they produced during this time exhibits those qualities. The rest of this particular package is worth the extra money. The first disc is the album (two vinyl records squished onto one CD), the second disc is demo work, on which you can see the beginnings of the great songs, and the third disc is a DVD which includes an excellent documentary about the process of making London Calling, as well as some of the best live clips of the Clash performing such standards as "Clampdown," and "Train in Vain." Interesting note about those two videos - pay attention to just how loud Mick Jones's guitar is - you can barely hear Joe playing at all! This album changed my life, and I hope the same happens to someone else someday, too. Free Music Review: If you're a Clash fan, it's indispensable
Hit: 5 Stars
New so-called punk bands like Good Charlotte or AFI or even older bands like Blink 182 or the Offspring never felt like real punk to me. Maybe it was just that it was too many generations after the Dolls and the Ramones and the Pistols. The template is now set, and the fashion element is too important, and most importantly, absolutely nobody is shocked any more. Punk has become just another marketing label, and an acceptable one at that. The days of bands seeming like they were going to change the world ended sometime around 1979.
That was the year that the Clash released LONDON CALLING, which remains, to these subjective ears, the single greatest rock album ever recorded: Two slabs of vinyl featuring 19 songs pulling influences from rockabilly, reggae, blues, funk, jazz and pop with not one single clunker in the bunch. It was politically relevant, socially charged and so vital that I got a shock every time I put it on the turntable.
In the years since its release, its urgency has barely lessened. Regardless of the frat boys who only know the line "I live by the river!" from the title track or radio listeners who misstate the chorus of "Train in Vain" as "You CAN stand by me" instead of "you DIDN'T stand by me," LONDON CALLING still feels new and exciting and rebellious and powerful.
And so, Sony Legacy has released LONDON CALLING: THE 25th ANNIVERSARY LEGACY EDITION, combining the original album (as remastered for the 1999 re-release) with a bonus DVD and a CD of the so-called "Vanilla Tapes," previously unheard rehearsal sessions featuring five songs that didn't make the record.
For the Clash fanatic (uh, me), The Vanilla Tapes are an archaeological find akin to unearthing Da Vinci's sketchbooks or Sylvia Plath's practice suicide notes. To hear the genesis of an album that I know inside out is a privilege. But I can't imagine that even the biggest Clash fan is going to pull The Vanilla Tapes out on a regular basis. Of the 21 songs, only about a half a dozen hold up as more than historical artifacts (even aside from the poor sound quality). After listening to The Vanilla Tapes about six times, I already have a number of tracks that get the skip button... A long, repetitive instrumental demo of "Hateful" only serves to hammer home the monotony of rock and roll song structure. Anyone who's only a casual fan of the band probably isn't even going to make it through the whole disc once. Even the "new" songs aren't fully fleshed out enough to be really considered full songs (although many will be intrigued by the band's cover of Bob Dylan's "The Man in Me"). "Heart and Mind" seems like it may have been nixed by the band because it sounds too much like an outtake from the band's second LP, GIVE `EM ENOUGH ROPE (the closest they ever came to a misstep).
The DVD features a new half hour documentary by Don Letts, THE LAST TESTAMENT: THE MAKING OF LONDON CALLING which is partly a cheat in that it recycles interviews with the band from Letts' WESTWAY TO THE WORLD film from 2001. The new material features the band's old pal Kosmo Vinyl (humorously dubbed their "consiglieri") and engineer Bill Price. What makes this NOT a rip off is the absolutely mesmerizing footage of the band in the studio, recording the album with producer Guy Stevens.
In many studio situations, the producer serves as the leveling force among sometimes volatile band relationships. Not so on the LONDON CALLING sessions. Stevens was a madman; he would throw chairs and ladders around the studio, jump up and down, scream and yell ALL WHILE THE BAND WAS RECORDING! Watching this bearded, crazed Brit trying to destroy plastic chairs while Paul Simonon plays his bass in his natty new shirt and hat is a bizarre juxtaposition that only enhances the mosaic nature of the record. It makes sense.
The DVD also features videos for three songs from LONDON CALLING, and more of that amazing studio footage. The set as a whole features two booklets, one brand new with previously unpublished photos by Pennie Smith, two essays and reprints from the Armagideon Times zine the band made for the tour, the other a reprint of the lyric sheet from the record.
The Clash were one of those rare rock and roll alchemies that transmuted riffs and anger into poetry and power. LONDON CALLING is the document of the band at its peak, before the inevitable power struggles and changing interests would pull Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and Topper Headon apart. They still had two great albums in them (yes, both SANDINISTA! and COMBAT ROCK are GREAT), but it seems almost fitting that punk peaked before the awful decade that was the 80s came to be. For we aging punk fans who saw the band when they were together, who bought their albums when they were new, who knew that "the only band that matters" wasn't a hollow claim... I can't imagine LONDON CALLING will ever sound old... even if we do.
Free Music Review: "It was the last rock and roll album"
Hit: 5 Stars
If you're thinking of buying this edition of "London Calling," chances are the original album needs no introduction. But if you are unfamiliar with it, suffice to say it's one of the very best hard rock albums of any era, especially its own. For a band usually classified as a punk band, the Clash proved to be far more versatile than that genre would suggest. Elements of everything from rockabilly to reggae put in an appearance here, all with an unmistakably punk attitude. Listening to the original album gives you the feeling that the style would have lasted much longer than it did if all those bands had learned how to play their instruments this well.
But odds are you knew that! What of the extras? The Vanilla Tapes were new to me, although they're apparently already well known among more serious Clash fans. In any case, they're probably only of interest to serious fans. The sound quality is generally poor, and most of the tracks are essentially practice runs for what ended up on the album. That said, there are a couple of previously unreleased songs here that are a nice addition. "Lonesome Me" is the best of these, an unlikely country-rocker that doesn't quite fit the sound of the final album but sounds great among the practice tapes. Also of note is "Where You Gonna Go (Soweto)," which fits the London Calling sound so perfectly you'll be sure you'd heard it before. So if the original album is among your favorites, the extra CD is worth a listen.
As for the DVD, I'm surprised it's not more popular among the other reviewers. My only problem with it is that a lot of the vintage footage (much of it newly discovered according to the liner notes) is all too short and gives you just a taste of seeing the boys live in 1979. Still, it's great to see even snippets of the actual recording of the album and vintage concert footage. There are also some great memories from the surviving members and their friends, notably the story behind that picture of Paul Simonon destroying his bass, and Joe Strummer's hilarious reaction to the news that Rolling Stone had named London Calling the best album of the '80s. (Hint: if you're old enough to remember when the album really came out, your reaction was probably the same!)
Free Music Review: One of the best albums ever!
Hit: 5 Stars
The Clash's London Calling is with out a doubt one of the all time best albums ever made, It's more then a punk, rock, regea, or ska album it's a melting pot for all that is good in those genras of music. Mick Jones' guitar work was never better then here on London Calling and Joe Strummers voice was never before or after a strong and a good as it is here. The whole band really came together in late 1979 to record what would go down in history as the greatest punk album of all time and one of the all time best all around albums ever, easily in the top ten of all time.
The album opens up with the legendary title track, 'London Calling.' With it's legendary bass line and guitar riff it was sure to be a classic, long held as one of the all time best songs, and Strummers lyrics are nothing to be rivaled. 'Brand new Cadilac' is a 1950's cover song that features great guitar and is pulled off perfectly in ture rockabilly form. 'Jimmy Jazz' is a basic Jazz song with nice laid back feel to it. 'hateful' is one of the better songs on the album, with a killer chorus and awesome backing vocals from the band. 'Rudie cant Fail' is straight up punk rock all the way. It starts off slow and builds to a all out assualt. I like 'Spanish Bombs' because the chorus is in spanish which sounds really cool when sung by guys with british accents. 'The Right Profile' is a cool song but nothing too special. 'Lost In The Supermarket' is like nothing The Clash ever recorded and it is one of their all time best songs, easily one of my favorites, it sounds almost ahead of it's time, like something from the mid-1980's. 'Clampdown' is legendary Clash, a true classic in the bands archive. This song is considered one of the top three punk songs of all time and is easily The Clash's most famous. 'The Guns Of Brixton' and 'Wrong Em Boyo' are two very cool songs but they both sound pretty similar. 'Death Or Glory' is another punk classic that was recently covered by Social Distortion, but the original is by far better, as most are. 'Koka Kola' is my least favorite song on the album but it is still a good song. 'The Card Cheat' is a ballad, yes I said a ballad, and boy do the boys do it good, it's one of their better songs if you ask me. 'Lovers Rock' is just straight up rock and roll and it features one of Mick Jones' all time best guitar riffs of all time, no I take that back this is his best. 'Fourhorsemen' apart from having a really cool title is a really cool song. 'I'm Not Down' and 'Revolution Rock' and two songs that fit very well with each other and need to be heard to fully appreciate. The album comes to a close with it's best song, and my personal favorite Clash song, 'Train in Vein' is truly one of the all time best songs, it is just so perfect. Everything I could ever want is in this song and more, it is just so good you must hear it to understand what I mean, but now that I think about it you probabley have heard this song because it is one of The Clash's biggest songs ever.
If you are looking for a way to get into punk this is it. If you are looking for a way to get into The Clash this is the way to go, and if you just want to buy one of the all time greatest album of all time you cant go wrong with London Calling. How many albums do you know that have 18 songs on them and dont get boring? Very few right? Well here is another long album that never gets boring only better as it plays. Highly, highly recomended!
Free Music Review: On par with the best of the classics
Hit: 5 Stars
There is perhaps no more appropriate totem for the world of punk rock than the cover of "London Calling", a perfect aping of Elvis Presley's first album - including the same pink and green font scheme - only featuring Paul Simenon smashing his bass on stage as opposed to Elvis strumming his guitar and singing placidly (at least by comparison). There is also no greater example of a band whose sophomore album was universally panned by comparison with it's era-defining debut, only to come back and put something out which would silence the critics (including finicky fans) forever - or at least until the solo careers kicked in.
"London Calling" manages the rare feat of being everything to everyone; there are an almost maniacal variety of musical genres been played off of here, and not a single one is brought off in anything less than triumphant fashion. Whereas the Clash had toyed with reggae in a more reverent fashion on their first album, with "Rudie Can't Fail" they fully realize how punk and reggae can blend rather than simply co-exist. "London Calling" is stark and anthemic, with it's prophecy that civilization as we know it is experiencing a revolution, a sentiment no more cleverly illustrated than in the line "phone Beatlemania/has bitten the dust". "Hateful" is another catchy hybrid-pop tune with sociological lyrics, a hallmark of this album if there is one.
The band reach a new peak with "Spanish Bombs", a song that is propellant in rhythm while still being built on minor chords, a paeon to the Spanish Civil War which reaches it's richest symbolism in the line "my Senorita's rose was nipped in the bud". Horns make their way into "The Right Profile" as they both mock and salute the tragic life of Montgomery Clift, and the 80s focus on consumerism is given precognitive analysis in "Lost in the Supermarket". My favorite song on the album is probably "The Card Cheat". Over swelling piano and horns, Joe Strummer illustrates the plight of the man who seeks heroism in inauspicious times. Moving from a man looking to succeed his adversaries in the Wild West maelstrom of saloon gambling to less metaphorical examples such as those who have fought unjust wars for incompetent kings, Strummer urges "before you met your fate, but sure you did not foresake/your lover...". "Clampdown" is another pop song typical of the album's style, a vaguely Caribbean influenced number with politically charged lyrics, this one dealing with the purposelessness of willful admission into the rat race in no uncertain Marxist terms.
And of course everyone knows "Train in Vain", although it was a late addition to the album and wasn't even listed on the record sleeve, hence providing an early example of the "bonus track" (in fact, even the original CD issue failed to list it, although the reissue campaign of the early 2000s finally fixed this issue --- personally I thought it was a lot more fun when you just had to know it was there).
Altogether, not only are there no weak tracks on this album, but with "London Calling" the Clash fused punk and more popular strains of rock 'n' roll in a unique way that no one has ever been able to replicate, including the band themselves (follup LP "Sandinista" would be heavily criticized for exactly that: attempting to match the eclecticism of it's predecessor while both overreaching and underachieving at the same time). When I hear people argue over who's the greatest rock band of all time, it invariably comes down to a choice between the Beatles, the Stones, Led Zeppelin, or some other band of that classic rock ilk. With "London Calling" the cornerstone of their legacy, I don't see any reason why the Clash can't be considered just as relevant and timeless as any of those bands, and this album proves you don't have to like raw, dirty, two chord punk rock snottiness to appreciate what the Clash have to offer.
In 2004 "London Calling" was reissued in a stellar Legacy Edition featuring a bonus disc of lost demos and versions as well as a third disc of DVD footage.