The fortieth anniversary of Sgt. Pepper has been predictably accompanied by hosannahs declaring it the greatest album ever made. I debunk that idea in the Saturday Inquirer. And here's a piece I wrote back in 2004 arguin for my favorite horse in that race.
A call for 'London Calling' as best pop album ever
What's the greatest pop album of all time?
With apologies to Pet Sounds, Exile on Main Street, and It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, I'm going with London Calling.
And I cast my vote for the Clash's 1979 double LP - recently reissued in a three-disc edition, with rehearsal tapes and a making-of DVD - without even being sure it's my favorite album by the British foursome once hyped as "the only band that matters. "
But London Calling is that rare magnum opus - like, say, The Godfather or Moby Dick - that fully delivers on its grand ambitions without sacrificing a smidgen of immediacy.
Guttural-voiced Joe Strummer and sweeter-sounding partner Mick Jones took on suburban alienation and global fascism, referenced the Spanish Civil War and Three Mile Island (the "nuclear error" in the title song), and remained steadfast in the face of personal heartbreak and soul-sucking greed.
And without stinting on punk- rock swagger, the band - which included matinee-idol bassist Paul Simonon and ace drummer Topper Headon - made room for dub-reggae and Memphis soul, rock-steady ska and rockabilly, sloppy jazz and exuberant pop.
OK, so it's a really good album, the high-water mark for an important band, certainly the most impressive musical achievement of the punk era.
But does it earn a place in the pantheon above the stylistic derring-do of Revolver, the gorgeous lyricism of Kind of Blue, and the outrageous experimentalism of Speakerboxxx/The Love Below? Or, for that matter, is it more awesome than that really cool mix you burned, or made into an iPod playlist, that speaks to your soul right now?
For me, it is. And that's largely because London Calling is, for my money, the most powerfully realized platter of raggedly glorious rock-and-roll idealism ever recorded.
Later named the best album of the 1980s by Rolling Stone (though it was released in December 1979), the Clash's third full-length album arrived at a pivotal period in the history of pop music.
Looking back, the '70s was a fantastic decade for pop music, from Al Green to Neil Young, from Springsteen to the Sound of Philadelphia. But the punk revolution kick-started by the Ramones was a reaction to what was seen as the bloated excess of bands like Pink Floyd and Yes. Riding a wild amphetamine rush, punk was all about saying no. No guitar solos, no songs over three minutes, and as the Sex Pistols' Johnny Rotten exuberantly put it: "No future! "
The Clash's jolting, uncompromising stance marked them as punks, but from the beginning, they were different. Their first album contained a cover of Junior Mervin's reggae hit "Police and Thieves," and unlike most of their compadres, the Clash always had an abiding interest in black, and what's come to be called "world," music.
In The Last Testament: The Making of London Calling, the informative if nonessential DVD that's part of the new set, Strummer talks about his politicized songwriting style. Strummer, who died of a heart attack two years ago at age 50, says it was based on the Jamaican model, in which the events of the day were sung about in the dance clubs at night. (The 25th-anniversary edition's other disc, a 21-track rehearsal tape, holds no revelations. )
As the British novelist Will Self has said, the world back then seemed to be divided into Sex Pistols people and Clash people. When Rotten sang "We mean it, man!" in "God Save the Queen," he was a demonic court jester up to no good, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Strummer didn't need to say it. He really did mean it, man: He was as dogged as his chosen name, hammering away in the unwavering (and possibly uncool) belief that, dismal as the world may have been, there had to be a way he and his mates could make it a better place.
I was with him. London Calling came out when I was 17, in the thrall of Springsteen's Darkness on the Edge of Town and Elvis Costello's My Aim Is True, looking for something to believe in.
London Calling supplied that, and more. It helped that Strummer and Jones were great songwriters, in the Brit-duo tradition of Lennon and McCartney, and Jagger and Richards, with Strummer writing the lion's share of the words, Jones most of the music. And that London Calling was a double album in the age of vinyl, meaning that, at 65 minutes, it survived passage into the digital age as one jam-packed, no-filler CD.
Strummer and Jones' finest hour delivered tunes like "Lost in the Supermarket" and "Train in Vain (Stand by Me)," each catchy enough to burn in your brain. Two years earlier, on their furiously paced first album, the Clash had showered contempt on America with "I'm So Bored With the U.S.A." But London Calling, recorded after a U.S. tour with Bo Diddley, looked to the future while drawing on the past. There was an ode to fallen movie star Montgomery Clift ("The Right Profile"), a take on the Stagger Lee legend ("Wrong 'Em Boyo"), and an iconic cover design based on Elvis Presley's first album.
But the songs that sealed the deal - the ones I was most desperate to hear when, pressed against the stage at Bond's International Casino in Times Square in 1981, I finally saw the band - were the galvanic rockers that positioned the Clash as heroes, unafraid to take on the world.
"London Calling" sent out a signal that they were up for the job, now that "phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust. " "Clampdown" urged fans to get involved, constructively: "Let fury have the hour, anger can be power/Do you know that you can use it? " And "Death or Glory" told of sad sacks and losers, as the defiant music made clear that the Clash would remain committed to the end.
Of course, it didn't work out that way. After following London Calling with the audacious three-LP set Sandinista! and the workmanlike Combat Rock, the Clash fell apart in the 1980s. Rock bands don't last forever.
But sometimes their music does. And the Clash's, unquestionably, has. That's attested to by the band's status as patron-saint punks to the Warped Tour nation in general (and Clash sound-alike Rancid in particular). And London Calling still sounds remarkably fresh and gripping in 2004.
Does all that mean it's the greatest album of all time, better than Dylan's Blonde on Blonde or Joni Mitchell's Blue? Immersed in the album once again, it sure sounds that way to me. But aesthetic value judgments are ultimately subjective, and all about your own experience.
What my experience tells me is that while the Clash had their weaknesses - they weren't so good at writing love songs, for instance - London Calling is an inspiring, impassioned album that argues for the absolute necessity of connecting with the outside world while remaining true to yourself.
And for 25 years, that's been good enough for me.
Comments (7)
The absence of love songs really is what kills "London Calling" for me for this title. Primarily I think of Rock & Roll as sexual music - I could never go for a record that isn't libido driven as "the best". LC is a great album in its scope and passion although to be honest, I don't think it's held up for me as something I play often - its politics sound a little silly for me as I've gotten older. The UK music from that era that holds up the best I think is the stuff that's less historically significant : The Only Ones, The Buzzcocks singles, maybe The Jam.
Anyway, to narrow down my number 1 it would come down to "Exile on Main Street" , "Highway 61 Revisited", Elvis Costello's "Get Happy!!" and the winner - The Replacements "Let it Be", which in its juxtaposition of raucousness and heartbreak probably sums up all the contradictions in Rock & Roll better than any other record I can think of.
Posted by Evan | June 2, 2007 7:35 AM
Posted on June 2, 2007 07:35
I second Evan. I'll go further to suggest that LC should be reclassified as a "protest rock". I presume you'd get laid listening to it, but look out for an errant piece of body peircing hardware or safety-pin-as-clothing-accessory catching in your hair (or worse). The Jam outshine the Clash in terms of musicality and lyricism. AMEN! to "Get Happy!" EC pulls the divergence of past and present strains of rock, blues Motown, etc. together in that classic.
I bristled reading the Inky article when I got to "[Sgt. Pepper] indirectly pointed to the wanky faux-classical indulgences of 70's prog-rock ninnies like Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Yes." Ouch! Oh, right, with London Calling atop his list and his hair product it all makes sense. Mr. DeLuca is a reformed punk. You would have done better to alienate the entire Prog Rock crowd by endicting King Crimson and 1969's "In the Court of the Crimson King". Aren't the Wanky Ninnies a Post-Gabriel Genesis tribute band?
Posted by Dan | June 2, 2007 11:11 AM
Posted on June 2, 2007 11:11
I emailed this (messaage below)to you before I read your blog, sorry. My best rock album of all times:
Frank Blacks' "teenager of the year" or Pavements "Brighten the Corners"
Hi Dan, Thanks for the thought provoking article in todays' paper. rather than rebut it, ( i don't even know that i disagree with you on "pepper") I 'd like to launch a preemptory strike on your pick for " album of the millenium" or whatever " london Calling." My history: Clash fanatic, I saw them open for the Who at JFK ( awful show, It wasnt the bands performance, the place just sucked for sound ) saw them at the "class of '23 skating rink at Penn also. London Calling started all that for me. Being an early 80's punk fan, I had heard " white riot" on WKDU, and early on, thought the clash might be the thinking mans Sex Pistiols. But sonically the bands had nothing in common. The clash to thier credit never tried to fit in with the safety pin in the face crowd. I came to the record late, it had already been out for a couple of years when I got it my freshman year of college ("82-83") . I played it over and over for the entire summer. I remember finding "clampdown" on the jukebox at a watering hole in Somers Point, NJ (gregorys) and being amazed at the lyrics. " you grow up and you calm down" was perfect for somebody like me at crossroads in thier life. I still don't know what they refer to whne they mention "blue eyed men" and " young beleivers" in that song. maybe an indictment of the skinhead movement in the UK ?
Any way LC led me to check out a lot of other reggae/ska- influenced bands like the specials and the english beat. I continued to listen to the bands output, even defending the critically panned "Sandanista" only abandoning them when they got radio play with the popular "combat rock",( i was an indie rock snob by then and couldnt abide a band that was accepted by commercial radio)
On a recent listen of LC, I can only say this, it comes out sounding thin. The title track is pretty weak ( is there a connection between your hate of the beatles "Pepper" and the "phony beatlemania" line in the song?) and "lost in the Supermarket" didnt hold the same catchiness it had 20 years ago. The reggae-tinged songs are simple and boring. "guns of Brixton" pretentious, "Spanish Bombs" is kind of a mess, but maybe the best song on the album. " train in Vain" not even listed in the original album, but I believe still a radio hit, is like "brand new cadillac" a song that could have been written by Jon Bon Jovi. Actually there is nothing in the clash catalog that holds up well. Joe Strummer said it best when he predicted that he might die anonymous and driving a cab. While he didnt do either, it can certainly be said that his last years were spent making some pretty regular music. Mick Jones, once hailed as a visionary, fronted the awful Big Audio Dynamite, and lately has turned up in grainy videos on youtube snorting coke in a recording studio.
Posted by Mike M | June 2, 2007 12:49 PM
Posted on June 2, 2007 12:49
Just because an album is the sound of your youth doesn't make it the greatest album ever. Mike M. called it... "LC sounds thin" and "the reggae-tinged songs are simple and boring". LC is probably the most overrated album ever.
Posted by Anonymous | June 2, 2007 6:37 PM
Posted on June 2, 2007 18:37
LONDON CALLING was the first Clash album I hated. It has a few great songs, but that plodding title-song, the band's American AOR breakthrough, was the first confirmation that "the only band that matters" had sold its soul.
BRIGHTEN THE CORNERS??? That's about the WORST Pavement album (unless they made one after it...I stoped paying attention).
EXILE ON MAIN STREET? Is there a person on earth who decided that was the Rolling Stones' best album without being told that first by someone else? And if so, can they really make ot all the way through without lifting the needle?
Taste is obviously subjective, but I think all of these albums are from artists that have much more solid offerings in their catalogs. Can't we agree that if there's such a thing as the "best album ever," that it won't have ANY bad songs on it? That should eliminate just about every double album from the competition, no?
At least nobody yet cited any double albums on SST Records for the all-time-great crown. That label pioneered the "Mainstream rock critics will respond to quantity over quality" theory back in the 1980s.
Posted by Jay | June 5, 2007 9:13 AM
Posted on June 5, 2007 09:13
LONDON CALLING was the first Clash album I hated. It has a few great songs, but that plodding title-song, the band's American AOR breakthrough, was the first confirmation that "the only band that matters" had sold its soul.
BRIGHTEN THE CORNERS??? That's about the WORST Pavement album (unless they made one after it...I stoped paying attention).
EXILE ON MAIN STREET? Is there a person on earth who decided that was the Rolling Stones' best album without being told that first by someone else? And if so, can they really make ot all the way through without lifting the needle?
Taste is obviously subjective, but I think all of these albums are from artists that have much more solid offerings in their catalogs. Can't we agree that if there's such a thing as the "best album ever," that it won't have ANY bad songs on it? That should eliminate just about every double album from the competition, no?
At least nobody yet cited any double albums on SST Records for the all-time-great crown. That label pioneered the "Mainstream rock critics will respond to quantity over quality" theory back in the 1980s.
Posted by Jay | June 5, 2007 9:14 AM
Posted on June 5, 2007 09:14
I'm a Get Happy!! guy to the marrow with Revolver, London Calling or the US version of the debut album, and The Buzzcocks' Singles Going Steady or The Stooges' Funhouse also finishing in the money.
The strength of Get Happy!! for me is the mix of so many of my favorite styles of music, from boyhood up: Motown/soul, British Invasion, a bit of psychedelia, and punk energy. The Attractions play like they were filling up the last reel of tape on earth.
Jim
Posted by frankenslade | June 6, 2007 3:54 PM
Posted on June 6, 2007 15:54